Master of Possession: Summoning

[Prot]

I haven't bothered with summoning much since 8th came out, but I'm trying to see if I can make anything valid out of the new MoP, perhaps the Venom Crawler (+1 to summoning rolls) and a pile of Bloodletters.

 

What I'm trying to be sure of is the mechanics - What I want to do is:

 

- MoP Moves/Advances. Warp Time is cast on him, he repeats.

- T1 psychic phase he summons in XX Bloodletters.

 

Is this legal? Is there a better way of doing it? Is it even worth it?

 

It seems a bit janky but I heard one of the LVO Organizers swearing up and down that Summoning is not reinforcements, and is allowed in T1. I'm unclear on this and I imagine if it can or does work like I'm illustrating it might be worth trying.

 

Thoughts?

[Panzer]

I haven't bothered with summoning much since 8th came out, but I'm trying to see if I can make anything valid out of the new MoP, perhaps the Venom Crawler (+1 to summoning rolls) and a pile of Bloodletters.

 

What I'm trying to be sure of is the mechanics - What I want to do is:

 

- MoP Moves/Advances. Warp Time is cast on him, he repeats.

- T1 psychic phase he summons in XX Bloodletters.

 

Is this legal? Is there a better way of doing it? Is it even worth it?

 

It seems a bit janky but I heard one of the LVO Organizers swearing up and down that Summoning is not reinforcements, and is allowed in T1. I'm unclear on this and I imagine if it can or does work like I'm illustrating it might be worth trying.

 

Thoughts?

 

I'd agree on both interpretations. The summon psychic power doesn't say anything about not being allowed to move and imo units you pay for with reinforcement points aren't actual reinforcements or reserves so they don't fall under the turn 2-3 limitation. You can summon them all the way through from turn 1 to turn 7 or whatever.

[ChazSexington]

I'm 100% sure you can summon T1

I'm abroad without my codex, but you summon at the end of your Movement Phase IIRC, which is before your Psychic Phase, so it would only matter T2.

[Marshal van Trapp]

So the Daemonic Ritual ability does say they cont as reinforcements but NOT that they count as coming from tactical RESERVES (which is the ruling that does not allow T1 Deep Strike) so it is kind of a grey area. That said, if you are allowed, you WOULD have to worry about someone trying to deny your power! If Incursion gets denyed you now have a character out in the middle of nowhere with 0 protection and he will get vaporized so keep that in mind!

[Prot]

In a real world scenario I would be aware off denials and character chaff. My scenario if for the purpose of making sure I understand the mechanics properly.

 

In my decidedly hyper shooty meta I do come across armies with zero denial, or even if they have it there’s a lot of situations I find myself in that would greatly benefit from something like this for tiring up units.

[Panzer]

Luckily for summoning you don't need line of sight so the MoP can just speed into or behind some ruins etc and be relatively safe. ^^

[Closet Skeleton]

Summoning is reinforcements but reinforcements as such aren't clearly banned coming down on turn 1.

 

 

Instead of being set up on the battlefield during Deployment, many units have the ability to be set up on teleportariums, in high orbit, in ambush, etc., in order to arrive on the battlefield mid-game as reinforcements. When setting up your army during Deployment for a matched play game, at least half the total number of units in your army must be set up on the battlefield, and the combined points value of all the units you set up on the battlefield during Deployment (including those that are embarked within Transports that are set up on the battlefield) must be at least half of your army’s total points value, even if every unit in your army has an ability that would allow them to be set up elsewhere. Furthermore, in matched play games, units that are not placed on the battlefield during deployment in order to arrive on the battle mid-game as reinforcements cannot arrive on the battlefield during the first battle round.Finally, any unit that has not arrived on the battlefield by the end of the third battle round in a matched play game counts as having been destroyed.

 

Summoned units ignore most of this rule because they don't exist during the deployment phase.

 

The teal text implies reinforcements are banned from turning up but that isn't mentioned anywhere and doesn't follow from the rest of the sentence so its a grey area.

[Finkmilkana]

You could argue that the relevant sentence still holds, as the demon unit:

A) wasn’t set up during deployment

B )comes as reinforcement

 

The only thing open to argument here is whether it wasn’t set up solely because it didn’t exist as a unit yet, or whether it, by virtue of being summoned, was already intended to come in mid-game.

I would argue the rules are simply not clear here and different people will rule it in different ways. Let’s hope the next BIG FAQ will fix it.

 

Until then, I wouldn’t do it, but I would still allow it for any opponent that wants to do it. Summoning is already crappy enough, even if it is allowed turn 1.

[Brother Aiwass]

But you don't have any actual unit before summoning, just a pool of points, right?

[Finkmilkana]

But you don't have any actual unit before summoning, just a pool of points, right?

Yeah, but the unit was still not set up at deployment. Sure, it was not set up in part because it didn’t exist. But it only didn’t exist because it is supposed to come in as reinforcement, therefore not being set up at deployment was still a direct result of being supposed to come in as reinforcements.

 

 

Whether such second-Level logic should or shouldn’t be used for rules is not specified, the beta rule is simply not written concisely. Hence why I would say the rules are simply unclear and anyone wanting to play it a certain way should probably discuss with their opponent, or for tournaments, the organisier/judge.

 

Edit: Also note that the „explanation for the rules change“ part of the FAQ before the actual rule states:

„To that end, units that arrive as reinforcements must now wait until the second battle round to do so – they are reserves that arrive to reinforce your army mid-battle, not reinforce it before your opponent has had a chance to move any of their own models.“

While this is not part of the rule and therefore only of secondary importance, it makes it appear as if the intent was to disallow all reinforcement (which summoning is explicitly stated to be) for turn 1.

[Panzer]

The difference though is that summons aren't reserves and that they normally are heavily locally limited since the summoner isn't allowed to move and can summon them only within a specific range. So mechanically very different from actual reserves.

[Finkmilkana]

I completely agree that they shouldn’t be limited for balance reasons, just saying that the rules right now can be interpreted such that they are. Though again, the rules for summoning specifically clarifies that they count as reinforcements (reserves as a term do not exist in 8th).

[Panzer]

(reserves as a term do not exist in 8th).

 

Quite the claim.

The term "reserves" gets used 46 times in the rules-only PDF of the BRB I have. 

[Finkmilkana]

I mean yeah the rule is called „tactical reserves“ sure and there are still a few units who’s special rules allow them to be placed „in reserve“, but I hope that it was clear that i did not mean that. In the BRB being „in reserve“ or „coming from reserves“ is not really used as a unified rules term (also note that the FAQ even replaced the „in a teleportarium, in high orbit, in Reserve“ in that rule with „in a teleportarium, in high orbit, in ambush“, removing the word Reserve from the rules text ). As of the FAQ, the rules call what is colloquially still usually called „coming from reserves“ „coming as reinforcements“. Why they changed the general term for it, I don’t know. I know, it’s pure semantics, but sadly GW rules often come down to semantics.

 

Mainly I felt I had to point it out, because saying summons are not reserves is obviously correct (though meaningless), while saying they are not reinforcements is not.

[Panzer]

I mean yeah the rule is called „tactical reserves“ sure and there are still a few units who’s special rules allow them to be placed „in reserve“, but I hope that it was clear that i did not mean that. In the BRB being „in reserve“ or „coming from reserves“ is not really used as a unified rules term (also note that the FAQ even replaced the „in a teleportarium, in high orbit, in Reserve“ in that rule with „in a teleportarium, in high orbit, in ambush“, removing the word Reserve from the rules text ). As of the FAQ, the rules call what is colloquially still usually called „coming from reserves“ „coming as reinforcements“. Why they changed the general term for it, I don’t know. I know, it’s pure semantics, but sadly GW rules often come down to semantics.

 

Mainly I felt I had to point it out, because saying summons are not reserves is obviously correct (though meaningless), while saying they are not reinforcements is not.

 

Again, in the rules part of the BRB the term "reserve" is used 46(!) times. You can't tell me it's not a used term when it clearly is. All reserves are reinforcements but not all reinforcements are reserves. Those are two distinct terms with their own meaning.

[Marshal van Trapp]

I think this really comes down to, if the beta rule stands, they have to clarify what reinforcements count as reserves and what do not. There are several stratagems and rules that allow you to remove units from the battle field and set the back up as though they were reinforcements, but it is not stated whether these follow the rules for tactical reserves or not...

[Panzer]

If the Stratagem doesn't say the unit gets set up in reserves then they don't count as reserves. I don't see the problem there.

[Marshal van Trapp]

If the Stratagem doesn't say the unit gets set up in reserves then they don't count as reserves. I don't see the problem there.

So the big one that stands out to me is the GSC one, you take up to 3 units that were set up as a blip and they can deepstrike instead. It is set up like reserves, but RAW it was originally deployed on the battlefield. So it should be able to come in turn one, the way the tactical reserves rule is written. That is a huge grey area

[Finkmilkana]

But the term ‚reserve‘ is nowhere to be found in the actual rules disallowing setting up turn 1. The beta rules simply call out units that are not set up in the deployment phase and arrive as reinforcements. So I still do not understand what the term ‚Reserve‘ even has to do with that.

 

I also checked all those 46 mentions of the term reserve in the BRB, they all talk about Mission rules that allow units to be brought in mid game as reinforcements. So yeah, I was mistaken and as narrative mission rule the term ‚Reserves‘ actually exists. But also note that the rules for Night Fighting specifically differentiate between the (mission specific) Reserve rule and all unit specific rules that allow setting up mid-game, making clear that no unit specific rule (like termi teleportarium etc) falls under that definition of „Reserves“ either.

 

Edit: Yeah, that seems to include allowing the GSC blib trick, though I doubt that was intended.