There still seems to be a lot of teeth gnashing over daemon summoning, and while it can be a potentially powerful army, its not something to be truly feared. That army has a lot of issues and relies far too much on chance to be truly effective and I really don't see a need to nerf it through some combination of capping warp dice or other measures.
The main reason its not that great is that it is too random and reliant on lucky dice rolls. While basice summoning is a primaris, the others are random and while sometimes the greater daemon roll come up, in other games it won't. Many times they will be stuck summoning crappy units that can only really summon more and hope to not get killed. Added to that is the fact that psychic powers are a lot more reliant on chance. As WC 3 powers, these will have issues reliably casting and have much higher chances of periling. So while that army can produce a lot of dice, its going to be using most of it just trying to bring more guys in. When the stars align it can certainly be hard to counter, but most cases it will be lackluster.
Another of the problems is that its just not that great or fun of an army to play. The people I have talked to that played it did not seem to enjoy that army. It can be nice when you need an extra unit or two, but an army that can only really summon mediocre units is not something to bet on. Horrors are good as batteries and sitting on objectives, but they really don't stand up to much in a fight, both at range and CC. The occasional greater daemon will certainly be a big deal, but again that is reliant on chance working in your favor.
Added to this is that many armies can counter this pretty well. The Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar, and any shooting heavy army can put out more than enough long range firepower to hurt this army before it even gets off the ground. So he rolled the greater daemon power, well you know what unit to kill first. Even medium ranged armies can do well, Space marines bring a lot of shooting once they get close and are more than durable enough to roll through most of those units in CC. And then their are grey knights with mindstrike missiles telling those psykers to die. As an army there are too many out there that can counter it to make it one that is going to see a rise in the meta. Will summoning still happen, yes, but an army built around it will sacrifice too much to be seen as common place.
So while there will be some armies that have trouble against it, there are many that won't, and that alone will be enough to counter a large shift towards this army. You'll encounter it from time to time, but it won't be the daemon players go to. My advice is to let it ride and let things settle out, a nerf is most likely not needed and other factors will even things out.
GG
Agree. I don't have a powerful opinion about it, as I still haven't faced one. But from what I'm seeing, we definately should wait to see where this gets us, and then, a few months later, maybe sit down and judge this strategy again, to see if it really is as powerful as people say. If we nerf it ASAP, and at the end is not even close to what we thought... I wouldn't like taking that route. Patience is the key...
ReplyDeleteI've yet to try it. My Thousand Sons/Tzeentch army would probably be able to use it. But even with 10+d6 WC, Ahriman will still end up sucking up most of the power dice for stuff like Prescience, Invisibility, Iron Arm, etc. We'll just have to see.
ReplyDeleteFrom the games I've played, it's the spamming (and stacking) of the WC1 powers that really make these armies a beast to deal with. WC3 doesn't scare me, but primaris WC1 does. People who build armies based on the former will fail due to luck, but those who build on the latter essentially have IG-like orders, albeit through the psychic phase.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, if you're focusing on summoning then odds are you aren't playing the game (snagging objectives, getting kill points, etc). Plus, most of the summoners are going to be hanging back out of threat range and everything they're bringing in is out of position. Any army like this really only becomes a threat late game and that's if, as you said, if it hasn't been dealt with as it's arrived.
ReplyDeleteI had an argument with a guy at a gaming store. He was saying psychic is now too powerful. I told him he was off the track and he got upset with it. His babling continued as I was counting how many conscripts were shooting at my target then he went away.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I'm way more concerned about Tau shooting than psychic armies.
I'm still getting used to the fact that Imperial Psykers can summon daemons... seems so wrong...
ReplyDeleteThe only time i brake my own fair play rule is now vs daemon spam, if i know that's all they are gearing towards then i bring 3 vulture gun ships and fight spam with crazy mass fire power. I feel bad for doing it but get my point across as otherwise its just a really boring game that drags on for too long.
ReplyDeleteI don't think its really that over powered and its really luck based but its just boring as hell and makes games last hours. think its cool GW put it in but like Inv it needs some real work.
A summoning based army may not be fun to play (it certainly is not fun to play against), but it CAN be quite effective. The local demon player brought 6 units of horrors, a couple of heralds, a greater change, Bel'akor and some other psycher stuff. He was getting like 30+ psychic dice and won the first turn. First turn he summons like 750 pts worth of models, and this is before the other guy (a tau player if memory serves) even got a turn. Now its true, he hit MOST of his summon rolls but he had a TON of dice to guarantee he succeeded. The rest of the game he played like normal, only summone maybe one or two more units (one was a bloodthirster), but he tabled the guy turn 4 simply due to the huge model advantage he had at the start. Horrors are not amazing units but they are nasty if you can get them behind line of sight blocking terrain as only one needs to be polking out to see other units for them to target while only taking one wound in return. I don't think summoning is broken overall, but it can be abused by demon players who bring enough mastery levels to statistically guarantee they will get 3+ summons off in a turn. One thing that would quickly fix this is cap the number of psychic dice like they do in fantasy.
ReplyDeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
It can, as stated he got first turn, without it the game would have been a lot different. He got almost all of his powers off, again not going to happen every game. Its simply to random to reliably use, even with all those dice. And even then, there are armies that can counter them pretty well. IG is one of them and I have more than enough to win that attrition game, not every army does, but the presence of those that can will mitigate it over time. I don't like capping, its the same as arguing that shooting for tau or IG need to be capped because there is too much. Daemons and other armies are really good in the psychic phase and should rightfully benefit from it.
DeleteI don't really buy the capping analogy. Only certain forces get acces to many psychers while everybody can shoot. Sure, Tau and IG can shoot ALOT but that is balanced out (maybe not well) by other things like crappy combat ability. With the arrival of 7th every unit that has psychic powers gained demo (except poor 'nids) but lost NOTHING. On top of that the risks for demo are muted for a demon army. Yes they are hard to cast, but demons being able to field troops that give them lots of psychic dice vastly increase the chance you will get those summons off for ZERO tradeoff. They shoot just like before, they can move just like before, AND can shoot off as many witchfires as they want. You made it sound like a demon army that is summoning isn't doing anything else, which is wrong, they are doing the same things demon armies were doing before 7th AND they are getting more points (and psychic dice if they summon horrors or lords of change) put on the table every turn. Attrition is on their side, not yours. I agree though, that they should benefit from being good psychers, but being able to put on more points each turn than you can kill is just silly, even if it doesn't happen in every game.
DeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
For just 550 points the guard can summon CC master demons and be the best with 12 WC guaranteed minimum a turn.
ReplyDeleteThe argued over wyrdvane can peril all game and still be there for u turn 5. This works amazingly for me.
Use it, get two new CC demon units onto the field every turn, and play guard like normal, take objectives and toss pie plates.