The debit of summoning in aos

[Vangrail]

Currently I am at my local game store. We are discussing age of sigmar summoning.
my argument using vampire counts as example

Me = Under zombies it says every death wizard knows summon zombies along every other special u know. So he is allowed to summon zombies even though u start the game with no zombies. Or a summon a zombie dragon ect.

Store manager = u have to have the unit or warscroll in your army to summon it..... personally I think he is wrong.

Thoughts or clarification plz

[Calam]

I don't see where that would be a problem as the game isn't limited by a number of war scrolls. So you could just state that you are taking every war scroll that grants a summoning spell.
You're not deploying them so they don't against the limit of running out of room on the table, and it gives you added flexibility.
Looking at it from a fluff point of view, that is always a concern fighting the undead, they always add more friends to the fight.

[Mr Mystery]

Need to have a unit of them, as it's the War Scroll that grants the extra spell.

They don't need to be deployed to get the benefit, but you need to count it in your overall force.

[lobster-overlord]

as the game isn't limited by a number of war scrolls.

But if the game is limited by some other arbitrary rule such as number of wounds, number of units/models, etc, then it could become a sticky issue. I would say that since it doesn't exactly read that you get a free unit that it would be up to agreement PRIOR to the start of the game.

[Clewz]

you need the unit in your deployed army to get the spell. I know people are going back and forth over the rules to get A+ B = z from some vague comments throughout deployment etc but as the spell is only mentioned on the war scroll it makes sense to me that you have to follow what it says on there. It does seem strange in fluff terms as surely the wizard would know the spell but its to give summoning some form of balance

[Ben_S]

I've seen this debated elsewhere and heard that other GW staffers disagree with your manager (which just goes to show that they're guessing at the rules as much as we are).

Personally, my inclination is that all death wizards know how to summon zombies, whether or not you have zombies in your starting army. But, since the rules are pretty much ambiguous or indeterminate on this, I don't think either side of the debate will be able to say much to convince the other. (That said, apparently Wood Elves have some sort of summon Dryad spell that explicitly says you need Dryads, or something like that, so the absence of such a restriction in the Undead case is some evidence that you don't.)

[Houghten]

(That said, apparently Wood Elves have some sort of summon Dryad spell that explicitly says you need Dryads, or something like that, so the absence of such a restriction in the Undead case is some evidence that you don't.)

I can't find a spell with such a restriction anywhere in the Wood Elf compendium.

[Mr Mystery]

Yeah....I'm not seeing any summon Dryad spell?

Could be scenario specific?

[grimmas]

If The rules for summoning are on the Warscroll for the specific unit not the wizard unit then yes you will need to have corresponding unit in your army to use the spell. One wouldn't any other units rules if they weren't in the game why should this one be any different? the biggest problem people are having with AoS is that they are think like its WFB 9th and not a totally different system. The same goes for modelling for advantage you can't actually do it in AoS if you the actual rules.

- - - Updated - - -

Branch Wriaths can summon them into a sylvaneth wood 12" from them (roused to Wrath). In this case the rule is on the branchwraith warscroll so it's the Warscroll that's required to summon them

[Ben_S]

I can't find a spell with such a restriction anywhere in the Wood Elf compendium.

Sorry, it was Tree Kin:

"Sylvaneth Wizards know the
Regrowth spell in addition to any other
spell they know whilst there are any Tree
Kin on the battlefield."

There's no similar restriction on Zombies, etc - it tells you that all Death wizards know how to summon Zombies. I assume the rules are on the Zombie scroll because a) you'll need that to have the stats for the summoned Zombies anyway and b) it's more efficient that all Death wizards having a huge list of spells on their scrolls.

If you think about it, it's also not so different to when Lore of Undeath was introduced in End Times. No wizards had that in their army book, but GW released new spells and said 'everyone can use these'. Similarly here, it's not on the scroll for Necromancers, Liches, etc, but that doesn't matter because they're Death wizards and the Zombie scroll tells you that all Death wizards know how to summon Zombies.