So I recently purchased Chaos in the Old World, and I'm really enjoying it, but I have a few questions on the rules of summoning to clarify. I've read through the book, the forums, and the FAQ, and nothing seems to really touch on my confusion.

According to the rules, you must only summon units to regions you already have units in, or regions adjacent to them, excluding when you have no units at all. However, it's a little muddy in detail, and I've come up with two different ways to interpret it:

1) Units may only be summoned into regions where units already are or adjacent to, regardless of when they were summoned, i.e. spreading out.

Example: Khorne summons a Bloodletter to Kislev. After the other three players have done their summoning, he summons a Bloodletter now to The Empire, and on his next subsequent turn in summoning, he summons a Bloodletter to Bretonnia, all in one round of gameplay.

OR

2) Units may only be summoned into regions where units already are or adjacent to, provided they were in said region(s) from the prior round i.e. established foothold.

Example: Khorne has a Bloodletter in Kislev from the previous round of gameplay. It is the summoning phase now, and he summons a Bloodletter to The Empire. He will have to wait until the next round of gameplay to summon units into Bretonnia.

I've been using the second interpretation, as I feel like it keeps players like Khorne from spreading like wildfire, and bringing murder to every corner of the world at such a rate that a dial victory is mere turns away. This also makes troop deployment more strategic, as choosing your "starting" region is a far more important maneuver.

However, I fear that this also can lead to stagnation, as players can not move troops as rapidly around the world, making direct confrontation both harder to get into (for Khorne), as well as harder to get away from (for pretty much everyone else). I want the game to stay interesting, but at the same time, stay strategic and thoughtful, and not just tossing units about willy-nilly.

This also brings up my other question: If a player wishes to summon a unit that is already on the board to a different region, can that particular unit move only to regions adjacent to where that unit is, or to any region in or adjacent to other units of his?

Example: Khorne has a Bloodthirster in Norsca, and some Bloodletters in Estalia. Nurgle is dug-in in Brettonia, while Slaanesh is dug-in in Tilea. Khorne wishes to bring his Bloodthirster from Norsca to either Brettonia or Tilea, as those regions are adjacent to Estalia, where he has troops.

My interpretation is that a player can move a unit he has summoned already to the board only to regions adjacent to the region in which that unit is placed. This forces the player to be more thoughtful about where he sends his specific units, and prevents them from just hopping their most powerful model wherever they wish it to be. In the above example, Khorne can only move his Bloodthirster to Troll Country, as it is the only region adjacent to where he already is.

What are your thoughts on this?

It is your interpretation #1. You may summon to multpile regions within the same summon phase as long as you spread out from an existing adjacent region. Your way is absolutely too restrictive. What would you do in round one, only let each player place in one region? That would kill Khorne as he would never be able to track down prey.

What limits Khorne is that he only has 7 power points to spend. Since only his Warriors and Daemon roll dice to start the game, these are the units he must place. So he is capped at 3 regions for the first round. That is enough room that the others can typically avoid him, especially when he places first. He committs and they can sidestep him.

... number 1. I'm not sure how you came up with number 2 from the rules, but I'm pretty sure number 1 makes for a better game and is the actual rules

FifteenHours said:

Can anyone give a right answer?

Snak said:

Any unit may be placed anywhere where there is already a unit of the same god, or adjacent to a a region with a figure of the same god.

The "exception" noted above is when you take the last figure out of a region, that figure can be summoned to any adjacent region to that now vacant region. He does not HAVE to go there but that option exists for him at this precise moment. Otherwise he is just placed as any other unti would be in the paragraph above.

I didn't quite get it. That means I'm wrong, right?

Snak said:

Maybe. Or I don't understand your question. So let's try again.

You remove the last figure from a region.

1) He MAY be placed in any region adjacent to the region he just vacated.

-OR_

2) He MAY be placed in any region where he already has another figure or adjacent ot another figure.

So, he does NOT have to do movement option 1, which is what I thought you asked. He may do movement option 2, which is the same movement as bringing in a figure from your supply.

Does that make more sense?

So you can do both options when summoning the last figure of your Power on a region:

1- Place it in any region adjacent to the one just emptied by you;

-OR-

2- Place it in any region adjacent to regions where you have figures or in regions where you have other figures (even if it's far away).

New Questions:

1- Is this only applicable to when you remove the LAST of yout figures in an area, OR can you do this anytime you summon from the board?

2- When doing option 2 from above, do the regions have to make a "path" (be in touch with eacother) from the region being emptied to the region where you're about to put the figure?

-Snak

1) Any time you summon, you may place that figure in a region you already occupy or adjacent to a region you already occupy. "Option 1" is just meant to increase your options if you happen to pull the last figure out of a region. All it is adding is that you can consider the just vacated region as "occupied" for the placement of your current figure. Which is then Option 2 again.

So if you already have figures on the board and aren't summoning from a now vacant region, it is always option 2. If you are summonuning from a now vacant region, still consider it occupied for this turn only and its option 2.

2) No, you do not need to have a continuous path between the regions. You may have a break in the path so to speak. The only requirement is that the region be occupied or adjacent to an occupied rgion.

ColtsFan76 said:

It is my understanding of the rules that if I remove (/re-summon) my last figure from the board that I can summon it everywhere on the board.

rashktah said:

OK, evidently people are confused unnecessarily. There are three possible scenarios when summoning:

1) You have no figures on the board at all. This generally happens at the start of the game but could also happen if you got wiped out in the last turn. In this case the first figure you summon this turn can be placed anywhere on the board. Page 11, bottom paragraph summarises the summoning rules here.

2) You're summoning someone either from the pool or from the board from a region with at least one figure left after removing that figure: Normal summoning rules always apply - you must place that figure either in a region containing one of your figures, or in a region adjacent to one of the regions containing your figures. The ONLY requirement is that there are figures in those regions - the way those figures got there is immaterial. For example: You summon a cultist in Estalia. The regions you can summon to are Estalia, Tilea or Bretonnia. Tzeentch plays teleport and moves that figure to Norsca. The regions you can summon to are now Norsca and Troll Country assuming no other figures on the board. Hypothetically you could summon to Estalia again that turn, but you would need to get a figure into Tilea or Bretonnia first. If you had had two figures in Estalia before Tzeentch moved one of them with teleport, the regions you can summon to are Norsca, Troll Country, Bretonnia, Estalia and Tilea

3) You summon the last figure belonging to you out of a region. The ruling at the top of page 12 of the rulebook says that you may count the region you just summoned out of as one of the regions containing one of your figures. In EVERY OTHER WAY this is the same as scenario two. Let's continue the example above - you have a cultist in Estalia and one in Norsca. Khorne just jumped into Estalia with a Bloodthirster, so you decide to deny Khorne a dial advancement token by moving your figure in Estalia. You summon that figure out of that region, leaving it empty of your figures. The valid places for you to summon to are Norsca and Troll Country (because you have a figure in Norsca), Tilea and Bretonnia and technically Estalia (because Estalia COUNTS AS having one of your figures in it) are also valid. The next figure you place DOES NOT count Estalia as having one of your figures in it unless you actually summon another figure there - i.e. you only count Estalia as containing one of your figures for the purposes of removing the last figure.

To illustrate that, let's say you decide to summon that last figure from Estalia into Troll Country. Next turn you summon a warrior. The valid places for it to go would be Norsca, Troll Country or Kislev. Estalia, Tilea and Bretonnia are no longer valid targets.

By contrast, if you had summoned that last figure in Estalia to Bretonnia, you would be able to summon that warrior into Norsca, Troll Country, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia, The Empire or the Border Princes because of the figures in Bretonnia and Norsca. If instead you summoned that one cultist in Bretonnia into the Empire (which we're allowed to do because we're removing the last figure from Bretonnia), we can now summon a new warrior into one of Norsca, Troll Country, The Empire, Kislev, The Border Princes or Bretonnia

That's the entirety of the summoning rules. There are no other rules to do with it. You don't have to do things in any order at all (one poster was implying that you always had to summon adjacent to the LAST figure summoned, which is plain wrong), you can mix playing cards in with summoning as you like, you can summon into and out of ruined regions if you want to.

To answer the quoted question - The rules on page 11 state that you can place anywhere on the board if you have 'no figures on the board'. If you have one figure on the board, this is not the case. I know that the rules at the top of page 12 say that you 'may count a given region as occupied by his own figure if it is in the process of being summoned out of it'. Some rules lawyers would say that means that you can count it as not having one, so can summon everywhere. But that's not the case. It's clearly only in the case of having no figures on the board, and you have one that is just changing position on the board. By the use of 'may', FFG are implying that you don't HAVE to move it to one adjacent to that region - in the example above, you have the option of going to Norsca or Troll Country instead. If you are summoning your only figure on the board, you can choose not to count the region being summoned out of as having one of your figures in it if you want to. Well done. You now have no valid places to play it, because you have at least one figure on the board (the one that you're moving) and you have no regions with figures in them.

rashktah said:

Your understanding is incorrect. The above post is complete but may be a bit daunting. So I will summarize as this:

1) The only way you can place the figure ANYwhere is if you have NONE on the board at the start of the "impulse"

2) You never removes figures fromt eh board during the summoning phase. So when you resummon a figure already on the board, and he is the only figure of yours on the board, he is technically still on the board even though you physically lifted him up off the board. He must follow the placement rules that you can only place in already occupied regions or adjacent to already occupied regions. Since he was your last figure, you don't have any occupied regions. However, the rules make a statement that the region you just vacated should be considered occupied for this move.

Here is the link to the official answer I received and posted on BGG:

boardgamegeek.com/article/3996654#3996654

Q) When you choose to move your ONLY unit on the board, can it be placed in any region or must it be placed adjacent to the just vacated region?

A) It can only be moved into a region adjacent to its origin region. Page 11 of the rules clearly indicates that the terms summon, place, and move are equivalent. By replacing “place” with “move” in the paragraph describing unit placement, this becomes more clear:

"To [move] the figure on the board, the player [moves] the figure in one of the nine regions. The only restriction on figure [movement] is that the figure must be [moved to] a region where that Chaos Power already has a figure, or in a region adjacent to such a region."

Sort of a resummoning question on something that came up recently.

If a unit comes under effect of a chaos card, but for some reason is moved to another region that turn, is it still under the effect of the card? I've seen conflicting opinions of this where Slaneesh takes control of a unit, summons it to another region, and people say that unit is no longer under his control since it left the region with musk played. But then I also see people saying that a unit granted a warp shield is still invincible for that turn even if it's moved to another region.

GrooveChamp said:

The FAQ says that if you summon the unit away you lose control of it; however the rulebook states that warp shield continuously affects the unit even if it changes regions (page 14). I'm not sure what the difference is

phobiandarkmoon said:

The difference is the FAQ made a mistake which has been retracted. If you summon the figure away, you still control it.

ColtsFan76 said:

Do you have a link to that? Not that I don't believe you, seeing as that's the way that makes intuitive sense to me, but my fellow players can be sticklers for published rules

phobiandarkmoon said:

I'll reference you back to my post on BGG once it comes back up. But if they don't take my word here, they probably won't accept it there either. However, I was sort of the liaison between the BGG community and the FFG development staff on CitOW when it came to the rules questions. So take it for what it's worth.