Grandiose moments brought to you by those fickle dice gods

[N0rdicNinja]

Throughout our Warhammer careers we're called upon to roll a countless number of dice in an attempt to massacre our opponents, more often then not throwing hundreds, if not 1000+, of the little plastic cubes around the battlefield in just a single game. As a result, every now and again, the impossible will happen, those 1 in a million shots will slowly fill the room with excitement as a string of rolls just completely dismantles all logic and for better or for worse you have a story to share for the rest of your wargaming life. Come forth my fellow enthusiasts, gather around the campfire and indulge us if you will, with a tale of extraordinary feets.

As for myself, I have two such stories to share, I was only personally involved with the latter, but I was in the room for the former.

#1.) Captain Crunch!

This particular event took place about 8 years ago, when 3rd edition was in full swing. The battle was between Imperial Guard and Blood Angles, and it was an extremely bloody battle to behold, the board was damn near empty by the end of it all. And there was one particular moment that, to this day, everyone in play group still reminisces about every now and again... the time the Death Company Chaplain, accompanied by 2 Death Company Marines, regretfully charged Captain Crunch...

Quick background: The Imperial Guard player was one of those people who just completely despises the idea of painting, he just wanted to play the game and gained no entertainment value out of the "hobbying" aspect of Warhammer. He did however paint a single model in his entire army, it was an Imperial Guard Captain with a powerfist, and since it was his only painted model we as a group felt he deserved a name... and he was known from that day onward as Captain Crunch.

Back to the story: The charging Chappy and accompanying Death Company made short work of Captain Crunch's underlings wiping out all of them in a single round of combat. This angered Captain Crunch greatly, maybe his brother was with him that day or something, no one knows, the only thing we know is he ripped the heads off of both Death Company Marines and then spat in the Chappy's face with the ever classic snake eyes on his break test. The Chappy, not impressed in the slightest by the Captains abilities let loose a flurry of attacks on Crunch! The Chappy was unable to land even a single successful blow... and before he had time to regain his footing Captain Crunch lifted his powerfist high into the air and proceeded to pound the Chappy into a bloody paste.

When this happened the entire room exploded in laughter and excitement, you would have though it was new years or something! XD And the fact that it was done by the only painted Guardsmen on the entire table only helped to fuel the "WTF!?" fire. =P

#2.) Dread of the Nightbringer

This story also happens to fall into the 3rd edition time frame, I was putting my Necrons up against a World Eater force. I had a Nightbringer sitting up in front of my force with a couple blocks of Warriors directly behind him, since I was playing against World Eaters I didn't feel the need to advance so I just let them come to me. About half way through the game I noticed he was send his Dreadnought directly towards one of my blocks of Warriors... so I sent my Nightbringer over to intercept him, which worked like a charm cause sure enough he charged the Nightbringer. I wasn't to worried, I thought I might receive a few wounds but the Nightbringer should be able open this tin can no problem at all... boy was I wrong. >.>; On the first round of combat the Nightbringer only managed to connect with a single attack and was only able to muster a stunned result (which was promptly ignored), in a flurry of ridiculous rolling the Dread managed to bring my Nightbringer down to a single wound!

Fast forward to the next Assault phase, unhappy with what just happened the Nightbringer all of a sudden flipped his lid and managed to connect with every single swing this time around! In the following penetration rolls I managed to roll at least one 6 which in turn blew the Dreadnought to all hell! This ended up backfiring however... the exploding Dread managed to wound my Nightbringer (back then a blown up vehicle didn't have a Str value, it just wounded everything on a 4+) and knock down a few Necrons standing behind him. Naturally, the Nightbringer fails his Invul save and proceeded to blow up as well! Knocking down even more Necrons. XD I think we halted the game for a solid 30 minutes while we laughed and shared what just happened with the rest of the room. =P

[Commissar Lewis]

One time I was playing against a Tau-playing friend. Straken and his command squad were hauling *** across open ground as I was gonna know his Tau FW off their objective. So, Straken and his squad are taking a ton of fire, thankfully the medic was keeping them alive for a few turns.

Well, fast forward to when his Crisis team and Commander gunned the squad down. It was down to Straken and my friend, rather pissed at having not killed Straken after three whole turns of shooting, fired his Hammerhead rail gun at him.

So, I rolled for the refractor field save - 5. The rail gun round bounced off the force field and my friend was livid. So Straken charged the FW, swept em, and killed the Crisis team before falling to the Commander's plasma rifles.

Good times.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

The Orks had a Warboss + Zogwart + Nobz + Painboy unit of death, I think it was circa 500pts. They were just about to hammer my Marshall's Crusader squad and potentially start rolling me up. Zogwart zapped some BTs dead. RZ test, rolled an 11 and fell back in good order.
Next turn my Marshall regained his nerve. Zogwart ended up DS the unit of death. It just so happened that the unit was just in range of the Vindi after 6" move, two Crusader units and MM HF Dread.

Gory story short I belted him that turn and effectively won the game. I had killed all but one mob of Orks. I had one objective. He had the other and I was about to massacre his lone mob.

He rolled a 2 for the 3+ chance for another turn.

I was lucky with the RZ roll which changed the game.
Then he was lucky with the variable turn length roll and he, as he said, stole a draw from the jaws of defeat.

Dice make it much more exciting than chess, for sure.

[DarkLink]

Back before Apoc, my group did an 8000pt per side game. My decked out Khorne Lord on a bike ended up getting deployed across from about 1500pts of Necrons and Space Marines, with only his 3 biker bodyguards for protection. Turn one he turbo-boosted, and the 3 bikers were killed. He then proceded to kill said 1500pts on his own over the course of the game, having only taken a single wound after being shot with dozens of lascannons, rapid-fired multiple times, and spending ever single round after turn 1 in CC.


Here's a humorous streak of bad luck on a Tyranid player's luck:
I once saw I Hive Tyrant jump into cover to force its opponent to charge though cover, only to take a wound from dangerous terrain.

Then, the turn afterwards, the Ork Warboss shot his bolt pistol at the Tyrant. 5+ to hit, 6+ to wound, and the Tyrant had a 2+ save. Which he, of course, failed.

[Majorcrash]

I had several but two come to mind because, friends from old will remind me of them.
The first incident I was playing in a large multiplayer game VS Chaos and the then new Tau. I had Moriai the Bloodangel Death co dread, was in combat against some CSM marines. In their turn I wiped out the CSM, rolled max for sweeping advance, rolled rage on my turn to the max, movedand then asaulted a Tau etheral and some crisis suits. Killing them in one round. The owning player had this look of disbelief, and told me that he was considering option for dealing with the dread but wasnst worried as it was so far away. Moriai covered 30' in the course of one movement.

I was playing a guy who did the whole mech guard scheme. This was back in 3rd ed so it wasnt as easy as today. Anyway he had set as far forward as possible and as I was playing Bloddangels back then also set up as close as possible. My BA force was composed of mostly rhinos and razorsback as this was back in the day of the "Rhino Rush". Well I got first turn and 8 rhinos/ raxorbacks charged across the table, dismounted their troops and fired, and said troops then charged. By the end of the first half of turn one all his vehicles were destoryed or unsusable. The resulting explosions caught troops unprotected and out in the open. His army died in 1/2 a turn. He turn to some others nearby and asked if that was even possible. Only the luck of rolling some many high dic for BA rage and then damage results allowed that to happen.

[MarshalAdamar]

I've had a couple but only one really sticks out in my mind and is I'm sure branded into my buddies mind for all time.

We’re playing my black Templars vs. his IG. With 5th edition.

We were playing a scenario that involved the Templars trying to take back a manufactorum from a rouge planetary governor.

On one side of the complex in the board corner he had a chimera full of guardsmen, a commander and 5 guardsman command squad, two flanking sentinels and a leman Russ.

I had the emperors champ and two large crusader squads and a vindicator.

My luck was terrible, heavy weapons squads from across the board blew the cannon off the vindi before I could fire a single shot, the battle cannon from the Russ blew apart a crusader squad that broke ran back, regrouped and had to run into the Russ cannon again! I lost that squad and most of the champ’s squad trying to get to the back table edge to engage anything.

I detached the Emperors champion from the last 4 marines in the crusader squad and he charged on alone! The last 4 marines tried to engage the sentinels and lost two marines getting there but they assaulted the sentinels but in the end the marines got stomped to death. Mean while!

The champion alone plunges forward. The command squad shoots at him and miss/fails to wound him, the Leman Russ fails to land a single hit and the chimera fails to either hit or wound as well.

The champ charges the command squad and slaughters them and takes no wounds! Then he consolidates towards the chimera.

The guardsmen pile out of the Chimera in close ranks and rapid fire the champ! Who loses only one wound. The chimera opens up on the champ with multi laser and heavy stubber with no wounds to the champ.

The Leman Russ fires the laz cannon on the hull and misses! The champ shoots a guardsman in the face at point blank range and charges, slaughtering the whole squad! The champ consolidates towards the Leman Russ.

The next round the chimera moves and fires on the champ again but no wounds slip though the armor of faith. The Leman Russ fires a desperation shot with the las cannon and heavy stubber but the stubber wounds are ignored and the las cannon misses!

The champ leaps on the Leman Russ and proceeds to blow it up!

The next round the champ moves towards to the chimera. The chimera shoots at the champ and fails to wound and then the game ends before the champ can destroy the chimera.

In the end it’s a narrow victory for the Templars. The champ alone (except for the two marines holding up the sentinels holds the Templar left flank!

[Purple]

the number of 1s for armour saves when fighting terminators is always a good moment. Maths suggests it shouldnt happen but its good when it happens.

Having my monolith destroyed by a powerfist (4th edition) was not a good day for me. I'm glad that that is even less likely to happen in 5th edition

[Sam]

My second real game, back in 4th, was IG vs IG. 1500pts, I believe. Well my poor light infantry guardsmen were taking a hell of a beating, but thanks to the wonders of the old vox-caster, they just wouldn't run away. So naturally my command squad became a priority target. After three rounds of sniper fire only my commander and the vox-operator were still alive. Well that just wouldn't do. My opponent fired a battle cannon shot at them, and hits both. He failed to wound the commander, and the vox-operator made his cover save. So the other battle cannon fired. Hit both again, splattering the vox-operator all over the ground. My commander made his cover save. So a guardsmen squad fired at my commander, in rapid fire range. Grenade launcher missed, 8 lasguns hit and wounded. I made 7 cover saves. Two wounds left. Another guardsmen squad fired, again in rapid fire range. Grenade launcher hit and wounded. I made my cover save. 6 lasguns hit and wounded, I made 5 cover saves. One wound left. So ANOTHER guardsmen squad, AGAIN in rapid fire range, fired. Grenade launcher missed. 10 lasguns hit and wounded. I made 10 cover saves. This was getting personal. So his platoon command squad fired their laspistols. 3 hits, 1 wound. I failed my save.

So my commander died, but it took:
9 sniper shots
2 battle cannon shots
3 grenade launcher shots
48 lasgun shots
and 8 laspistol shots

After that I gave my commander the medallion crimson, a refractor field, and bionics. It seemed like he had earned it.

[Sam]

Somewhat less surprising but still an impressive moment for the IG:

All that was left of my company command was Straken and one bodyguard, and they were charged by an ironclad (Please note: this is a bad plan, do not try this at home). Well the ironclad managed to inflict three wounds (Wow, that is one flat bodyguard), so Straken got to hit back. And he did. Five times. The Ironclad then exploded...three times. Straken was wounded by the explosion, but of course he made his 3+ save and ran off to his next adventure, which never actually came, since the game ended after that turn.

[person person]

As a result, every now and again, the impossible will happen, those 1 in a million shots will slowly fill the room with excitement as a string of rolls just completely dismantles all logic and for better or for worse you have a story to share for the rest of your wargaming life.

...My mind was blank
I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind

What did I see?
Could I believe?
That what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy.

What I was listening to while reading that. Fit together so well.

I've seen an IG Srg. w/ Power Fist take out a decked out Nurgle Daemon Prince.I did see this amazing BT vs Orks 1000pt battle.

Orks
warboss w/ Power Klaw possibly other stuff.
140 ork boyz.

BT
Cpt. Amazing (HQ guy w/2x Power Fists.)
LRC, Champ. 10 initiates and 5 neophytes inside
More initiates and Land Speeder

Champion kills:100 ish Orks, Killed Warboss with Cpt. Amazing's help 1st CC kill of game.
Cpt. Amazing kills: ^
Everything else: enough for there to be less than 10 Ork Boyz left.

Orks somehow won by killing everything else It took a whole squad of 10+ Ork Boyz to direct all attacks on the Champ. to kill him.