Tales of Fail

This is a page for the posting of tales of epic and mighty failure.

When terminator armour fails

Have your terminators ever died to termagants? Mine have. I deep struck my squad next to a squad of 15 gaunts and immediately opened up with their storm bolters and assault cannon, managing to cause 6 casualties. On my friend's turn he fired his gaunts' devourers, failing to cause any casualties, and being new he decided to charge. At this point I was smiling confidently. My power sword wielding sergeant attacked, missing one attack then failing to wound with the second; I was annoyed at this but not worried. My friend managed to cause 4 unsaved wounds but due to my squad being terminators I wasn't worried AND THAT'S WHEN I ROLLED FOUR ONES. My last terminator managed to miss all his attacks and then was wiped out by gaunts in the next turn. Needless to say, RAGE.

What a Class A Panzy

So Geedubbs made the Battle of Vedros set, in which it is Spess Mehrens versus Orkzes. In it are 5 nobz (as a separate unit) with a semi-equivalent would be a Spess Mehrens termi sgt. But the only problem was that the nobz would always turn one kill the sgt from across the board (One shot each/5 shots, 5+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 2+ save). This dint happen for one game. This happened five games in a row (and since then I've stopped playing Spess Mehrens). The Battle of Vedros set has 23 minitures (19 orkz and 9 Spess Mehreens) with the terminator sgt making a great frontline which is supposed to rampage through the orkz along with the dreadnought, if only he COULD MOVE BEFORE BEING SHOT BY BS 5 ORKZ TURN 1!

Cuz they were made for fightin' an' winnin'

Some day you just know Dice gods hate you. It was my first 6E game, CSM vs Orks. I managed to score the objective on turn 6 with my 3-man Obliterator squad which happen to be scoring due to mission type, and it was the objective that could win me the game (without it it would be a draw). And then his three surviving tankbustas fire their rokkits on my oblits. I was kind of amused when all three hit despite their awful BS2, but was not worried - it was only AP3 anyway. Unsurprisingly all three wound, but that to be expected with S8 against T4. And then I rolled three ones on the saves. We both broke into mad laughter because of how ridiculous that was. Not only that cost me an objective, but he also get one VP for killing my HS unit due to Big Guns mission. It's 1/5832 chance that shit could happen.

A Bad Day At the Khorne Building

There's a difference between dice hating you and dice wanting to let you know that they're perfectly capable of sodomy. During one battle playing as Tau, a friend playing CSM rushed a squad of Fire Warriors with his Berserkers thanks to clever positioning of a METAL BOX. Ten Berserkers and their champion charged into battle against 8 Fire Warriors. Laughter turned to horror, however, when the berserkers missed or failed to wound on every attack due to rolling 1s. Horror turned back into hilarity, however, when the Fire Warriors wound up killing half the Berserkers in close-combat and then killed the rest in a Sweeping Advance.

And somewhere, Khorne laughed riotously, for he cares not whence the blood flows.

What the figurative fuck though, Khorne.

Biggest Always Fail Hardest

When I first started Tau, I was so excited for my Riptide. All the stories of its amazingness were what got me excited, especially since, due to budgeting, my original army was sorely lacking in heavy hitters. Eventually, I was able to finally field my glorious beauty. What would follow would be absolute fail. Facing Grey Knights on Turn 1, they used their Warlord Trait to Deep Strike directly into my army, as per usual Grey Knight bull. However, with EWO, my Riptide could put a Large Blast template right in the middle of the deep strike. With S8 AP2, this was going to hurt. I roll for distance...Scatters 7 inches away from them, hitting one Terminator and a drone from another part of my army. Of course, the Grey Knight Terminator makes their 5+ INV save, my drone does not make their cover save, and so my Riptide was now powerless against this blob of Terminators due to Interceptor rules, with only a Fusion Blaster to fire against them. Which, on its turn, missed. It then proceeded to be eviscerated by the squad, which meant that in my very first game with a Riptide, it dealt zero enemy causalities, and was instead a team killing fucktard. This trend would not end with this game. Instead:

• Game Two would be Eldar vs Tau, and would have my Markerlight BS 7 Ignore cover Riptide to roll 12" scatter, moving 5 inches away from the main target and instead hitting a Wave Serpent, which due to more BS, also did not get wounded. Riptide would then try to move forward on turn two and destroy another Wave Serpent, only for it to release Wraithguard. With AP 2 distort. Rolling 3 Distort wounds. Needless to say, Riptide dies again.
• Game three would be Space Marines vs Tau. Riptide would once again not wound, get chased down by Chapter Master Smash Bane and posse, proceed to get destroyed.

If that is not fail, I do not want to see what true fail is.

Daemon Kharn or Wych's Toy?

Some people claim that there are only two kinds of fail; original and epic. However, there exists a third flavour, so to speak...

Our tale begins, as many others, with a battle. Namely, CSM vs Dark Elfdar. This was my first time playing CSM and, being the cheap bastard that I am, I ended up "borrowing" my cousin's old army, him being the DE in this battle. Three squads and one HQ each, with no care for points. Me, with Kharn, some 'zerkers, some termies and a basic CSM squad; him, with his Succubus, Bloodbrides, wyches, and warriors. Straight away, he charges the Khornate killteam with the Succubus and bloodbrides, and after a short duel and barely scratching Kharn, he throws the succubus to the ground and proceeds to go all KHARN SMASH on her. So, victory means that I get to roll on the FUN Chaos Boons table, and what do I get? 66. For those who haven't looked at the 6th Ed. CSM codex, let me explain. 66 is Dark Apotheosis - the guy you rolled it for becomes a daemon prince. Thanks to a... slight overlook of the rules, we'll call it, Kharn ends up quickly overrunning the bloodbrides and warriors whilst his wyches, in a case of BS or luck, depending on your point of view, wipe out my CSMs and termies single-handed.

So, Kharn and the wyches are all that's left, and as our game is complete and utter annihilation, with no care for VP or shit like that, it's a case of kill or be killed. I charge. Kharn manages to kill a couple of wyches, but the one with a shardnet makes life difficult. They take a wound next turn, leaving him with one. Kharn attacks again, bringing the squad down to three. Then, through pure luck, the wyches manage to end him, and as though the dice gods themselves had abandoned me, I fail to spare him from any of the attacks. Kharn fell to the remaining three wyches, their laughter echoing in my head for a few hours.

Some people claim that there are only two kinds of fail; original and epic. However, there exists a third flavour, so to speak. I am talking about awesome fail - when you fail, but create something awesome in the process. This battle... this was awesome fail at its finest.

Greater daemon of Khorne (Bloodthirster) duels plague marine sergeant

Now, here I was, playing one of my first games of 7th ed (I didn't yet know that I could not fly/land/charge with MCs). During deployment, my opponent warns me of this, I don't believe him, and we roll off to see who's right (turns out he was). This is where my crappy dice start. I fail this roll-off, but am still not so concerned because he has very little long-range shooting, I get to start and I've rolled the rewards that give me 3+ save and 4+ Feel no Pain. Turn 1, I lose a bunch of bloodcrushers to a vindicator shot. We roll off to see if the shot also hit me, and I fail: my Bloodthirster takes a wound. Turn 2, I kill that bloody vindicator, but a bunch of plasma raptors deep-strike in behind me. The die seems a bit cocked, and we roll off to see whether or not they mishap. I fail, and lose another wound. I'm still confident enough, as I can charge into his plague marines on turn 3 and take the relic. On turn 3, I charge, barely make 3 FnP rolls against bolters (he rolled soooo many hits, it was pretty unbelievable), and get into melee. I duel him, and learn with horror that in 7e, other units can strike into a duel: I kill the plague marine sergeant, but due to crappy rolls fail to do anything else to the unit and take 12 poison attacks. 7 of them hit, 5 of them wound, and I then proceed to fail 3 3+ saves and 3 FnP rolls. He gets kill the warlord, and proceeds to win the game thanks to his newfound 200 or so points advantage. I've had his dice checked, and he swears it was just luck, but I still can't stand how he stills calls his plague marines "Nurgle's greatest champions" every time I play against him.

Nanyte Blaster fun

Okay, so here's the deal. Nanyte Blasters are a relic in The Horus Heresy Book 4, and can be taken by any 30k army. It's an S5 AP2 Assault that causes anyone killed by it to drop a Large Blast on their corpse if you roll a 4+, and yes this can cause a massive chain reaction.

Being cheesy, I deep struck my Legate with some Veletaris next to space marines, using an Arvus Lighter(Unarmed flyer transport). My legate fires his Nanyte blaster into the full squad, killing a marine. Uncontrolled Growth triggers, and a large blast is dropped that hits 3 more marines, and one of my Veletaris.

The 3 marines die, but uncontrolled growth fails on them. My veletaris also dies, and uncontrolled growth starts on him, dropping an S5 AP2 Large blast that hits 8 more of my guys, 5 of which spawn additional large blasts on their corpses. As a result my entire Squad of Veletaris plus my legate dies, while the marines got off with barely any casualties. Remember this if you're ever having a bad day, as this legate had a far worse day than yours by accidentally killing himself and everyone with him.

Biggest Always Fail Hardest 2

My friend always liked playing Eldar. As it was before 7th, or even 6th edition update, I liked playing with him too, as it was somewhat challenging for my IG. He always tried to base his strategy around mighty bubble of buffs that Avatar of Khaine gives. What my friend had enough though was how this strategy failed him miserably every single time when he played with me. There were two situations that proceeded to draw the last fucking straw. First was when he hobbled across the field with his units (AoK leading the advance) turning my guardsmen into mincemeat with shuriken volleys, having none of all these "casualties/pinning" things as his army was bloody fearless. As he got close he declares charge against thr last squad of veterans with plasma guns protecting my Commander. He cackled when I declared overwatch. Then he turned several shades paler, as my vets proceeded to land nothing but seven hits with plasma guns AND sarge's plasma pistol. Even though the Avatar was protected earlier by his 5++ save he got murdered and turned to cinders by a disciplined volley of searing bolts. And I got slay the warlord btw. As his army was no longer fearless, I let fly with everything I had left and routed them from the field.

The second time was when both our forces were quite exhausted bar HQs. Again it was Avatar of Khaine as warlord, and it was quite similar to the last battle, but this time it was me that bravely/foolishly charged with my company command squad to stop this monstrocity in its tracks. Before charging I shot the bloody thing with all the laspistols of my CCS and he lost one wound due to las-headshotting. Of course, when I got to him (after overwatch induced melting of one of my vets), he shouts CHALLENGE. I grudgingly accept, knowing that my warlord won't live to see another day. THAT'S WHEN HE MISSES OR FAILS TO WOUND ON NEARLY EVERY ATTACK. The one wound that gets through bounces off refractor field. Then my commander hits and wounds with all his powerfist attacks and proceeds to mop the floor with the remains of an AoK. As all he had left after this was one-half unit of guardians and a lone, immobile, and weaponless Fire Prism against my heroic commander and quite operational if immobile Battle Leman Russ, he forfeited the game, and later quit Eldar completely.

Carnifex vs Fire Warrior

My friend was trying Tau, so we decided to have a game of 40k with my Tyranids versing his Tau.

My Carnifex had two wounds and lost another to shooting before getting into combat with a unit of Tau Fire Warriors. I had upgraded the Carnifex with most of the upgrades it could have including the initiative boost, a +2 armour save, an extra wound, Crushing Claws and Scything Talons. The Carnifex killed all but one of the Fire Warriors. Then the lone Fire Warrior retaliated and I sat back because my Carnifex had all the upgrades I could afford points-wise and there was only one guy left. Then the Fire Warrior hit and wounded the Carnifex, despite needing 6's to wound. THAT'S WHEN I FAILED MY ARMOUR SAVE AND A CARNIFEX DIED IN COMBAT AGAINST A SINGLE FIRE WARRIOR.

Necrodermis Chastity Belt

A group of friends and I had a match of 5th edition Warhammer 40k, where one player would use an army while the others each used a single HQ choice. The other HQ players chose their characters, I chose a Necron Lord (3rd Ed codex) while she chose a Chaos Space Marines army led by an Exalted Keeper of Secrets (the S7 Gargantuan Creature with the sword that ignores Invulnerable Saves as well). We managed to do some damage to the army without much wounds lost, taking a few of them out. Then the Exalted Keeper of Secrets charged in. We responded accordingly.

A geared-up Space Marine captain fell to it in one round of combat. Then it charged an Avatar of Khaine, which was also curbstomped in a single round of combat against that monstrosity. Then it charged my Necron Lord and declared challenge. I grudgingly accepted, knowing that my Necron Lord was about to be destroyed and (lorewise) likely reduced to a sex toy. Despite the fact that the EKoS had eight attacks (to my three wounds) that hit on 3's and wounded on 2's with with no saves allowed SHE PROCEEDED TO MISS OR FAIL TO WOUND ON NEARLY EVERY ATTACK. The one wound that gets through meant my Necron Lord was able to retaliate. My HQ hits and wounds with his Warscythe, taking a wound off the EKoS and surviving the combat. Though the Necron Lord died in the second round of combat he passed his "We'll Be Back" roll and (thanks to his Phylactery) got back up with full wounds, ready for another go!

Clumsy new Terminator Armour

I was doing a 3000 point game of Space Marines against Imperial Guard, where the guard player brought EVERY. LAST. TANK. HE. OWNED. Something like 30 or so tanks all in a parking lot in the center of the board, all of varying types. Of course, part of my army included a group of sigmarines; clearly space marines wearing Sigmar Pattern Terminator Armour, and sitting in a Land Raider.

My Land Raider made a beeline for his parking lot, and managed to get within 4" of a cluster of 6 tanks. The next turn he fails to destroy the land raider with Melta-veterans, and my Sigmarines disembarked, staying 1" away from the veterans. In the assault phase I had to make a 2" charge through difficult to simultaneously charge SIX TANKS. I was feeling amazing, as I was going to remove a huge chunk of his army in one go!

And then the terminators rolled snake-eyes on their charge, for a total distance of 0"! Effectively they came out of the Land Raider, and collectively tripped on their own toes. Me and my opponent both had to step outside so as to not disturb the other gamers with our boisterous laughing. When we resumed the game, my opponent swung his two punishers around and picked the terminators right up off the board.

The Great Enemy Ascendant

One of my best buddies had recently started Chaos Marines, and I had started Eldar, both happening barely a week after the release of their 6th ed codices. We decided on a 1.5k point game - in which She who Thirsts feasted mightily, and laughed with great amusement at the utter refusal of the dice to help the Eldar. A farseer, exarch, and even Eldrad himself get killed in challenges, without even scratching the opposition. Now this would have been of no consequence, for my Fire Prisms had been blasting great chunks out of the Chaos horde - if it were not for my friend rolling 3 daemon princes in a row on the chaos boon table, transforming his cultist champion, chaos lord and marine champion each into a single reason to bash my head into a wraithbone wall as I write this. My Fire Prisms each got a single shot off before being smashed to bits - misses all. The Craftworld must now prepare for all-out war.

Total Party Incineration

Playing DnD5e, I decided to make a Wild Sorcerer, because Wild Magic Surge. Okay, party consists of a cleric, a thief, a monk, a wizard and me, all level 1, all with 12HP or less. We get to go after some bad guys who are giving a small town some trouble. First battle erupts and all goes well, didn't have time to cast any 1st level spell. We get some info and move on.

Ambush! 7 highwaymen attack us! Second battle! I use my tides of chaos to get advantage for an attack, if only to force a wild magic roll on my next turn. Next turn comes in, I charm one of the mooks. Magic Surge time! D100 results in 01 - one surge each turn for the next 10 turns. Off to a great start!

Well, battle ends before I get another turn, but the surges will still happen. The sequence was

• 53 - Immune to alcohol intoxication for 5D6 days (rolled 14)
• 78 - Polymorph on myself. Successful save.
• 44 - Teleport as a bonus action
• 64 - Cast fog cloud centered on myself
• 73 - Random creature becomes poisoned (the thief)
• 75 - I glow with a bright light for 30ft. "JESUS IS COMING FROM THE MIST, BABY!"

Then, I roll 08. 3rd level fireball centered on myself. They all looked at me with a mix of awe and rage. 8D6 damage against a party of level 1 characters. Oh, did I mention that we got so excited at what would happen that the party forgot to move away from me? Because they did. Time to roll damage: 31. Me and the wizard are dead (if you take your total HP in damage when you're at 0 health, you die instantly. We had 7HP). Roll Dex save! Cleric fails! Monk fails! Thief succeeds, but he only had 4HP before the blast. Total Party Incineration at level 1.

Oh, and the charmed mook survived, because he was outside the blast zone. According to the DM, he is now level 3 and retired after the battle.

What What in the Butt

Space Marine player here. I was facing off against my friend's Tau army, and she was fielding her Y'vahra for the first time. Poor reserve rolls means both her Y'vahra and my drop pod grav Centurions fail to arrive until turn 4. She deep strikes the Y'vahra into the middle of the board to hold an objective. Only too late does she realize that it is out of range to shoot anything! On my turn, my Centurions come in, just out of intercept range. They proceed to shoot up the Y'vahra, getting just enough wounds past the invulnerable and feel no pain saves to bring the beast down in one salvo. As luck would have it, the Y'vahra's back was to the Centurions. So her Y'vahra failed to fire a single weapon in its first outing before being shot to death up the butt.

What Kind Of Ork...

So, a bunch of friends and I all got together for a casual 40k game we called "Clash of the Titans". It was a 4v4 team game, with one side consisting of nothing but four Superheavies, and the other side was a more normal coalition of small armies. Each player was competing against their allies as well as the enemy: Whichever Superheavy got the most kill-points on that team won on their team, and whichever army could inflict the most damage on the Superheavies won for theirs. I was on the Superheavy team with my Stompa. The other three on my team were a Transcendent C'tan and two variants of Baneblades. So my strategy was obvious: get sucked in and stomp everything, hopefully scoring more kills in melee then my shootier teammates.

We got the first turn. I surged into the open as fast as I could, while the others lurked in various ruins near the back of the board. I was focused on the Chaos Space Marine army, they were all clustered together and ripe for stompin'. During the shooting phase, I let loose with my Supa Gatler, hoping to soften those Traitor Marines up before finishing them in melee. You can imagine everyone's suprise when I hit with seven out of nine shots on my first burst, killing five Marines. My second burst fired twelve shots, and wiped the marines out before running out of ammo. I still had a lot of dakka left to fire, so I set my sights on a convoy of Dark Eldar Raiders that were sneaking around the back, trying to get to the C'Tan. The had to bunch up a bit to get around a building, making them nice and close for my shooting. I aimed my Deff Kannon at the most forward Raider, and the shot scattered to also catch the one right behind it, destroying the first and crippling the second. Then, I unleashed the Supa-Rokkits: The first Rokkit doesn't scatter at all, blowing the exposed Dark Eldar from the first Raider into so much red mist. The second scatters away from the injured Raider, but lands directly on the third Raider in the back, immobilizing it. My third missile flies wild, scattering past the raiders, past the building, and right into the Reavers lurking on the other side. Everyone at the table was stunned; I had crippled the Dark Eldar army on the first turn, and I wasn't even in melee yet. It was glorious.

Then came the enemies first turn. I took the brunt of everyone's firepower, as they poured everything they had into my Stompa. The Chaos player brought his Land Raider around, unleasing a barrage of lascannon shots before disgorging a squad of Nurgle Terminators. They charged in to fight the Stompa, Power Fists at the ready. I wasn't to worried; five termies versus a Stompa? I could handle it. The the assault begins: I make four attacks against the Termies, and only hit with one. I roll for damage on the one hit, and got a 1. The Termies unleash their Power Fists, hitting with all but two attacks and tearing my wounded Stompa apart with a few well-rolled Vehicle Explodes! results. I died after one turn of gameplay, but still got third place on my team due to the sheer carnage I had delivered in that magnificent shooting phase.

But what kind of Ork hits with every ranged weapon he fires but can't fight in melee to save his life?

Why mortals SUCK

Daemonettes, and Bloodletters gather round, for there is a tale about how useless mortals are. Now I've never found cultist to be a particularly good unit from my experience, as they, for me at least, even failed as a tarpit. Anyway, onto the story. It was my second game (so it was a low point game), I was playing Chaos, and was up against Tyranids, for the mission there was a single objective in the middle, worth 3VP, so of course we were both after it. On turn Six, my army had either had been shot off the board, or wrecked in combat, same for the nids, and the units I was up against were a lictor, and a brood of Horny Gaunts, and I had 24 cultists left. My cultists were charged by the lictor, and I was preparing my anus, when somehow my cultists had an epic win at overwatch, and proceeded to kill the lictor, who failed to cause a single wound, even with S6, so i guess their annoying voices threw it off? I sighed in relief and the next turn I shot the horny gaunts to pieces and charged the remaining ones. This was a mistake apparently, because the cultsits managed to kill 3 gaunts, while I lost about 6, which caused a morale check. I rolled two sixes, the single horny gaunt (I'd like to add my opponent somehow missed adding a leg before spraying it. It is now an inside joke about one-legged gaunts) sweeping advanced my 18 cultists. So I got tabled.By a SINGLE one-legged hormagaunt.

The Sound of Kakophoni

My latest Horus Heresy game featured Emperor's Children versus Iron Warirors and Thousand Sons trying to get into each other's deployment zones. On the way were the mighty Sekhmet Terminators of the Raptora Cult: 7, furstratingly hard to kill 2-wound 2+ save 3++ invuln level 2 psyker, loaded with combi-weapons, chainfists and power axes, supported by a Biomancy Preator to Enfeeble any unit sent to deal with them (including the EC Praetor and Phoenix Guard). After 3 turns of furious hand-to-hand combat, 5 Sekhmet eventually consolidated out of combat, 3 of them and their Praetor down to 1 wound.

Enter the remnants of 2 Kakophoni units, the 30k version of Noise Marines, totalling 9 men with 2 S6 AP5 Gets Hot shots each. Desperately trying to stop them from walking up to their deployment zone they open fire on the red Terminators, hoping to take away a wound or two. That's when :

a) only 6 of 18 shots hit and wound (killing 2 Kakophoni from Gets Hot), and...

b) 5 OUT OF 6 2+ ARMOUR SAVE FAIL IN SEQUENCE, leading to the death of 4 SEKHMET TERMINATORS AND A PRAETOR.

That's right : 180 pts of noisy bois took down over 400 pts of the best of the best magic Terminators in the Heresy. WITH NOISE !

Magic: 0 - Noise: 1 !

Scratching the Paint

Local club during the early years of the game which shall not be named, so battle royals were hot. Had ten players around so someone said "Fuck it, ten way battle royal match!". This player brings a first-born BT army during 8th, still new to the game. Brought plenty of tacticals and dreads. First turn takes about as long as a normal game but a dark eldar player misjudged some cover and ends with a fully loaded Raider staring down this players entire army. Had 4 kraks, missiles, assault cannons and a metric shit ton of bolter resulting in 45 3+ to hit.

Rolled 44 1s and 2s.

One bolt pistol hit and wounded the vehicle scratch some paint off before getting return fire and being wiped the next turn. Four years later the legend of that bolt pistol is often brought up as proof that no matter how bad you roll, someone out there rolls worse.