Tales of victory

Come!, gather around the fire and speak of triumph and hardships that you prevailed through. Sing songs of victory and success!

Come share your stories of quest completed and trials taken.

Alright, I've got one.

Me, a bro and two other friends were playing a deathwatch game. I was playing as a White Scar tactical, the bro was an Imperial Fist devastator, the other two dudes were playing a Salamander librarian and a Storm Warden techmarine. We were at rank 1, and being sent by our inquisitor to a sister of battle convent currently under attack by the Dark Eldar.

Our first encounter was rough, largely because a tremendous fuck up ocurred - we landed next to the outer courtyard of the convent, barging through the gates to find a battle in full swing. We slaughtered the dark eldar warriors there, turning to regard the approaching horde. The librarian succeeded in wiping the horde away with his powers, and as some dark eldar monstrosity loomed in the distance... communications failed. Whilst I was giddy with the thought of using the strongpoint defensive pattern, the Salamander player deigned to charge the thing without informing any of us, whilst the Imperial Fist (and myself) forget that their heavy bolter was loaded with metal storm.

We managed to righteous fury the beast and the librarian, forcing him to burn fate to survive.

I'd be lying if I said the atmosphere didn't suddenly get frigid between Sally and the 'Fist - but hey, at least we're roleplaying a bunch of child-soldiers that have never fought together before, right?

Let's get to the glorious part. After mopping up the gate crashers, we proceeded inside with the few sisters still alive, suggesting they hole up in their medicae center to tend to the wounds of the fallen and ourselves before we proceeded.

We eventually came to a sealed door, shielded off. We didn't know how to deactivate it. Sally tried using his spit on it, to no effect - and then we heard screams within the room. Sally got out his force sword and started hacking at the wall next to the door, carving bits of rock away. He had the right idea!

'Fist decided to level his heavy bolter at the Sally's progress, suggesting he stand aside. Sally obliged (though with ill grace - he had suffered a lot in the previous session, and was rolling ass in this session), and the 'Fist proceeded to rip apart the wall with a volley of heavy bolter fire.

I feel I should point out that our Storm Warden player didn't turn up, so we were down a marine when the breach was made. The masonry of the wall vanished, churned apart by the bolts, our vision obscured by stone dust and bad angles into the room. I dithered, and as I contemplated our plan of attack, a hallucinogen grenade flicked out at us. The 'Fist shot it in midair with his bolt pistol, I dodged out of the cloud, Sally got a face full of it - but it had no effect, on account of us being space marines.

Sally's player has had enough, and as I'm about to roll my 'Assault' tactics, he shouts 'I'm charging in!'

I'm knocked off balance by the outburst, and ask 'wait, are you sure?'

'YES!' He shouts again. He's pissed. There's not much I can do, and me and the 'Fist watch as the GM allows him to charge in through the smoke... into a room full of waiting dark eldar, complete with a pack of beasts and their driver, with their victims tied upon an altar to the Emperor.

>tfw he gets one-shotted

I'm down two marines, my devastator has no angle of attack, the enemy is widely spaced enough for grenades to not work. My bro suggests that we could rush in, pick up Sally and run, but that's leaving the sisters to die and making us look decidedly unheroic. If we want to save Sally AND the sisters, we have to go in with blades and pistols.

So we begin the combat that I'm 100% sure I'm not going to enjoy or survive.

It wasn't a bad beginning, though. The Dark eldar had spent all of their initiative fucking our Sally up, we had a full compliment of fate points each, and we both had our demeanours.

This was my first time playing Deathwatch, and our GM has probably spoilt us with how powerful they are, but my god do I love demeanours now.

So I quickly tell my bro to trust me, and hand the 'fist my character's tulwar. Now, the tulwar is a chapter trapping, so I imagine I was breaking a lot of chapter rules in allowing a non-Scar to wield the weapon.

In that moment, it saved our bacon, and is now one of the many reasons (grorious culture, manuever warfare, badass noble barbarian marines that aren't space wolves) why I always pick White Scars. It is a weapon that allows you to use the Defensive Stance, -and- continue attacking with it. The GM had allowed me to give it the mono upgrade, on the justification that even the Dark Angel's ceremonial sword is non-primitive.

Now, pairing this up with an imperial fist (brave) devastator (strong and tough) and a talent my bro picked up called Stalwart Defense (use a fate point to become obnoxiously hard to kill), means that the Imperial fist was harder to hit, parrying every strike coming his way, reducing any damage that got through his guard AND attacking all the while due to the Tulwar.

One half action down, I then use the other half action to trigger my demeanour - due to his choleric and desperate-to-win disposition, with his command failing all around him, he tapped into his feral spirit and the GM allowed me to enter frenzy, despite my not having the talent.

The 'Fist stood his ground over Sally with tulwar and bolt-pistol and absorbed the charge of the dark eldar's hunting beasts, and my Scar counter-charged, lashing out with chainsword and his own fists.

The 'Fist warded off the big stuff, I chopped up the little stuff - then the beast master came to the fore.

>[
marvelous tale so far! keep going!

Second

Before either of us could do anything, the beastmaster's trident thrusts down into Sally's body, killing him and putting his player in the awkward position of 'do you want to burn another fate point, or...'. Sally's player leaves with ill-grace. Anyway.

Splinter weaponry is still pattering off of our armour as the beast master goes right for the 'fist, gouging the trident deep into an armour join somewhere. 'Fist takes a lot of damage.

To my alarm, my bro abandons his defensive action. I ask them what they're doing.

'I'm going to shoot her in the face'.

Before I can control-freak out, they roll. It's a hit. Failed dodge. Roll for damage. 10, 10, 10, 7.

Holy fuck, praise Tearing.

The beast master's smug expression caves in before her head bursts as the bolt shell explodes.

My bro then says to the GM 'I want to use my demeanour to be even tougher', extolling on the virtues of the stoic and unmoveable force of the Imperial Fists. The GM says no.

Instead, the GM says 'if you'd like, you can count as Fear (2) for these beasts, after killing their mistress so viciously'.

It seems like our GM wanted us to win as much as we did. So the beasts lose control, half of them rushing and attacking the other dark eldar still shooting at us from the perimeter of the room, but a few clawed fiends were keen to kill myself and the 'Fist. We were starting to run out of fate points and wounds due to lucky blows - and then Storm Warden player finally turns up.

The tide turns, and the battle is won, and it's my favourite because

A) It was damn close, fighting at half-strength in an encounter built to challenge a full party
and
B) Me and bro'fist got a fate point for our efforts, the only time!

Me and my bro congratulated one another on the exploits of Temujin (Yeah, I wasn't very original) and Pontius Hawke.

If you'd like, I can continue to the end of the adventure? 'From the jaws of defeat' is pretty par for this course

continue onward battle brother! hopefully others will add their tales to yours!

With any luck - and sure thing, onwards we go, I'll try to remember it in correct order.

At this stage, Temujin and the rest of the team are mourning their fallen brother and checking over the injured sisters when one lone sister of battle reinforces us, whilst the dark eldar survivors had fled upwards into the rafters of the room.

Turns out bro'fist had bought the Follower talent. I ask her to guard the wounded whilst we clean out the rest of the convent, leaving her an astartes frag grenade in case things get particularly spicy.

We proceed on into what looked to be an SoB armoury. Supplies were limited, but I managed to 'acquire' some low grade smoke grenades - and boy, do they come in useful later.

After cleaning out the armoury, we hear a 'krump' behind us. At this point, all three of us remember about the whole 'dark eldar in the rafters' deal - they'd never left the room, and had clambered back down after we'd left. For some reason, I'd thought that the rooms of the convent had the rafters connecting everything, but pathetic excuses aside...

We found the sister of battle, wounded but alive, dark eldar mutilated by shrapnel. The GM tells me mid-explanation that 'she rolled unbelievably well, and that grenade you left her... wow.' Eventually, the wounded get transported back to the medicae, whilst the Sally's body is hidden away in a secret reliquary whilst we continue.

Sally's player is back, and he rolled up a Raven Guard. I'm normally up for playing on IC rivalries, but this guy's been having a rough time.

We move on with the sister in tow, with her helpfully pointing out we're entering the library now. Walls of books, shelves - and as we enter the narrow passageways, we see long black linkage suspending sisters in the air, with electronic cabling that trails the rafters out of sight.

Ohdear.

At this point, the Storm Warden decides now is a good time to consult the auspex to see who else is in the room.

"I've got eight hard returns, one closing fast-"

Before we have anything to say, our pointman, the Raven, takes a wych weapon stab from above. Pontius tracks her with his heavy bolter, but the wych nimbly jumps away onto another bookcase before dropping out of sight.

Hastily, I order Pontius to observe our the left passageway whilst the Raven observes the right, with me and the Storm Warden waiting in the center to shoot up at anyone trying to ambush us, all whilst the sister babbles 'not to damage the books'.

Raven dodges one of the wyches and fouls his reaction, Pontius gets wounded and misses, me and the Storm Warden see nothing, but the Warden insists there's one a meter in front of us.

A smirk pulls at my mouth as I ask Storm Warden player 'say, _______, you picked up Thunder Charge, didn't you?'

I can hear the smile in his voice when he tells me so. Inspired, he tells the GM what he plans to do.

In a blast of dessicated paper, splintering wood and highland fury, the Storm Warden barrelled through the book case and struck the incredibly surprised wych down with a sweep of his claymore.

Meanwhile, Pontius, still smarting, told the GM that he was going to target a location - the bookcase that his wych had dropped behind.

'Uhhh you sure that's not a sister?' I ask, eyes wide and worried for how it's going to look on the report if we paste an ally. My bro asks me to trust him, so I relent.

Pontius full autos, we hear a female shriek, I wince and hope. Silence.

We make our way over, and to my relief, we find wych bits everywhere, and realise the sisters are being drained of life energy by the machine in the center of the roof. As we started to wonder where the third wych was (and our Storm Warden set to disabling the machine draining the sisters of their vitae), the sister yelped, and we turned to see a curved blade at her throat.

I can't even remember -how- the wych gets disarmed. It could've been a crack shot from the Raven or Pontius' bolt pistol, but either way, the dark eldar loses her hand, but not before envenoming our pet sister. Clutching her ruined stump, she backs into a book case as Temujin approaches her, his tulwar unsheathed.

"Wait, don't kill me!" The wych bleats, "I'm of use to you!"

The conversation is short. The wych begs for her safety, saying she is important to their masters.

Temujin doesn't have scrutiny, but I believe her, and I wrestle with what my character would do. Would he deign to grant an alien amnesty in exchange for useful information or a bargaining chip? Or would he show the Dark Eldar that their actions have consequences, that promises and threats can't possibly avoid?

Temujin ask her to tell him where her lord is. She tells him.
"You have my thanks," Temujin states woodenly, gripping the tulwar and raising it.
"No, you-"
Temujin makes it quick and clean. I need to ask my GM one of these days who she was. Was she the daughter of the dark eldar lord? A wife? A concubine?

The rough location of the dark eldar is known, now. The team moves on, after depositing their wounded sister back at the medicae center.

Now, when I mentioned the whole 'jaws from defeat' thing...

god now I want to play death watch really badly

We start the encounter in a particularly bad place.

We make our way to the Dark Eldar's impromptu landing ground, and by some miracle we aren't spotted. We see a group of SoB novices in robes being corralled onto one of two dark eldar vessels, a prison barge, overseen by the archon, Tyran Gaul, and a group of conquered Sisters of Battle. I can't rightly remember why the SoB were obeying him. Enslavers might be it, or some other dark eldar creature.

Now, my first mistake? I did not roll Tactics (Assault) or prepare to call a squad mode. I'll put my hand up and say my plan equated to nothing more than 'Pontius, use this surprise round to cripple the barge'.
The few dark eldar warriors fired ineffectually in return, the enslaved SoB (two seraphim, a multi-melta gunner and a cannoness, THE CANONNESS WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE) rose to attack us, and finally, the archaon, denied his stage to speak to us, shrugged, and began to run towards us.

I regretted not making Gaul the priority.

Shit went bad, fast. My bro dodged a shot from something, and when asked by the GM which direction Pontius dodges in, dodges out of cover.

And then eats a multi-melta cannon blast.

My jaw falls open. My bro, my friend who has the big gun, has been knocked below half health.

Temujin gets locked in close quarters with a seraphim and the cannoness, doing his best to pull his blows - they can't kill him with their equipment, but it's taking far too long to knock them out.

The Storm Warden has waded into the dark eldar horde, his claymore smashing corpses aside.

Now it was the Raven's player to mess up, ignoring all combat and going to the boxes around the place, asking the GM 'what's in this box?', even as a seraphim tries to fry him with her melta pistols.

I 'wat' and move on, as Pontius levels his heavy bolter at Gaul. He lands many shots, but Gaul's shield lights up as the bolts stop dead. He's still running. Right at Pontius-

And runs him through with a glowing sword. Pontius burns fate, and collapses.

Two marines tarpitted, one marine dossing off in a corner, our strongest hitter is fucking dead.

I like to think I've mellowed out in the past few years, but holy fuck was I tilted by the actions of myself AND the rest of the team.

I hurriedly ask the Storm Warden player 'all out defense? I can throw you smoke'. He agrees. I throw as the archaon bears down on us as we fight back to back. The archaon parries Temujin's tulwar effortlessly, and counter-attacks, only for the balance of the Chogorian blade to save my marine from death. He moves on to the Storm Warden, and parries his 'all out attack'-
Wait-
No! I said-
I said 'all out defense'. I mentally berated myself for confusing the Storm Warden.

Now, we've established, I'm angry. I'm not happy with losing this kind of game. We are the heroes. -We are the heroes-, I repeat to myself as the Storm Warden gets killed by the archaon in single combat in a single round. Luckily, it's not my turn. I can calm down. I can rally. I'm still alive.

I have a demeanour.
I have a demeanour!

The other players aren't as experienced in this game. They're asking the GM questions, buying me time as I quickly whip up a speech lightning fast. Eventually, it's my turn, and with a hobbyist's enthusiasm for heroic speeches and an immature rage fuelling it, I tell my GM that I'm going to step out of combat and make an appeal.

"To the team?" The GM asks.
"To the sisters." I reply. He makes a noise of surprise. With my actions and my demeanour. It went something like this, and my entitled rage had me speaking at a bellow:

"SISTERS! ARE YOU NOT SERVANTS OF THE THRONE, YET YOU ARE TREATED LIKE CHATTEL?! WILL YOU BE DIE IN AGONY IN THE NIGHTMARE CITY?! OR WILL YOU RISE UP, AND FIGHT?!"

There were perhaps six or seven armed dark eldar warriors corralling thirty, forty unarmed subdued sisters that might be roused to suicidal bravery.

One of the xenos warriors is dragged down, hammered down by shrieking women before his weapon is torn from him.

With savage glee, I assume a defensive action as the archaon is lost in the smoke. I don't fancy my chances, but the session ends, so I know I'll be able to meet him with one last demeanour next week.

Next weekend rolls around, and the battle begins with sweet, wonderful words from my bro'fist.

"I'd like to use my demeanour, GM."

Storm Warden player isn't here, his schedule won't allow it. Raven player either wasn't here, or was still screaming 'what's in the boooooooox'.

But it didn't matter. Pontius Hawke would not let Temujin stand alone. Like the siege of Terra, the herald of Dorn would share the battlefield with the son of the Khan once more!

The GM began the session from Pontius' perspective as he forced himself back to a knee, dragging the heavy bolter to his body.

The 'horde' of sisters I wrangled up charged dark eldar warriors and enslaved sisters, slaughtering the former and subduing the latter. Temujin, constantly on edge, defensive action'd until the smoke cleared... and Gaul was gone. Perhaps half a minute into the fight, we saw a black shadowy thing blast overhead, and Pontius tried to shoot it. We didn't know it yet, but that had been Gaul's escape vehicle. We had damaged his prospects of a successful raid to such an extent that he would not risk his own life (and with the sister horde, perhaps he was wise to).

One last problem was the cannoness, still enslaved, pressing her own bolt pistol to her chin. I do not understand the logic of the enslaver, but it reckoned if it was dead anyway, it may as well guarentee the cannoness dies too. Pontius Hawke, not to be fucked with, readied his bolt-pistol as I tried to draw its attention. I succeeded, Pontius lucks out and strikes true, depriving the cannoness of her bolt pistol. We dog-pile her, and... well, that was the mission succeeded!

Our GM discontinued this game, because he and we both forgot what we were investigating in a DH tie-in game being run alongside... but hey, maybe I can convince him to bring back Temujin, Pontius Hawke and Gaul for another game, perhaps with a more imaginative white scar name. With the kill-team's honour besmirched and the archon deprived of a hunting party (and possibly a female relative/advisor/love interest), I could see them gunning for each other again.

fantastic story battle brother! thank you for sharing.

A 20 strong mob of genestealers and a broodlord approached my guardians and dire avengers from the front, while a trygon and brood of warriors came in from the rear.
Failing their charge rolls, the warriors and trygon watched while the genestealers slaughtered the poor eldar.

My wave serpent and it's passengers could try out-running the swarm, but that would mean breaking cover and heading into the firing line of a tyrannofex. Rather than risk being destroyed by a foe they couldn't strike at, the 10 fire dragons and Fuegan disembarked. Using the terrain and the wave serpent to shield the squad from a charge, the fire dragons opened fire on the warriors. Only one fell tyranid warrior fell to the fire. Fuegan himself annihilated the overly eager broodlord with his fire pike.

With the wave serpent in the way, the tyranids charged it, hoping to clear the barricade, only to find their attacks ineffective. The trygon itself took two wounds from colliding with the vehicle.

The fire dragons were running out of options at this point. The wave serpent broke off the engagement and re-positioned to bring its guns to bear. With the way clear, the fire dragons opened up on the trygon and crippled it. Fuegan opted to charge the remaining genestealers and warriors.

While Fuegan battled the trygon made for the aspect warriors. Weakened from its wounds, it was unable to strike the fire dragons and was promptly put down. As trygon fell, Fuegan was wounded, but battled through his injuries, slaying a total of 4 genestealers and 3 tyranid warriors!

With the swarm dealt with the tyrannofex charging through the streets was their final foe. Without synapse guidance it was distracted by a squad of rangers, who successfully baited it while the fire dragons advanced and cleansed it.

Probably the biggest 180 I've seen a game take.

Fuccan saved. What I wanted from this thread, 10/10.

ha ha another glorious tale of changing fates, exactly what I wanted to see from this thread! you sir have earned my thanks for adding to this thread.