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In the many happy years I have spent wargaming, I have noticed a trend for particular models to survive countless battles and score immense victories despite all logic (and physics) suggesting otherwise.

For example, whenever I make an Ork army (or indeed a WHFB Orc & Goblin Horde) I always name the characters the same for continuity (and to spare my poor frazzled brain the harsh task of remembering new names). Now in amongst the Greenskins I always name an important character Fagburn (for 40K he's my Big Mek, in WHFB he's my Night Gobbo Shaman) cause it was a joke some of my friends had about stubbing the poor guy out.

However, Fagburn is INVINCIBLE! Seriously, he always seems to survive battles in the most ludicrous ways, always triumphs despite the odds and will either be entirely fine at the end of the battle, or scarpered off the table to fight another day.

My 40K Fagburn's Shokk Attack gun always breaks and launches the poor guy across the table, usually into combat with a horde of hungry genestealers, but he'll somehow survive. His Battl;ewagon will erupt in flames and the git will always crawl out ahead of everyone in, and his latest feat of WTF? was during a game of Apocalypse, where a Reaver went up in falmes, showering everything around it with flaming debris, killing everything around it...minus ol' Fagburn who stood around looking utterly perplexed.

And WHFB is no different. My Fanatics are always more than likely to reverse right back into Fagburn and their parent unit, tearing through the daft Gobbos who unleashed him. They all died, excluding ol' Fagburn, who we decided to give a Ld test for fun, cause how could he possibly decide to handg about? Not only did he pass with flying colours, but he succesfully escaped the Fanatics and suirvived the whole damn game.

Does anyone else have these strange, seemingly invincible models? Any tales of sheer WTFness about nature-defying acts of survival?

When I played chaos, my Lord was named Aydious the Damned. Ive used that name in video games an WoW for the evilist of evils! And he was nearly indestructible. Once, he took a battle cannon to the chest. And shrugged it off, only to rip the tank apart piece by piece.
There was a devastator squad in a bunker, 2 turns he went to the bunker taking hit after hit. NOTHING! Only to get to the bunker, blow it apart, and then kill the squad inside. Hell once, he beat a demon prince of Khorne in CC.
He was a TRUE Chaos Lord in every aspect of the word

I've got a nameless sargeant model who has still not died yet.

Keeps on falling back off the table, but hes not died!

Hey that counts man! THAT COUNTS!!!!!!!!!!

My hive tyrant had the greatest game in the beginning of the summer. Killed a squad of 20 necron warriors and a lord. Then Lived through the shooting phase taking only one wound. Then killed three heavy destroyers. Lived through another shooting phase and finished up he killed the Deciever where he died

Every time I toy around with Colonel Straken, he ends up demolishing something he shouldn't have. ie Land Raiders, a full team of Space Marines.. among my small circle of friends, it's now decided should Straken get the charge, you simply remove that unit.

I have a Deffkopta (only one out of the whole squad is lucky) that took somewhere between 8 and 10 barbed strangler hits in a single game from two carnifexes. The carnifexes failed to kill the one deffkopta all game despite the fact that any one of the hits could have instakilled it.

It's always the most unassuming of Greenskins that survive these things. Why can't our Warbosses/Gargants/Dreads be that lucky

My 3rd ED Guard JO w/ Honorifica and a PF killed Sicarius and his command squad in close combat. When I paired him with 3rd ED Yarrick, they both took out Kharne, a squad of Beserkers, and a squad of Tzeentch Termies in the same game. In another they ate Lucius and his squad. He did surprisingly well in close combat. I haven't had too much close combat with him this codex so far, though.
I don't have too many awesome survival stories, especially since there is 4+ cover everywhere. However, I tend to make quite a few 5+ saves. Once I made all 5 out of 5 I had to roll.

Buddy of mine (sn: Manstein on here) had a laspistol & Chainsword wielding Cadian Officer smoke a carnifex and a demonprince (I think).


The most amazing thing I have is a force of:
5 Blasters
14 Dark lances

That fail to even put scratches on space marine vehicles.

WGXH wrote:Every time I toy around with Colonel Straken, he ends up demolishing something he shouldn't have. ie Land Raiders, a full team of Space Marines.. among my small circle of friends, it's now decided should Straken get the charge, you simply remove that unit.

Ditto - the dude is a beast.

I can't believe nobody brought up the Marbo....

Mekboss Kogtoof. He once had his trukk wrecked and the rest of his squad killed by an executioner tank. He goes on to kill a command squad holding the opponents objective, then blow up a valkerie. He turned a draw into a win. Next game he ran over a wraithlord. With a trukk. He then survived its destruction at the hands of a unit of fire dragons and beat them to death.

madmen wrote:

WGXH wrote:Every time I toy around with Colonel Straken, he ends up demolishing something he shouldn't have. ie Land Raiders, a full team of Space Marines.. among my small circle of friends, it's now decided should Straken get the charge, you simply remove that unit.

Ditto - the dude is a beast.

Says the guy with Straken as his Avatar . But i concur. I have had similar results with Straken. So far he has faced and killed Plague Marines, An Eldar Autarch, two Carnifexes, a Hive Tyrant and some miscellaneous lesser foes . I DID NOT want most of these "duels" but some strange twist of fate always causes him to face my opponents biggest monsters. Go figure. But the men and women of my Regiment worship him! He truly personifies the idea of leading by example

I have a firewarrior shas'ui team leader painted black with a yellow helmet and yellow highlights, with a big "B" painted on his base, lovingly named "Bumblebee" by my wife.

He and the 5 man squad he's attached to have a thing for being assaulted by lictors who pop up out of nowhere. His current record: 3 wins, 0 losses.

This is needing 5+ to hit and 6+ to wound (if I remember correctly) against a lictor with....I don't remember their armor save. Some combination of magic makes me pass armor saves and get hits while the lictor fails armor saves.

I also have a pink nob (thus far unnamed) who won me a minor victory in a test 'Ard Boyz game against mechanized IG by surviving about 1,500 points worth of firepower directed at him (4+ cover save) to deny my opponent a last turn killpoint. Between my opponent rolling 1s, 2s, and 3s to miss, and failing to wound, and my cover saves, he lived through the entire thing. All the big stuff was directed at him too, which saved my opponent killing one of my trukks for the KP.

I too had a Chaos Lord, with Mark of Nurgle, Daemon Weapon and a jump pack. His name was Cannerus the Unbearable (big shocker). He's survived being stuck in with a full squad of Ork Boyz and half another, each with Nobz, over 4 turns. He only killed about 7 of them because he kept horribly whiffing, but the game ended with this sea of green surrounding one little point of green. One time he killed the Night bringer too, though it was entirely the opponent's fault.

I have a sternguard sergeant that has killed oh, I don't know, perhaps 5,000 pts worth of tanks, ICs, MCs, etc in the last year...last game I played his squad got harassed by a large squad of boyz (20 i think) and a power klaw weilding nob. he was alone, the rest of his squad had died previously, and i'm in assault. I save all the boyz attacks, and the nob hits all four times but rolls four ones to wound. WIN!
Of course, he died next turn but by then my entire army had surrounded the squad and shot it down with fresh steaming overkill.

One more from me, not as impressive but I think it counts. Maybe more of a WTF moment:

Ghaz and his boyz hit the ground running. My buddy proceeds to pull up next to them with a trukk full of burna Boyz. Next thing I know I'm up to fifty something hits, then he rolls for wounds: 25 not that awesome considering the VoF, granted I was still weary. I then move on to save everything on a 5+ Cybork and a 4+ FNP.

After much anguish he proceeds to waste three nobs with a big shoota and a boyz mob down to roughly 5 guys.

the Avatar will not die. He is awesome.

My emporer's champion destroyed a 20 man boys squad then went on to destroy a battlewagon not bad for 90 pts! He has also defeated a cc carni in cc by himself and a broodlord has even felt his wrath and was defeated in cc!

Brother-Sergeant Harklem, leader of the 4th Tactical Squad, 2nd Company, Ultramarines. Known as 'The Iron One' and wileder of the Power Sword 'Berzerker's Bane'. Plasma Cannon, Lascannon and Multi-Melta. After that I decided to see how many Berzerkers he could kill. He defeated 20 of them in single combat (killed one after the other, including the Champion).

And this is back in 2nd Ed, so beating that many Berzerkers is a big deal.

Easily my best example of a guy who would not die.


[EDIT]: No wait, two others.

Playing a 4-player Carnage game. I'm playing Marines, my opponents are Dark Angels, Eldar and Tau. I decide to ignore the mission objective, make a non-aggression pact with the Dark Angel player, and swear to kill as many Tau as I possibly can. Of the 2500 points they had on the table by the time the game ends they have 5 models standing. But how did the killing spree start? With my Emperor's Champion. He and his unit races into combat with the Tau front line (Kroot). I challenge the Shaper, kill him with my Black Sword, and the Kroot run. As my last act of the game several turns later, my Emperor's Champion finally manages to catch up with the final Kroot (that was still running), taking him down. Meanwhile the rest of my army has demolisher the Tau. I was very happy with that Emperor's Champion - he started the fight, and he finished it.

And the other one was just a "You've got to be fething kidding me!!!" moment. It was a 2000+ point game using the Ulthwe Strike Force (a variant Eldar list in a time before Jervis declared that all armies should be generic). I was playing Guard, and as part of my army I had taken a Callidus Assassin. Now I'd used the Callidus before, and she was a useful tool to have to scare opponents and generally keep people on edge. But this Callidus must've been blessed with the Emperor.

To make a long story short my Guard army didn't do any of the fighting that day. I think I maybe damaged a War Walker with some Autocannon fire and lost about half a squad to return fire but that's all my Guard did that day. They never got a chance to fight because the Callidus did it for them, holding off and containing the entire Eldar army for the whole game. And it wasn't a case of her getting lucky and killing the model with the webway gate - she quite literally took on the whole army, flaming Vypers and War Walkers in one shot, stunning and shaking the lot of them before charging Guardian squads, killing a bunch, leaping out of combat, charging other units and so on. This went on for the whole game, and she took one wound (kick from a War Walker that charged her). A single 120 point model held off a 2000 point Eldar army. It was just amazing.

This was one of my first games, tau vs SM, 750 points, both of us using lots of proxies.

He had destroyed all my vehicles, and assaulted my fire warrior squad with his full tac squad w/ power weapon.

My fire warriors won by 2, and he fled, lost the entire unit.

It was glorious.

Bob Thraka. Originally had a squad of 30 boyz, but was whittled down to a motley crue of 9 boyz. Then the GK Termies came and assaulted out of a LR I'd popped the previous round. Walked into assault and merc'd three of them. Lost 4 boyz in that assault, so in retribution he ran up to a venerable dreadnaught (immobilized and down a gun) and finished it off. The next turn ended the game, and began the legend of Bob Thraka.

In a Cityfight my 3rd ed Guard against Chaos... My Command squad lost battle with a dread but evade him deeper in the building. The dread sits at the edge of the building ready to assault again and crush the poor hummies inside. Enter my retreating stormtrooper w/ plasmagun who rapid fires at the dread and immobillises it 9" from the objective and a safe distance from my fragile HQ.
That same Stormtrroper had previously bayionetted a DP of slaanesh before running like hell itself was chasing him

Venerable Dread-No so inexplcable BUT against Carnifex,Daemon Prince,Soul Grider,Bloodthirster can not be killed,and he should be.. loong time ago.An Hammer head.Broadsides can not pentrate it...

The thing is..he does not do much on the table...BUT he just does not die.even when it's hit in the Rear armour.U sually do no penetrate him..and if you do...when you rerol...he's ok

Anyway...he has a chnce of being immortal..but still

Iv got 3:

My scout sarg, who back in the day of 3rd edition held off a bloodthrister greater daemon for 5 rounds. He never did die. He also stood up to a Goff stompa, the dang thing kept missing him.

A (now) venerable dreadnought with a twin linked lascannon destroyed 2 baneblades, 2 leman russes, and 3 basilisks with a single shot. Hurray 6's on the structure table!

A single lone marine, Brother Nam, a robed, bolter carrying squad member of the 3rd companies 2nd squad, has never died. Hes gone up against everything imaginable, every special character, every huge monster, every weapon that should kill him outright, and hes walked (or in some cases run) away. The most impressive feat was when his squad was assaulted by a Deceiver, and wiped them all out save for him. And brave little Nam took the last wound from the C'Tan, and walked away from the death blast.
He looks radically different from the rest of my army, as I didn't want to strip off any of the luck he had in that little metal robed body of his.

I have this one when a sergeant of mine in a chimera pulled up alongside a chaos lord on a bike (coolest chaos conversion I'd ever seen btw) and shot the crap out of him but the flashlights did nothing, so I charged to get the drop on him. That lord was destructive and kept killing guardsmen, but that sergeant just stood there and kept fighting. He was actually the last model in the unit and he was still in the thick of it. He killed that lord and survived to keep fighting. Not only that but he then proceeded to watch the rest of the army slaughtered including a tank blown apart, the chimera nearly following, and the rest of the line fall to pieces. He still stood and kept shooting. He is going to be my veteran sergeant if I ever make a squad. He will also be getting a shiny greenstuff metal.

Deffkopta - Luckiest - A single kopta outflanked a 3 man squad of broadsides dealing one wound with the buzzsaw. No wounds were returned. Failed leadership lost initiative test. Were sweeped by 70 points.

Big Mek SAG - Unluckiest - I have snake eyed with this guy three times in a row so far. The only saving grace is he never went alone always took someone with unfortunately was another unit of mine

I just now finished a game where I used Prince Yriel. That guy was amazing. Over the course of 4 turns, he pretty much single-handedly took out 10 Necron Immortals, 3 Necron Heavy Destroyers, 10 Necron Warriors, and a Necron Lord. All the while taking the fire of said immortals, warriors, and lord.

I have a PK boyz nob that not only seems to always end up the last remaining model in the mob but has killed my wierdboy i believe 3 times to stay in the game, once charging an immobilized razorback to give me the last KP i needed to win.

Edit: An interesting side note, that wierdboy gets killed so much its not even funny, five games in a row, he got a krak missle to the chest, as i said he's been beaten down several times to keep a lone nob in the game, and he is in almost all cases useless in an assault, basically he is the opposite of what the op wanted examples of.