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It can be good or bad, so long as it's something that would look cool if the game were adapted into a story or movie. Describe how it happened on the tabletop, and how you picture it happening in a movie.

Once, on the first round, one of my archons (a female model) was targeted by an eldar sniper character. It was only a single shot... but it broke straight through her non-rerollable 2++ shadowfield, causing her to lose her invul save for the rest of the game. Frustrating! But on my very next turn, my Voidraven bomber zipped past the archon, brought its void lances within point-blank range of the sniper (because of 8th Ed character-targeting rules), and vaporized him.

How I pictured it: the archon is outraged, just outraged to have been targeted. It has been a while since anyone has made her bleed. She glares up at the sniper in the ruined building ahead and, through her vox unit, snarls at the nearest pilot to take out that son of a b!tch. Which he proceeds to do, with the perfection expected of any servant of the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose. The archon utters a satisfied snort, then returns to the business of driving her warriors forward.

.

I had a shadowseer with a couple of warlocks beside her try and smite my Exalted flamer that was in melee with her. She peril'd died from the mortals, exploded and killed both warlocks and my Exalted flamer.

Back in 2nd edition dramatic/cinematic things happened all the time, especially if Orks were involved. Vehicles losing control and veering off at random directions, deep striking units scattering onto other units, vortex grenades moving back towards the thrower, terror-causing demons and monsters causing troops to run in fear, and other crazy stuff.

Later editions toned down the dramatic stuff but still kept some random elements (ex. vehicle damage tables; leadership tests actually meaning something). Today's game (8th/9th) is much too clinical in my opinion, with very little random elements to create unexpected dramatic/cinematic events.

 Gnarlly wrote:
Back in 2nd edition dramatic/cinematic things happened all the time, especially if Orks were involved. Vehicles losing control and veering off at random directions, deep striking units scattering onto other units, vortex grenades moving back towards the thrower, terror-causing demons and monsters causing troops to run in fear, and other crazy stuff.

I'd say chaos alone does not equal dramatic or cinematic. Though it can make things hilarious.

Your own grenade blowing up in your face = hilarious, but not dramatic. A squad of guardsmen sitting an objective, being targeted by a hail of gunfire that should by all rights wipe them all out three times over, and one guy managing to survive against all odds and pass his morale test... Now that's dramatic.

.

One of my first apoc games, the opposing team tried to drop a salvo of ork roks on a warhound titan.

They missed by 4-5 feet with each marker, each in the same direction and all but wiped out the entire sisters of battle formation in the first turn.

The lone remaining exorcist went on to live a charmed life causing an apocalyptic explosion on a skullhamma full of nobz surrounded by a dred mob, later killing the warboss himself.

Single Custodian took on 5 Paladins who charged in, took them all out in CC without losing a single wound, thanks to Avenge the Fallen, Piercing Strike and a fair bit of luck on the damage rolls.

Back in 3rd Ed. we had a team game where an enemy dreadnaught was threatening to seize the deciding objective from a small tactical squad. My chaplain broke off and faced the dread one-on-one with the scant hope his invulnerable save could keep him alive long enough to stall oncoming machine. However, a hit with his plasma pistol both penetrated and destroyed the menace in story book fashion so the battle was won!

I managed to do a hail mary and have eldrad ulthran tank and roll up an entire tau flank with psychic, shooting and CC on his own. Killing two units of stealth suits, 15+ fire warriors and eventually tagging the broadside gunline sealing the game. Once he made it past the overwatch my opponent just sagged.

A 5 man team of Wolf Scouts blowing up an enemy Rhino with Melta Bombs and then killing all 10 of the occupants in close combat while only losing one of their own.

In recent memory.....at the 1:09:30 mark of the following video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om51IyUSIUw&t=260s

Tyranid assault phase begins on my Ravenwing. The Dark Talon puts a Carnifex down to 1 wound in Overwatch, plus another Carnifex on 1 wound kills a biker and closes in too, and his warlord (zoanthrope) is also on 1 wound. Old One Eye stomps in, tears down the hovering Dark Talon. As the plane is going down, the Ravenwing pilot sets the Rift cannon to detonate (he rolls a 6 for destruction), killing 2 carnifexes and his warlord in the resulting explosion. The Silver Talon was awarded to him posthumously.

I had a game in 8th where I was playing Eldar and dark eldar added together, and I had a unit of storm guardians and a unit of kabalite warriors both knocked down to a single guy - the fusion gunner and the blaster from the kabalite squad.

on turn 2, turn 3, turn 4, and turn 5 of the game, the buddy-cop duo who we started calling 'shadow and storm' destroyed some major target in the opposing army, and they took absolutely ABSURD firepower without going down. on turn 4, storm took and saved 3 6+ saving throws from an assault cannon, and on turn 5, when Storm was finally killed, Shadow took 5 unsaved wounds from a lascannon shot and saved them all on his 6+ feel no pain, then returned fire with his blaster to finish off the razorback that had shot him.

obviously, after they survived the firepower that took their squads down turn 1 and took down a dreadnought turn 2, I started making sure to try and fire them at something when it was wounded enough to destroy, so I was at least partially manufacturing their exploits, and I think my opponent purposefully didnt shoot them turn 3 because it was so hilarious that they'd managed to kill a dreadnought and then a storm shield captain back to back, but he was earnestly trying to get rid of them by turn 4.

Ten Adeptus Arbites (Witch Hunter dex) tar pitting a daemon Prince so that the Palatine and her Celestians could get to the church.

Then when the got there, they ended up being ambushed by a Warboss and his Boyz; the Celestians held off the Orks just long enough for the Palatine to retrieve Saint Katherine's shield from beneath the Altar.

Two Arbites actually survived the fight. All ten Celestians were Martyred.

Note: Imagine the joy I felt when more than 10 years later, they finally made a model carrying Saint Katherine's shield! I'm magnetizing my Triumph so that I can use her as a solo model.

When Vespids first came out however many editions ago, in the first game I played with the new Tau codex I fielded a squad of Vespid against an Imperial Fists army. In the opening turns of the battle, the Fists thinned the squad down from full size to 2 Vespids + Strainleader. The remnants of the squad then shot at the offending unit, killing 2/5, charged them killing the remaining 3 devastators in melee, who in the process took down the two remaining Vespid grunts, leaving the Strain leader on his own. The Strain leader went on to have his revenge, killing a number of marine grunts, soloing a Space Marine Captain in close combat, and then tarpitting a Dreadnought for 3 turns in close combat. That Strain Leader made his and the entire squads points back on his own. After that, the unit never did anything noteworthy in any of my future games with them and just proved themselves to be a waste of points, but that first game was EPIC.

Another game that was similarly cinematic was with my Necron army (back when they could phase out) vs. a friends Eldar. I had never (and to this day still have never) beat him in a game, but this one we fought eachother to a stalemate and it looked like I had a distinct possibility of winning. It came down to the final turn of the game, I had control of the necessary objectives and most of his army was in tatters, so it would come down to whether he could dislodge me. His army tried its hardest but my undead metal skeletons were shrugging off most of what he could throw at me. It came down to the final round of close combat of the game - he had charged a squad of my warriors with one of his last intact units (IIRC it was a squad of guardians led by a Farseer), he needed to kill one of my warriors to trigger phaseout. If I phased, he won, if I held, I didn't. Weapons were raised, blows were exchanged, and in a blinding flash of sickly green light, the skeletal metal warriors had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared....

the lost made me feel like gak and I hate that it basically boiled down to literally one dice roll to see if We'll Be Back would trigger, but it was definitely a cinematic moment.

Mine was in 6th when terrain rules were still brand new and I was running an Aegis Defense Line with a Quad-Autocannon, automated shooting because I wasn't gonna waste a squad on sitting around with it.

So, I got first turn so I shot the autocannons at a squadron of warwalkers that my opponent had on his front line surrounded by two squads of guardians with heavy weapon platforms. 5+ tohit, three hits, three penetrating hits, three 6's, all three warwalkers explode into the guardians causing enough causalities that they failed moral and because of eldar speed and the footprint of that many guardians both squads ran off the board.

I found it hilarious because the amount of 6's rolled was just absurd in the sequence of events, my opponent was more than a little salty and sold his eldar army after that game. He had a habit of selling armies that he lost with and buying new ones every month.

Had a Chaos Knight of Khorne rampage across the table, get into combat with another Chaos Knight, precede to hit it to low hull points, die to said Knight, blow up and kill the enemy Knight who also blew up.
*puts on sunglasses*

My Salamanders Vs my buddy's index Ooml Sororitas in 8th.

Exorcists + a knight with a ton of seraphim went first
I whiffed hard T1 but made almost all my saves, he didn't do jack so T1 was lame....
Exorcists Smoked half my army T2,
Knight charged & stomped the wounded LR full of tartaros which exploded(only PF/Plasma pistol LT riding along survived) taking out the remaining wounds on my Redemptor(which exploded) & evaporating 2 intercessor squads.
MM Relic Contemptor bracketed knight in shooting
Lt overcharged Plasma pistol, hitcharged the knight in the ensuing phase punched & wounded, knight failed. Charged in hit with everything, knocked remaining wounds off of it, Knight went boom.

Best visual ever! Both armies fully painted on beautiful terrain can make for some epicness.

4th edition
I was running my Ripper Horde Nid list. Super Rippers, 6 full units, 3 full units of winged Rippers, everything with adrenal glands and toxin sacs, some Broodnests back when the had FW rules, and a Malanthrope.
The entire point of the list was to force a draw, and I was able to do it more often than not.
But!
My very first win came down to a squad of Rippers in melee with a Carnifex. I kept it locked almost all game and whittled it down, but it was the last turn, and it all came down to my last fight, one base left, at one wound, the Carnifex was at 1 as well, and I did it!
Literally one of the handful of wins the list ever had, but an amazing first!

early 7th ed.

Bloodthirster, battered with only one wound remaining, stares down a whole ork army (with at least two units of loots and two truks), takes an entire round of shooting and survives, charges big armour 14 vehicle and kills it then dies to its explosion.

Similarly, next game it gets down to an ork weird boy with 2 attacks with a force weapon. He misses one, needed a 5 to hit and a 6 to wound. I failed the save and as it had ID, it 1-shotted the bloodthirster. I also failed to stop him casting force with the then khorne 4+ ability to dispel.

I had Typhus as last man standing on one flank of the battlefield, charged by a mob of 40 boys (at a time when all models could attack) and tank it without losing a single wound.

Had Abaddon teleport in with 6 termies and 3 oblits and just decimate a ad mech line with shooting and charges just as the game seemed lost to Chaos due to some lucky rolls from those damned robots.

Also had a Khorne champion survive combat with banshees in 3rd ed, kill the unit off then charge up the field, kill a eldar biker unit and then charge and tie up a guardian squad. He didn't die but killed little else. I promoted him to lieutenant, then Lord and still use him in games 20 years later.

4th ed games:
I had taken the spikes from kroot rifles and mounted them under the muzzles of their pulse rifles because I thought it looked cool and could represent their inherent melee attack. My Tyranid opponent learned it wasn't just for show when my six fire warriors killed their lictor in close combat.

On the other end of things: I had been running an 80 man Ultramarine swarm at 1500 points with some minor success. Captain, librarian, six tactical squads with lascannons, a squad of assault marines, and a devastator squad with no heavy weapons. Then I fought a necron player who veiled his overlord in front of my force turn 1 and popped the nightmare wargear. Whole army tests morale. Two squads and a character pass, the rest run off table. The concession was immediate, as was my swap from librarian to chaplain. Fun times.

8th edition:
Had a psedo mirror match of my Alaitoc against a force of Biel-tan in a tournament. My spiritseer was standing around, having done his psychic stuff, and saw an enemy wave serpent that was on its last wound. Low probability shot, but lacking other options, I fired the shuriken pistol at the tank, hitting, wounding with a six, and destroying the tank when my opponent failed his saving throw. The TO who was watching the game had to step away to contain his laughter while I paused, absorbed what had just happened, then continued to mop up the enemy force. My opponent didn't really enjoy that game (I had to explain why advancing wave serpents still took the minus 1 to hit with their shuriken cannons, which he did not take very well) but that moment was pretty great.

3rd Ed. Blood Angels are massacring a CSM Khorne list, all the way down to the Chaos Lord. At the start of his turn the Lord rolls for possession (requires a 6 on 1D6) and the Bloodthirster erupts out of him in a shower of gore. Bloodthirster proceeds to mop the floor with the BA army, chasing them across the table and wiping them out. Glorious.

Had a squad of guardsman disembark from a Chimera to take hold of an objective deep in enemy territory only to be chilled by the ripping, screeching noise of chaos raptors emerging from the warp on their position. Upon making mash of the poor guardsman, the nearby space marine librarian managed to reach the blood-drenched squad. Invoking the Emperor, the librarian unleashed an unassailable psychic storm that drove the Warp talons back into the hole they had emerged from. The Warp talons clawed at the dead guards men’s bodies as the mass were dragged into the Warp, but the Talons could find no solid purchase to keep them on the battlefield. However, one of the talons managed to latch onto the lines of potent force lightning as if it were a rope and drag the librarian back with them. With the hole sealed behind them all, it left an ominously quiet and bare patch of dirt that smelled of ozone and singed metal.

Or at least, that’s how we “Forged the Narrative” when my Librarian blasted a triumphant squad of Warp Talons to smithereens and blew himself up with a psychic bashlash.

Hmm lemme think but probably the time my Chaos Lord swaggered over to a lowly, no-name Imperial commander thinking him easy pickings. But no he made 4 4++ saves, and upper-cut my Lord with his power fist who promptly failed all his saves. We still call that guy "The Herooooo!!" whenever he drops on the field.
All in all it might not sound overly dramatic but that guy surviving gave him the victory points needed to cling onto the game and he took out my only unit in position to deal with his deepstriking units at the time. Which is probably why it sticks with us to this day.

I had a lone Khorne Berzerkers(last survivor of a 10man squad) locked in combat in CC with Nork Deddog for 3 turns both of them swinging and missing/making armor saves, until finally Nork KO'd the Berzerker with his headbutt ability. We completely ignored that fight with everything else the entire game just to let them duke it out.

Back in 5th I had my Chaos Terminator Lord with Daemon Weapon get shot to death by Grots on T2 before doing anything. I rolled a ton of 1s and nearly cried.

The Khorne Berzerkers where magnificently engaging the Ork Boyz, the Rubric Marines were pounding some Ork Shoota Boyz, the regular CSM were shooting or fighting some Ork Stormboyz and DeffKoptas. Meanwhile, the Chaos Terminator Lord was moving to to single combat with the Ork Warboss for the glory of the Dark Gods, when suddenly a squad of Grots broke off the main battle and moved toward him. His derisive laugh echoed across the battlefield as he saw the pitiful, stupid creatures move toward their doom. He strode forth unconcerned, in his ancient Tactical Dreadnought armor he was invincible! And then he was promptly shot in both eyes and his dick by Grot blasters and died screaming, trying to figure out where he went wrong in life.

Does that count?

Technically an AoS game but could have happened in 40k. I was running Nurgle daemons led by a GUO, my opponent mixed Chaos led by Be'Lakor. After six rounds of battle our forces had completely destroyed one a other except the GUO and Be'Lakor, both near death, locked in melee in the middle of the board. Be'Lakor swung and did enough damage to kill the GUO but in the process triggered an ability which bounced enough mortal wounds back to kill him. So the last two models on the board, each the leader of their respective armies, killed each other in a duel at the bottom of the last round.

I had a shokk attack gun big mek vs tyranids, back in early 7th edition with the 5th edition codex.

First turn I wanted to target the swarmlord, but he was too far away (night fighting), so I shot a tervigon instead and rolled a double-6, deleting it from the board in one shot (them's were the rules on the good old shokk attack gun, happy days).
Second turn, I targeted the swarmlord with it, rolleD (I think it was) double 3, which fires the mek and leaves the grot. Suddenly my big mek makes a 48" charge across the board, into the most powerful CC character in the game. Funnily enough, he died!

Hah! That is hysterical

Had a mostly infantry Space Marine army tabled by Imperial Guard on the top of turn one. The preliminary bombardment that usually doesn't do much hit every single unit, and it was all downhill from there.

Literally didn't get to move a model.

Some week ago my wife's tzeentch daemons versus some Khorne daemons including skarbrand and a bloodthrister.

Well the lord of change succeeded in casting treason of tzeentch on skarbrand and the follow roll vs leadership... so skarbrand was charging the other blood thirster and some hounds... some hounds were gone and both monster got a fair amount of damage.

the game went on... skarbrand had only one wound left the other thirster was in the middle bracket. The lord of change attempted another treason of tzeentch on skarbrand... and succeeded. Again there was some skarbrand on blood thirster action...

Since that day the khorne player refuses to play against the tzeentch daemons.

well, of course khorne doesn't care whose blood flows.

2nd Ed, when the Eldar Falcon had been released.

Local shop had a high number of Eldar and Imperium players, so they put on a group game where the Imperium was trying to shutdown the Falcon Factory.

It got a bit rough for the Imperium players, but a single shot completely changed the course of the game.

The Eldar side had a lot of War Walkers marching down a flank. And due to the board’s layout they were pretty densely packed.

A single Wolf Scout, when they were just Scouts, takes aim at the lead worked. The shot hits the pilot, who fails his save. This caused the War Walker to topple over...into another War Walker. Domino effect kicked in, and every single War Walker fell. All of them. None left standing. Total wipeout.

Point for point, that’s the second most deadly shot I’ve ever witnessed in a game.

The most deadly shot was when a stand of Gretchen took out an Imperator Titan’s plasma reactor, sent it critical and nuked a fair portion of the board. The plucky Grots did not survive, but what a shot.