Disaster Strikes: Your Worst Ever First Turn

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**NL_Cirrus**

It didn't happen to me, but rather my opponent. In 6th we had a 1500 point game and he took a beta strike tau list while I was playing Necrons. He got first turn and deployed a squad of crisis suits and his hammer head as his starting forces until his reinforcements arrived. I set up my forces with a bunch of warriors a overlord and a royal court with three crypteks with the haywire staff, and one with a veil of darkness and a nightmare shroud.

Then I stole the initiative. Turn one the royal court teleported right in front of him, wrecked his hammerhead with a bunch of haywire, then nightmare shrouded his crisis suit which ran off the table. Since the rest of his army was in reserves he was tabled turn one before rolling a single die.

We then reset and had another game since the first was all of two minutes long.

**Tonberry7**

locarno24 wrote:
Orks - just after the codex before last was released.

First shooting phase, the shokk attack gun spectacularly misfired, dragging itself and a killa kan into the warp.

then, the wierdboy simultaneously eadbanged and perils, killing himself and going up like a plasma cannon round in the middle of the ardboyz.

Finally, Badrukk's flash gitz opened fire and about 1/4 of them promptly exploded.

Ouch. That's definitely a bad luck story right there.

locarno24 wrote:
Does my army technically need to be here?" My opponent asked at this point.

You know it's not going well if someone asks that haha

**Snake Tortoise**

In 4th ed I had a fluffy but (in the GW store I played at) effective CSM Word Bearers army that had about 500 points of daemons out of 1500. Typically I'd face space marines or other CSM, and the Keeper of Secrets and big unit of daemonettes would usually appear mid game and start sweeping through everything

Until I played the starcannon spam eldar guy. Rhinos got blown up and my footslogging chaos marines got wiped out midtable, so my daemons didn't even have time to appear. It was a valuable lesson.

**Archer**

I once played exclusively Eldar and I ran a fully tooled up 10 man striking scorpion squad regularly and terrorised one of my best mates as it was The days of being able to consolidate into close combat (what was that 5th or 6th?).

One game a squad of Ratlings were running for the hills not being able to regroup, it was late in the game and I had pretty much sewn it up. So with nothing better to do 9 Scorpions and Exarch charged 3 Ratlings, forgoing shooting to grind the little runts into a fine red paste.

So the mandiblasters go off, nothing, no worries plenty more where that came from, the 9 striking Scorpions, charging, 2 close combat weapons so a bucket of attacks, nothing.

Return attacks from 3 Ratlings and they pull a Scoprion down and club him to death. How dare they I thought. It's ok the Exarch with his scorpions claw will sort these buggers out. 5 attacks I think WS5, strength 9. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The final insult was I failed the resulting leadership test and then was run down by the Ratlings. I think it was almost 300 points wiped out by 30......

**Ashiraya**

Engine of War wrote:
a few blood angels gunned down

Sounds like a decisive strategic victory, if a tactical loss!

**Glitcha**

My worest first turn was against my best friend. He seized on me. During his turn I lost my tactical advantage and lost nearly all my transports. About half units had died. I actually gave up because there was no way I could have pulled it out. He had control of 3/4 of the table.

We went and got some beer and pizza. Then played again. I may of lost, but it was better the second time.

**FatBoyNoSlim**

May not have been my worst first turn ever but one of my most memorable bad first turn.

Back in 6th I was still using the 5th edition IG codex at a local tournament (new dex hadn't dropped). It was my last game and if I won it I would have come 2nd in the tourney. I was using my pure infantry Guard with a full outflanking platoon and also 75 "send in the next wave" conscripts. Facing me was an all terminator dark angels list (Deathwing I think).

He got turn one and walked all his termies forward and did some moderate damage to me. It comes to my turn and I am thinking to myself "Ok time to show him real firepower". Over 400 shots from my army (lots of FRFSRF lasguns, heavy bolters autocannon etc) unload into him and do nothing. It wasnt like I was failing to wound, he just made about 40ish 2+ saves. Turn two rolls around and the same thing happens, he actually killed more of his own guys with overheating plasma then I killed in 2 rounds of shooting.

In the end I just bogged him down with endless waves of conscripts losing both blobs a turn every turn for next 4 turns, whilst my real infantry ran around getting the objectives.

I won in the end on objectives (my opponent was having so much fun killing the never ending conscripts he actually forgot about the objectives!) but the total deaths on my side were 500+ whilst he lost less then 10 Deathwing.

**nareik**

This thread has made me consider that perhaps I am not aggressive enough in my first turns. I'm normally pretty coy until turn 2 or 3, which I suppose mitigates my chances to have bad luck early on.

**master of ordinance**

My opponent used that 'move terrain' psychic power to remove the ruins that where blocking LOS to my infiltrators and dropped it infront of my Macrocannon bunker and back board gunline, and then killed off my infiltrators.

Nearly half my army was destroyed or neutered within the first turn. Things got steadily worse from then onwards.

**Pouncey**

So, it was a small, 1,000 point game between my Sisters/Marines against my mom's Orks on a non-regulation dining table about 3 feet square. Both sides were full of footsloggers with precious few vehicles of any sort. I deployed my two Retributor squads on my flanks and a meaty block of Battle Sisters in the middle.

My opponent deployed her Lootas at her table edge slightly off-set from the middle, her two Boyz mobs in the middle, and a Killa Kan on each flank.

In the middle of the table, there was a hill that was annoyingly blocking my line of sight to the Boyz on the other side of it. With the advantage of my years of playing violent video games and WH40k, I deduced that the obvious solution to the problem was to rush my Battle Sisters to the top of the hill and start emptying some magazines into the Ork boyz. I think my decision was motivated by my usual playstyle in shooter games being to push toward the objective until dying and then respawning while not considering the implications of such a strategy in a turn-based tabletop game.

So then my turn 2 came around and I was down to my Retributors, because as it turned out, the ground my Battle Sisters had covered in their mad dash to claim the hill put them in range of a mob of 20 Slugga Boyz for a turn 1 charge.

Honestly, I cannot even blame poor rolls, it was the stupidest decision I have ever made in a game of WH40k.

**Pilau Rice**

Every first turn in the last 5 games has been pretty poor as my mate has managed to seize the initiative in each. Also a while a go now my mate seized again and managed to outflank his Space Wolves Landraider and lord know what else on my left board edge and cut through everything. Was one of those games where you wonder why did you even get your men on the table.

**conker249**

One was recent in kill team. I was using 5 basic black knights. Got first turn, 3 of my 5 rolled a gets hot, failed the twin-linked, and failed the armor save, including the leader. guy shoots the remaining 2 during his turn, I get tabled turn one.

**ZergSmasher**

My worst first turn ever:

I was playing in a tournament with a Khorne Daemonkin list, with Be'lakor allied in. I went second against a Daemons Flying Circus list in the third game of that tournament (I had already lost the first two games). My opponent's FMC's (including Fateweaver, 3 Slaanesh Princes with the Lash, and an allied Black Legion Nurgle Prince with the Last Memory of Yuranthos) all take off and fly toward me. My opponent casts some psychic powers, including Iron Arm on a couple of the Slaanesh Princes (one of which I throw all my psychic dice at and successfully deny). He then casts Psychic Shriek at Be'lakor, knowing that I have no dice left to deny with. Shriek goes off, he hits, and then rolls 17 on 3d6. I manage to fail four saves against it and Be'lakor dies. Next shriek is against my D-thirster. Same story, except he rolls an 18. D-thirster dies like a bitch. 625 points gone from just two spells. Gamely, I played on even though I had no chance. The game went about as well as you probably think it did...

**HuskyWarhammer**

Not my worst first turn, but I certainly made a bad first turn for an opponent...

it involved the death of a full SM squad with heavy weapons to a psychic shriek and followed immediately by a 6 rolled on a D-strength weapon against his Imperial Knight, imploding it and catching his forces. I'd wiped out half of his board before the rest of my army had fired a single shot and felt reeeeeally awkward.

**Tonberry7**

ZergSmasher wrote:
My worst first turn ever:

I was playing in a tournament with a Khorne Daemonkin list, with Be'lakor allied in. I went second against a Daemons Flying Circus list in the third game of that tournament (I had already lost the first two games). My opponent's FMC's (including Fateweaver, 3 Slaanesh Princes with the Lash, and an allied Black Legion Nurgle Prince with the Last Memory of Yuranthos) all take off and fly toward me. My opponent casts some psychic powers, including Iron Arm on a couple of the Slaanesh Princes (one of which I throw all my psychic dice at and successfully deny). He then casts Psychic Shriek at Be'lakor, knowing that I have no dice left to deny with. Shriek goes off, he hits, and then rolls 17 on 3d6. I manage to fail four saves against it and Be'lakor dies. Next shriek is against my D-thirster. Same story, except he rolls an 18. D-thirster dies like a bitch. 625 points gone from just two spells. Gamely, I played on even though I had no chance. The game went about as well as you probably think it did...

Ouch. Psychic Shriek can be a brutal power when those high rolls come up. Twice in a row though is severely bad luck.

**Baldeagle91**

Ratius wrote:
I managed to kill 1 model before being tabled.

We have a winner.

Anyone ever played a game where they killed absolutely nothing and lost? Or won?

I was pretty much tabled turn two with my nids vs a "friendly" ravewing list which turned out to be a deathstar. I killed one model. I killed one guy and caused one wound. They guy he played after me (tau) didn't even cause a single wound....

**SpookyRuben**

Probably not my worst game of all time, but certainly one where Disaster Struck!

Played recently, 1850pts as AstraMil. Thought I would try something different and built my force around the Emperor's Blade Assault Company with PlasVets, two Armoured Shield formations, and a six unit Emperor's Talon Recon company. Along with a modest Inquisition force.

Roll deployment type, Vanguard Strike... so it's the worst for getting clogged up when I deploy. Roll for mission, Purge the Alien, no Objectives just kill points, so my Assault Company's special rules are not in play... my opponent seized the initiative...

I was facing an Iron Wolves formation, along with a fully tricked out Rune Priest formation led by Njal. Lightning spell... mean and nasty.

First turn he pretty much fully crossed no mans land with a Rhino Rush. Njal drop pods in with some ablative wounds and Lightning blasts my Leman Russ to scrap with a crazy number of glances to side armour. Then charges and takes out my Hellhound. His Longfang's put a couple glances on my second Leman Russ. And he kills an assorted 15 infantry.

My turn... I'm boxed in and can barely move because he is right in my face, Shuffle a few things around as best I can. Get completely shut down in the psychic phase. Let loose with everything I have! Put a hull point on a Rhino, and kill a single Blood Claw.

Turn two he disembarkes and proceeds to tear another massive chunk out of my force. At this point, I am pretty much boxed in and unable to move my forces anywhere, and the table is covered in wrecked vehicles so LOS is limited.

We played it out to the end of turn 5, when I lost my last squad and was tabled. Here's the scrap yard of my deployment zone Turn 3-4. Everything with a red poker chip is a wreck LOL.

I never had a good round rolling the dice, and was overrun from the start. I did learn some things though. If faced with a similar deployment and mission, I think I would have been smarter to put a huge portion of my force into reserves, at least then I could have somewhat dictated the fight.

For fun here's old CheeseCaller and the gang post Russ Electro take-down. About to stroll over and rip my Hellhound apart with his bare hands LOL.

**cuss**

Playing for the first time against some local gaming buds. He had a pretty stacked ig list( thudd guns, leman russ parking lot behind agis and a gak ton of conscripts.) I was playing tau, though still new to the codex at the time (around when riptides came out to play).

He got first turn. Landed almost 40 hits on my pathfinders alone with the thudd guns, some 20 on the riptide and another handful on the few FW who were around. Also had a team of crisis suits run off the board.

On my turn 1 I proceeded to miss with long strike, rolling double ones. Had the surviving fw not rally and run off as well. Needless to say I did not win. But I killed those damn thudd guns and that was victory enough for me.

Though I still question if he was playing fair(never used his codex/didn't have an army list) it was good fun either way

More times then I care to count my ba meltacide squad fails to pen anything. Usually a rhino. While in melta range.

**Ascalam**

Deployment denial by GK bullgak .. couldn't even deploy..

Ork trukker army artilleried off the table in 5th ed by Guard, no survivors after turn 1, didn't even get to move.

Virus Outbreak card back in the day, playuing green tide orks.. not many lived.

My personal fave - two shokk attack gun big meks rolling the same dreaded 1,1 result and removing most of my army from the table...

**master of ordinance**

Ah, one of my GK related ones.
a 2K game. The GK player is bringing in that "everything ca deepstrike (or was it outflank? I cannot remember) in on turn one" formation.
On turn one a lot of his stuff came in. Iost my entire right flank. We called it on turn three when my command tank exploded and my Inquisitor failed to get Invisibility off again and was subsequently smooshed by the Dreadknight.

**SemperMortis**

I walked a green tide into a Scat bike Spam list at a tournament..... Turn 1 My game was basically over.

**Mikillangelo**

Virus was ridiculous. My friend and I still laugh at the game of chicken we used to play with ther Virus Grenade and the Vaccine Squig (which gave immunity to the virus). I believe both cost 50 points. The first time he took the virus grenades, I lost half of my Orks on Turn 1. Ouch. After that, I started taking the vaccine religiously. But then we would go back and forth, each trying to save that 50 points. Unfortunately, failure in that little mind game only meant he lost 50 points. It meant I lost half my army. It was fun... but there are some definite pluses to the rules changes they have made since then.

**ZergSmasher**

cuss wrote:
More times then I care to count my ba meltacide squad fails to pen anything. Usually a rhino. While in melta range.

More than once I've podded in a meltacide tac squad (melta, combimelta) next to an enemy vehicle only to roll snake eyes for the To Hits with the meltas.

**Martel732**

Ascalam wrote:
Deployment denial by GK bullgak .. couldn't even deploy..

Ork trukker army artilleried off the table in 5th ed by Guard, no survivors after turn 1, didn't even get to move.

Virus Outbreak card back in the day, playuing green tide orks.. not many lived.

My personal fave - two shokk attack gun big meks rolling the same dreaded 1,1 result and removing most of my army from the table...

Vaccine squig, yo!

**Ascalam**

Martel732 wrote:
Ascalam wrote:
Deployment denial by GK bullgak .. couldn't even deploy..

Ork trukker army artilleried off the table in 5th ed by Guard, no survivors after turn 1, didn't even get to move.

Virus Outbreak card back in the day, playuing green tide orks.. not many lived.

My personal fave - two shokk attack gun big meks rolling the same dreaded 1,1 result and removing most of my army from the table...

Vaccine squig, yo!

Yeah i know

I went cheap and paid the price

**Just Tony**

Shuffling back to 3rd Edition, I was playing my Crimson Fists against a local player named Brian and his Dark Eldar. I took a Whirlwind which I normally don't take as it doesn't seem to get the damage a Vindicator does. Well, I lob a shell at his Raider on my first turn and scatter onto it. Being open topped I do two hits with +1 to the results on the ordinance chart. Wind up rolling either a 5 or 6, which both come out as 6 on the chart: Vehicle Annihilated! So his Archon and Incubi bodyguard are taken out in one shot before he can even move it. Pretty much set the pace for his game, since he tended to run Dark Lances on his troops which meant he wasn't moving his army.

**Xenomancers**

Tonberry7 wrote:
Have you ever had such a disastrous first turn that it seemed like the only eventual outcome would be certain defeat? Did you test your generalship and battle on or throw in the towel? How did it turn out in the end? Were you annihilated as expected? Did you put up a valiant fight? Or did you even manage to pull off an improbable victory against overwhelming odds? To get things started I shall regale you with a tale of woe that happened to me in a game the other day.

I was playing a Daemonic Incursion army with a Tallyband and Tetrad; a fairly strong list. I was going first which suited me so that I could get psychic buffs up on the princes etc. My opponent failed to seize so I advanced all my princes and proceeded to the psychic phase. The first action was to cast Cursed Earth with my Tzeentch DP warlord, he had the Impossible Robes artefact so this would set him up nicely with a rerollable 2++ near the centre of the board. 3 dice, and two of them come up sixes. I wasn't too concerned until I rolled a 1 on the perils table. Still, it wasn't the end of the world as I had reasonably good odds of passing the leadership test but in the back of my mind I had a feeling that this could be trouble. Cue an 11 on the leadership test and Fateweaver nowhere to be seen.

So that was that. No way to get out of it, my Tzeentch DP removed by perils straight away, giving up Warlord kill and First Blood. Needless to say I was a bit dispirited by this but decided to view it as a challenge. So on to the Nurgle DP, not in range of anything yet so I went to cast Endurance with him. Unfortunately another two sixes came up and this was when I really started to get a sinking feeling. My nightmares became reality when I rolled yet another 1 on the perils table followed by a 10 on my leadership test. How could this be happening again straight away? Once was bad enough but having to remove a second DP from the table in short succession was hard to take.

So barely 10 minutes into the game I had lost 2 DPs, putting myself at a roughly 700pt handicap and severely crippling my formation bonuses, as well as giving up Warlord kill and First Blood, and all before my opponent had even rolled any dice.

Although disaster had certainly struck, I didn't want to just roll over and concede, as things surely couldn't get any worse. In the end, thanks to increased favour from the dice gods, and my opponents reserve heavy force coming in piecemeal, I managed to scrape a draw, although had the game continued much longer I would almost certainly have lost. Overall it was an unforgettable game though due to the incredible bad luck on that first turn.

Not fate weaver? okay I think you learned your lesson - no need to lecture.

**jreilly89**

Xenomancers wrote:
Tonberry7 wrote:
Have you ever had such a disastrous first turn that it seemed like the only eventual outcome would be certain defeat? Did you test your generalship and battle on or throw in the towel? How did it turn out in the end? Were you annihilated as expected? Did you put up a valiant fight? Or did you even manage to pull off an improbable victory against overwhelming odds? To get things started I shall regale you with a tale of woe that happened to me in a game the other day.

I was playing a Daemonic Incursion army with a Tallyband and Tetrad; a fairly strong list. I was going first which suited me so that I could get psychic buffs up on the princes etc. My opponent failed to seize so I advanced all my princes and proceeded to the psychic phase. The first action was to cast Cursed Earth with my Tzeentch DP warlord, he had the Impossible Robes artefact so this would set him up nicely with a rerollable 2++ near the centre of the board. 3 dice, and two of them come up sixes. I wasn't too concerned until I rolled a 1 on the perils table. Still, it wasn't the end of the world as I had reasonably good odds of passing the leadership test but in the back of my mind I had a feeling that this could be trouble. Cue an 11 on the leadership test and Fateweaver nowhere to be seen.

So that was that. No way to get out of it, my Tzeentch DP removed by perils straight away, giving up Warlord kill and First Blood. Needless to say I was a bit dispirited by this but decided to view it as a challenge. So on to the Nurgle DP, not in range of anything yet so I went to cast Endurance with him. Unfortunately another two sixes came up and this was when I really started to get a sinking feeling. My nightmares became reality when I rolled yet another 1 on the perils table followed by a 10 on my leadership test. How could this be happening again straight away? Once was bad enough but having to remove a second DP from the table in short succession was hard to take.

So barely 10 minutes into the game I had lost 2 DPs, putting myself at a roughly 700pt handicap and severely crippling my formation bonuses, as well as giving up Warlord kill and First Blood, and all before my opponent had even rolled any dice.

Although disaster had certainly struck, I didn't want to just roll over and concede, as things surely couldn't get any worse. In the end, thanks to increased favour from the dice gods, and my opponents reserve heavy force coming in piecemeal, I managed to scrape a draw, although had the game continued much longer I would almost certainly have lost. Overall it was an unforgettable game though due to the incredible bad luck on that first turn.

Not fate weaver? okay I think you learned your lesson - no need to lecture.

Fateweaver lets him Re-Roll 1 dice per turn. He could've still lost the second DP.

**Jancoran**

Mine is easy. Just happened at a GT. Dude was 0-12 against me. we deployed and he was going to scout up his Ork bikers because o the character he took, but hesitated and didnt.

Then I infiltrated.

Then he seized. Not only did he annihilate my stealthsuits, but because of this, and because he hadnt scouted as i had hoped, he was ready to tear my army backfield a new one. I shot him all I could but I couldnt kill the main part of the unit and it would go on to engulf mnost of my army. He took a picture of that 6 sider and he now has customized a biker with a little place for the dice to rest to commemorate his vitory.

The worst thing about this was that not only had I defeated him 12 times running but it was my OTHER buddy who made it to top table, who i ALSO have had great success against that i would have been fighting next for the GT win! Ugh. One roll essentially cost me not just the game but what I considered a very likely GT win by extension. That would have really helped my ITC score so it was a definite missed opportunity.

**BorderCountess**

Best (worst?) story I ever heard - Skaven vs. Night Goblins.

This was back in the old days when the Screaming Bell could force an entire army to take panic tests. Skaven go first and roll a 13 for the bell on turn one. Max possible Night Goblin leadership was 7, but since you would likely take a Great Shaman you're looking at a 6.

The gobbos never moved forward; the entire army fled off the table before his first turn started.