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I can think of Rylanor's Last Stand (guy even got a whole song made about him), Ufthak taking down a warlord titan in Brutal Kunnin', the final battle between Horus and The Emperor, and a lesser known one, which is in Storm Of Iron when Honsou is slowly sneaking up on the guardsmen base, stealth kills two of them, and as revenge for some of his CSM squad being killed lobs two grenades into the post and (appears to) blow up one of the guardsmen and kicks his corpse as he is described to be menacing. I think it's a great intro. Anyway, what are your favourite Awsum moments in the lore?

First one that leaps immediately to mind would be Ventriss tearing an enemy bunkers’ heavy bolter off its mounting, and turning it on the occupants.

The Harlequin-Troupe that slaughtered their way through 30 Custodes into the throne room.

Surely the biggest is the duel between big E and even bigger Horus.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
First one that leaps immediately to mind would be Ventriss tearing an enemy bunkers’ heavy bolter off its mounting, and turning it on the occupants.

Maybe more sad than badass (which I will make a thread for soon) but I think on Istvaan III when the Death Guard loyalist dreadnought Huron Fal calls for his comrades to escape to a bunker as Mortarion has unleashed the Life Eater virus (not entering himself as he claims his dreadnought armour to be virus proof, which sadly it is not) his friend Captain Ullis Temeter sees through this like a glass pane and stays above with his friend, as it is too late for them to get to the bunkers anyway. Picking his friend up, Huron utters the gut-wrenching line of 'We'll go together then, shall we?' and Temeter nods. Somehow he detonates his armour's reactor and causes a massive explosion. The fact these two good friends acknowledged their demise and intended to take the traitors with them to hell as they died is not only the definition of BADASS but also genuinely beautiful in a sense. As I said, maybe more depressing than badass, but I like to think it has a good helping of both

Calleb Decima and his Thallax have a badass moment in book 1:Betrayal page 58

They decide to do a last stand in a starport on its outer concourse.
Calleb Decimas non-Thallax adepts man a pair of Proteus LRs and a Grav-Attack to do an ambush assault/retreat to lure some traitor forces into the starport.
One of the LR Proteus makes it back to the concourse on fire and being chased by a Fellblade and 4 rhinos.
it stops in its required halt point and gets "kicked up in flame and tumbled across the concourse like an empty food canister as a shell from the Fellblades main cannon took it "
The traitors fan out in the rhinos to cover the concourse with the Fellblade covering them.
A Death Guard LR with damaged tracks follows up behind the Fellblade.

Decima then triggers a device made from his Ordo Reductor Siege-Cricible which turns one Rhino into a shadow on the concourse, "bleaches out" the remaining Rhinos (which are now dead standing) and leaves the Fellblade with half of its structure gone/missing.
The flash of light it produces allows Crysos Morturg to see the bones in his hand through his power armour gauntlet.
The damaged LR starts reversing away but a Group of Thallax smash up from where they were buried and take it out with their Lightning guns.
The loyalists take out the squads falling out of the bleached-out Rhinos but another Fellblade flanked by Predators and Rhinos annihilates the group of buried Thallax.
The Fellblade then rams the wreckage of the first out of the way and blows up the loyalist strong-points point-blank sending the loyalists flying all over the concourse.

"...A tattered red blur flew over me and ran, spider-like up the glacis of the Fellblade.."
"..It was Decima, and with a molten flash of red, he was inside the Fellblades turret, disappearing so fast I doubted he had been anything other than a figment of my dying mind."
"My last memory of the battle was of the Fellblades yawning cannon-maw, then the turret turning... turning away from me."
"Later, much later i think, I recall as if in a dream being dragged through the ash and bone for so very long, a tattered crimson cloak fluttering over me"

TLDR: Calleb Decima takes out a Fellblade and four rhinos with an IED, seizes control of another Fellblade from its Legion Marine crew and uses it to take out multiple predators, rhinos, the units being transported in them and multiple Storm Eagles giving air support; then decides to drag one of the surviving loyalists with him to safety afterwards to tell people what happened.

There is an old bit of fluff of a blood angel assault squad taking an enemy strongpoint, told from the point of view of a guardsman. Really sold the internal conflict in the BAngles.

Oh, and a personal one?

In Fear to Tread, where Sanguinius absolutely gets his ming on. I was on the coach home, listening to music when I read that chapter. And what came on? Iron Maiden’s ‘Fallen Angel’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP4v4eXVjWk

"It's also a hammer"

I love Wazzdakka Gutzmek taking out a titan by ramping his warbike off a skyscraper into the command deck, on fire from going through the void shield.

Orks have all the best badass moments.

March of the Triumph in Eisenhorn.

When it starts raining Baneblades in Know No Fear.

I like the destruction of the World Engine. An unstoppable, planetoid-sized Necron construct wasting entire fleets and worlds is destroyed when an entire Marine Chapter yeets themselves inside it by ramming it with their battle barge. They then proceed to take it out from the inside in a brutal boarding action. The Astral Knights sacrificed themselves to bring the World Engine's shields offline, and then the Imperial fleet blew it apart with exterminatus weapons.

Alicia Dominica coming back from the golden throne, calmly walking to Vandire's side... And taking his head in one clean stroke, doing what millions upon millions of soldiers and war machines could not do with a single clean cut.

Saint Celestine's first ever resurrection, the lost Saint returning from death to turn the battle for the fist of the Emperor.

The assembly of the first Triumph of Saint Katherine. This sort of a weird choice, but imagine the first time the six holiest relics in all of the Sororitas vaults, along with the four thousand year old remains of a Saint. The beacon of that faith must have ignited the warp with its radiance.

The Ascension of Asrubael Vect; his baiting of enemies in the wake of the Ynarri-spawned Daemonic incursion into Commorragh, and the executions that followed.

Uptonius wrote:
March of the Triumph in Eisenhorn.

When it starts raining Baneblades in Know No Fear.

Good suggestion! Though I’d add the general Ultramarine “Hmm? What? Oh! It’s a fight is it!” reaction in that book. Yes they’re caught off guard, but soon recover and start giving better than they got in the first place.

Kasrkin Master Sergeant Ban Jevrian finishing off a Death Guard's Dread by using his broken power sword and the impact of autocannon rounds to climb up and cram his Hellpistol in the visor slit to kill the pilot inside.

Cadian Blood is full of those moments, tbh, from the Kasrkins jumping through a melting glass roof to them slamming into zombie hordes in full mechanised infantry fashion.

Old old bit of filler fluff from White Dwarf, in which a Guardsman tries to use his bayonet to sever a Chaos Dreadnought’s leg cabling.

It doesn’t work, but that Guardsmen went down swinging, and that I think anyone can respect. And what we expect of Guardsmen everywhere. The chances of you going splat are incredibly high, but you can still go splat with glory.

The final engagement in Honour Guard (Gaunt series) at the shrinehold is particulary epic. The constant switching of perspective between the different levels of the engagement from the overall battle, to the small group actions, to the particular individual just keeps a blistering pace to the narrative. It also pushes all my personal buttons relating to self sacrifice, working for the greater good and hopeless last stands

Avatar of Khaine doing a backbreaker on the Keeper of Secrets

I like the tale of Aestra Khromys' coup.

She was a lowly slave making weapons for the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose. An extreme perfectionist, she became famous for the quality of her work, and was given a number of assistants. The weapons she made found their way into the hands of the archon and his entire retinue of bodyguards. One day, the archon summoned her and her assistants to reward them for their work. Once in the throne room, Aestra and her team pulled out various cleverly concealed weapons... and the archon and his guards found that their own weapons no longer worked. Thus did Aestra seize the entire kabal.

I'm admittedly biased, because I play Kabal of the Obsidian Rose. (Or at least I did until GW did away with subfactions. But fluff-wise they're still Obsidian Rose.)

.

Meduson and the other shattered legions harassing the traitors to the extent it delayed the war by years and the Warmaster having to redirect primarchs to have to deal with them.

Then of course there is the utter betrayal of the Iron Hands that mark them out as traitors as much as some of the fallen legions.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Uptonius wrote:
March of the Triumph in Eisenhorn.

When it starts raining Baneblades in Know No Fear.

Good suggestion! Though I’d add the general Ultramarine “Hmm? What? Oh! It’s a fight is it!” reaction in that book. Yes they’re caught off guard, but soon recover and start giving better than they got in the first place.

Land Raiders falling from orbit impacting like artillery rounds as the Ultramarines fall back, then a starship lands on the city, crikey the visuals if they made that into a movie would be shocking.

2 moments from the Horus Heresy:
- When Guilliman starts exacting revenge on the Word Bearers during the Betrayal at Calth, and spend around half an hour in the void without a helmet, punching heads from traitors' shoulders
- During Saturnine, the fight between Abaddon and multiple Loyalist Champions is absolutely epic

In the Night Lords trilogy when 10th Claw get suited up in terminator armor to go face the overwhelming horde of Eldar.

When Purtorobo kicks the gak out of Fulgrim for looking down on him and using him like Horus and The Emperor did.

Emperor vs Horus is still the gold standard of badass duel.

Other than that Calgar vs Abaddon was quite badass. Calgar being shown just how far below the Warmaster he is but still battling on

As a single book, Horus Rising has the most badass moments for me. Loken's assault on the holdouts on the Stormbirds with Samus whispering in their ears. The Cataphracti Terminators crossing the bridge under fire, being badass Terminators. The ensuing possession. Peak 40K/30k for me. Then the whole bit on Murder.

So yes, Horus Rising.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Old old bit of filler fluff from White Dwarf, in which a Guardsman tries to use his bayonet to sever a Chaos Dreadnought’s leg cabling.

It doesn’t work, but that Guardsmen went down swinging, and that I think anyone can respect. And what we expect of Guardsmen everywhere. The chances of you going splat are incredibly high, but you can still go splat with glory.

kind of reminds me of the guy (can't remember his name) who challenges honsou to a duel in storm of iron (IIRC) and goes down quickly, but hurts honsou nonetheless

1: Sevatar surfing a starfighter just so he can join his Primarch and the rest of the Atramentar in a suicide mission.

2: Talos telling the Chaos Gods to go pound sand.

I could go on more about The Trilogy, but I won't.

 Daba wrote:
Avatar of Khaine doing a backbreaker on the Keeper of Secrets

An oldie but a goodie.

Leman Russ beating the Emperor two to one in traditional Norse contests.

Mmmm.....also: That bit in Void Stalker where a dieing Mercution stabs Jain Zarr in the leg and quips "Try running now", right before she kills him. Balls of brass, right there. Gods, I love those books.

There’s an old, old bit of fluff I think can be found in the old Epic Space Marine Battles Compendium book, about an embittered Thousand Son reminiscing about his life during and before the Heresy, during a battle report.

It’s one I’ll need to dig out.


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Karlsen was his name, and apparently it’s in, or also in, the 2nd Ed Wargear book.

The story itself isn’t especially action packed, but it was probably the first bit of fluff I read where the nominal baddie was the narrator. And it’s kind of bittersweet, hints of regret amongst the self justification.