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The Glyphstone
2010-11-18, 10:40 AM
Particularly the last, anyone playing GRIMDARK: The RPG, or have amusing anecdotes to share about their games?

I'm playing through the introductory campaign (Omega Sanction?) with my group - SW Assault Marine, yo!, and had at least two great things happen yesterday.

The Sound of Thunder

1) While fleeing instituting a tactical retreat against the Tyranid swarm in a 'requisitioned' Chimera, our Techpriest bombed his Drive check and flipped the vehicle over into a crater. The crash wasn't a problem, but the eight Genestealers huddled in ambush there might have been (5 of us, all lightly wounded from a lucky Hormagaunt swarm). The Librarian somehow managed to beat them all in initiative, though, and opened up with a 7d10 Aoe Smite attack that blew the entire pack's heads off in one shot. He had to immediately roll on the Psychic Phenomena table at +10, though, and ended up being Deaf for one minute from the death screams. We immediately concluded that he couldn't hear us over the sound of how awesome he was.


Melta Madness

2) Between last session and this session, we realized that we had been doing Righteous Fury horribly wrong. Previously, we'd be treating it as exploding dice - if you rolled a 10, you picked up that die and rolled it again as bonus damage. Reading the book, we found it was actually the entire attack damage as bonus, and could chain. Cue the semi-final fight on the ground, defending a PDF base against the encroaching swarm. One collapsed mag-level tunnel and one Strongpointed Heavy Bolter Devastator later (along with some hilarious criticals), we had killed 10ish swarms and a dozen or so Genestealers without taking a scratch. A pair of Tyranid Warriors show up, one getting Heavy Boltered, but the other is closing in. My turn rolls around. I can't take a healthy Warrior alone in melee - but for some reason, I bought a Melta Bomb with requisition. The GM rules I can throw it as an improvised grenade at a -20, and I manage to roll an 18 against modified BS of 20. Of the 6d10 damage, it Righteous Furies. Deathwatch autoconfirm vs. Xenos, so I roll again. Another RF. And another. And another. And...doesn't RF, but since the Devastator had chosen this Warrior as the Strongpoint target, I could re-roll damage. Now it RF'ed...and 4 or 5 more times afterward. It ended up doing 200+ damage to the thing, enough that the Norn Queen who spawned this particular strain got a migraine headache.

The Commander
2010-11-18, 12:19 PM
I'm currently both playing a RL game of Deathwatch and GMing a couple here. I'm not the GM of our RL game though.

Aside from, as you mentioned, ridiculous RF criticals making short work of intended bosses, we also had the following memorable moments:

So we were walking through a ruined city, beset by civil war, much like in Final Sanction. I'm the pointman and our GM tells me to roll Awareness. I botch and again botch a FP roll. My GM tells me, gleefully, that I have failed to notice a Sniper taking aim at me from somewhere. He then proceeds to tell me that he can't miss unless he jams (listing the bonuses) and also tells me that I'm going to take a heck of lot of damage from this (he has a modified Sniper Rifle, plus I can't Dodge). He then rolls... a 99. Needless to say, we start bursting out laughing at our luck. And the GM, after laughing himself, simply says: "Somewhere, unknown to you, a sniper jams his weapon and you continue onwards... never aware of his presense."

Another memorable moment is when our Devastator, our mission to take down some Tau gunships, decided to open fire at Extreme Range of a gunship base with a Lascannon. He needed to roll 10 or less, after all the modifiers. He rolls a 2. Our GM then decides that if he gets lucky, he might blow up the other gunships on the base as well, after damage rolls. Several rolls in our favor later, the base explodes, destroying half a dozen Tau gunships. We make our way to an extraction point, needing to get away quickly. The Tau then send in Mantas and Heavy gunships. We then decide to, literally, carry our Librarian as he casts Machine Curse every round he can, whilst popping and holding onto a Blind Grenade as we run. If the scene was made into a movie, it would be terribly cliche. 5 marines running through smoke as explosives and bullets go off right next to them in slow-mo. Eventually we make it to the extraction point, several downed gunships later. The Ultramarines among us make a note to add this tactic to the Codex Astartes under the name: Smoke Cloud of Doom and Epicness.

Sir Swindle89
2010-11-18, 01:36 PM
The Ultramarines among us make a note to add this tactic to the Codex Astartes under the name: Smoke Cloud of Doom and Epicness.

And were imediatly excecuted ar heretics. :smallbiggrin: