What was the fluffiest game/campaign you played?

[Master Commander Ajax]

The title says it all really. I love a good narrative and I want to hear about all the awesome stories that you guys have come up with to accompany the battles/campaigns you have fought. Maybe a simple battle you had between two Space Marine armies became a vicious civil war, sparked by a disagreement over doctrine or slight of honour. Perhaps a character that was removed as a casualty had actually suffered a severe head injury and returned in the next game as a deranged Psychopath, hell-bent on revenge. Or maybe you played in a particularly well thought out campaign complemented by a particularly well-painted set of themed terrain.

[M@verik115]

I ran a fluffy scenario where everyone controlled 1 guardsman. 
No one survived till the end... 

[Zuvassin]

I had a 2nd edition game, Orks vs Marines, that included both a Grot with autogun finishing off the last wound on a Terminator Chaplain, and a randomly bouncing Splatta Kannon shell that managed to hit not a single Marine but struck every Boyz mob before finally running out of steam.

 

Narrative-wise, it seemed the most 40k game ever to us as it really showed the futility of war in 40k.

[Shockmaster]

I remember once in my teenage years taking part in a game that we all got to design a character to fight the GW store manager playing an endless horde of Nids that we had to see how long we could all last against, a heroic last stand kind of deal.

 

It may have been for some special event as he had put a ton of effort in to including lots of house rules, really fun even if I was the second player to die, I just wish I could remember more of how he did it as would like to run something similar at my gaming club.

[Toomanyprojects]

A game with my deathwatch army. i was playing against a totally new player who hadn't bought their first model yet, I only had a single sizeable army (my deathwatch) so i came up with a scenario whereby we would both choose units from my army and they would compete against each other in wargames.

 

Was quite proud of that idea myself, and established the idea for my friend that any practical difficulty can have a solution which was both effective and fluffy at the same time.

 

My backup reason fro having us play each other with the same army was 'Tzeentch did it' - i think i chose the right one :)

[Stoic Raptor]

In 2nd Edition, my opponent and I played a campaign where each of our warlords was our personal "character" and advanced as the campaign went on.

I used Ulfgrim ("wolf-face"), a Wolf Guard Terminator, armed with an assault cannon and cyclone launcher (you could do that, back in 2nd Edition).  Ulf had gained an extra Wound during the campaign so he was even tougher to kill.

 

My opponent was playing Eldar and the mission was for me to move my army across the board to a spaceport landing pad for extraction by troop ship (we used a Star Trek runabout model which actually looked pretty good for that scale).

 

At one point, Ulfgrim had to cross a street that was covered by two squads on overwatch atop a hill at the end of the street.  Guardians at the base and Dark Reapers on the hilltop.  Ulf stepped out and they all fired.  The shurikens that hit bounded harmlessly off his armor.  One of the missiles missed, one hit but failed to wound, and one was stopped by the armor.  Then Ulf returned fire.  The assault cannon mowed down all the Guardians and the cyclone eliminated the Dark Reapers, leaving the hilltop a smoking ruin.

 

Ulf climbed to the top of the hill just as a trio of Jet Bikes moved toward his position.  Again he opened fire with his assault cannon.  The first bike was destroyed and careened into the second, destroying it as well.  The third bike failed its Morale test and retreated off the board.

 

By this time, the rest of the army had made it to the spaceport but his forces threatened to overrun them while they boarded.  Ulf chose to hold the gate so that his brothers could embark safely.  He was charged by a squad of Howling Banshees.  He took one wound in the melee, but killed one of them in return (apparently, being punched in the face by a missile targeter can be fatal).  He fired with his assault cannon... and rolled triple jams.  The magazine detonated, killing him and the remaining Banshees.  The rest of the army was safely extracted and his sacrifice won the day.

 

That sort of valor is guaranteed to get what's left of you interred into a Dreadnought - so I modified a metal model of Bjorn.  When the plastic SW Venerable Dreadnought kit came out, I built a new model, equipped with the same weaponry (and a wolf-skull head, in keeping with his name).  To commemorate the victory, the model has the squashed body of an Eldar warrior beneath one foot (20 years later, my friend still does not think that's funny).

 

The assault cannon bears four yellow rings, one for each squad he slew single-handedly that day, and he earned the honor-name "Alvsbane" (Elf-Killer).  I've since moved to another state, and my best friend here also plays Eldar - and Ulfgrim continues to live up to his name and his saga.

 

This was probably the most memorable 40K battle I've ever played, and I wrote a short story of the tale.

[Lexington]

Back during college, our 40K Club did a series of "Big Games," of 10 - 15 players, usually on the floor of a pole barn belonging to one of our members' parents. They were all tied together by a loose, running story involving our various armies, a couple of power-mad Inquisitors and an outrageously powerful daemon blade. A few years after we all graduated, a few of us got a bee in our bonnet to "get the band back together," pulling in all the old players that had dispersed around the country for an enormous, 24-player game that capped out at about 120,000pts total when you included the pack of Titans and other superheavies we'd cobbled together. The Imperium won the day, the sword was destroyed and we wrapped up a few characters' stories in a way that was really satisfying. Great time, I'll never forget it.

 

In 2nd Edition, my opponent and I played a campaign where each of our warlords was our personal "character" and advanced as the campaign went on. [...]

Dude. Dude. This was so excellent. It's 10:30 and the morning, and my day is already made. Thanks for sharing.

[Jagus Kumkani]

I played a game against a friend of mine that plays Orks. His warlord was Ghazkull Thraka and he had been crushing Tac Marines and Assault Squads that got near him all game.

 

I managed to get my Venerable Dreadnought-Brother V'Lorr in close combat with him. Showering Ghazkull with fat rounds from his Assault Cannon, he managed to take a wound from him. V'Lorr then brought his Heavy Flamer to bear on the filthy Greenskin, showering him with huge gouts of promethium.

This brought the beast into a fury, smashing his huge fists into the hull of Brother V'Lorr, nearly killing the Venerable warrior.

 

Seeing this, Brother-Sergeant Ushek and his Tactical Marines the Ebon Drakes threw themselves in front of their battered brothers adamantium hull. Dodging a swing from his PowerClaw, Ushek blasted Ghazkull's power armor with his Combi-Melta, opening it up to the green flesh beneath. Without giving a command, his Flamer specialist Brother H'zod stuck the nozzle of his weapon into the hole and roasted the beast. The remaining Orks were thrown into disarry upon seeing their leader killed before them.

The Salamanders of 4th Company were victorious and purged the remaining xenos from the battlefield.

 

One of the funnest games I've ever had.

[the jeske]

2ed tyranid vs orcs. 2k orc army worth 2-3 VP, tyranid army made out of guants and stealers[this were the times when you got 3-4 guants in a blister]. Orc gets hit by plague. 5/6th of his army dies before the game even starts. Orc gets first turn. Besides orc warlord and runtheard with a graba stick, and 6 pulsa rokits orc army was dead. still game is an objective one, what follows is 6 turns of orc player stun locking the tyranid [who left the game for ever after that. one has to remember that back then a metal tyranid army cost round 10 months of good salary. and the orc army was mostly scratch build so cost next to nothing]. and the game being won 1 VP [tyranid got 1 VP for mekk and mekk with a shokka attack gun, orc got 3 from objectives].

 

One of the first games I have ever seen, and most fluffy.

[Allart01]

Gamesday 2009, Pisa.

The Dark Angels were besieged by orks - just a few regular marines in a Fortress of Redemption against a xeno horde (every unit destroyed would come back a turn later) which even had a stompa.

All painted. A handful of Dark Angels against a neverending sea of monsters.

It truly looked like Helm's Deep. 
A force of Crimson Fists was meant to arrive as reinforcement, but alas it was lost in the warp (the player said he wouldn't be coming at turn three or something like that, I can't rember).

Instead, my Deathwing arrived! It was one of two occasions where I got to field my 50 (more or less) terminators all together, led by Belial. 

By the Lion, the slaughter was glorious! 

It still warms my heart to think of that game. 
I still have the commemorative pin of the event - and a soft spot for the terminator who singlehandedly destroyed the stompa.

Edited October 13, 2017 by The_Bloody

[Stoic Raptor]

 

Dude. Dude. This was so excellent. It's 10:30 and the morning, and my day is already made. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks!  I'm glad you enjoyed it!  It was one hell of a game and I really miss those days.

[N1SB]

I remember once in my teenage years taking part in a game that we all got to design a character to fight the GW store manager playing an endless horde of Nids that we had to see how long we could all last against, a heroic last stand kind of deal.

 

It may have been for some special event as he had put a ton of effort in to including lots of house rules, really fun even if I was the second player to die, I just wish I could remember more of how he did it as would like to run something similar at my gaming club.

 

I kinda experienced the same thing!  It was at the Oxford Street store in London, and it was Genestealers.

 

Experiences like that basically kept my loyalty to The Hobby for...wow, 20+ years now.  Oh my goodness.

 

+++++

 

I thought a long time about this question and I have to admit it was a relatively recent Shadow War game, just earlier this year, when it came out.

 

I played Blood Axe Orks.  Blood Axe was my clan from 1st ed, I've always painted my Orks as such, even though it was irrelevant after 2nd ed really.

 

Finally got to potentially have a Blood Axe mob that fit their fluff in Shadow War, being sneaky gitz and all.  Rolled for 1st game's scenario, then deployment.

 

This pic pretty much shows how I deployed and represents both my opponent's starting force and mine:

 

http://oi64.tinypic.com/2h52zjk.jpg

 

By sheer luck my deployment was a perfect ambush.  My opponent's Guardsmen didn't know what was what until the Sergeant revved up his chainsword.

 

Pls keep in mind none of this was scripted or house rules.  We played Rules As Written and just rolled all those random Shadow War tables and had an ideal setup.

[Brother Sefiel]

Greetings

I've done various things - ran a campaign when I started doing 3rd edition, featuring a world being near-overwhelmed by tyranids (the backdrop to which forms the basis of many of my forces today) played a campaign as eldar where a single banshee exarch fought off some ridiculous chaos character, a 40k RPG (before Dark Heresy was a thing) Necromunda featuring a spyrer known only as the Night Crawler fighting off hordes of zombies threatening to overwhelm the hive from below and numerous apocalypse and (more recently) 7th edition games that I've written stuff for on here.

Some of the battles have taken a bit of thought to justify after the way the dice have gone, and have had to include in-universe combat sims and exercises, given the ridiculous slaughters that occurred! If any of it appeals, let me know and I'll go into further detail, link it or reproduce it here for you.

[Schlitzaf]

It was almost a decade ago. My Games Workshop run a Campaign based on Dark Heresy. The goals were ultimately unimportant for me but I must say it was a memorable experience, one I will never forget.

 

It was 5th Edition, and I was playing against an Ork player. Every week we had to fight over this Hive World. I bottled him into Stygian, and we tried again and again to break out. Go once more onto the breach. The war started when I went Guytoga to Stygian Prime.

 

It was a massacre, I was left table save a unit of Sword Brothern, and my Emperor’s Champion a mangled corpse on his Power Klaw. Next week pushed all the way back to Purgatory of Soubirous, I turned the game around. My Marshall, whose model I sadly lost a year ago, led my soldiers onto the green tide.

 

Protected by a fully upgraded Command Squad (using the SB Models, Mining World’s Made upgrades for one unit flee). I could not afford to lose this bout, less my enemy gain fully upgraded Nob Squads. With Flamers and Chain I breached the lines. My Emperor’s Champion took down the Nobz, and Weird Boyz while my Marshall and Chaplain avenged their fallen brother.

 

Leaving the Warboss a stain on his claws. I counterattack, my Templars retook Purgatory with Blood and Sweat. It was there we fought again at Clove. This time he brought a new weapon Kans. My flamers and strength 4 weapons bounced harmlessly off. By skin of my teeth I held the center. As a Scion of Dorn! Not one step back! And next bout after I held, on Clove, I was ready.

 

I came with Melta and Powfist. The Kans met their end on my weapons. I won! I routed the enemy. Then we returned to Guytoga. And for my Sea of Black which had beaten Nobz, Boyz and Kans faced a new foe.

 

My enemy brought with a team of pyromaniacs aided by Grot Mortars. My Sword Brothern and the Champion met their end on their most unholy flames. Pounded by a series of bombardments, I was forced to withdraw. And he came at me once more. This time we fought at Clove once more.

 

I was ready. My defenses took their toil on the Greenskins. His Flamers were met with hard steel. My Knights came borne by metal chariots, the mighty and humble Rhino of the God-Emperor. His weapons did nothing and left himself open to my counterassault.

 

I pushed him back to Guytoga. Using the strategy, I found myself surprised my enemy had taken pale imitations of our autocannons and trukks of his own. But I survived. I charged forward, chainsword in hand. Meeting the Greenskin in Battle, he tried to slay my Marshall with his physic mind. Turn me into a Squid.

 

Then a lady of great mind, pulled down her hood and with an Iron Will alongside her troopers Hellguns, stopped the enemy counterattack. The enemy caught off gaurd their alien magic failed lost the day...

 

And that was only a first month and half of a 8 month long war