Most heroic victory in 40k

[Shadowscream]

What is the most heroic individual victory in 40k in the lore?

e.g. A guardsman standing alone vs a Chaos Space Marine & getting a lucky kill or an Exarch killing a Keeper of secrets....

Are there any memorable examples in the lore?

[Scribe]

I liked the Iron Hands killing a Daemon Prince.

 

Only to then purge the city of every human that helped them.

 

Very heroic.

[templargdt]

I'm partial, but Grimaldus holding the line at the Temple in Helsreach is great.  

[Dumah]

I liked the Iron Hands killing a Daemon Prince.

 

Only to then purge the city of every human that helped them.

 

Very heroic.

 

To be fair, they only purged a third of the population... 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

When Dorn beheaded Alpharius with his ginormous chai sword. The Black Library said its official - I was Alpharius is deader than a door nail.

[dice4thedicegod]

Didn’t the big guy in first claw kill an ultramarine champion one-on-one. That’s a heroic amount of plot armor to overcome. (And a heretic winning an even odds fight!!?!?)

[sitnam]

Didn’t the big guy in first claw kill an ultramarine champion one-on-one. That’s a heroic amount of plot armor to overcome. (And a heretic winning an even odds fight!!?!?)

Ultramarine successors, the Gensis Chapter. But the Genesis have very close relaions to their founders, and actually will send Astartes to help fill the gaps in the Ultramrines battle order.  They actually fulfill the meme of Space Marines who hold the Codex Astartes as sacred.

[Gederas]

Didn’t the big guy in first claw kill an ultramarine champion one-on-one. That’s a heroic amount of plot armor to overcome. (And a heretic winning an even odds fight!!?!?)

Ultramarine successors, the Gensis Chapter. But the Genesis have very close relaions to their founders, and actually will send Astartes to help fill the gaps in the Ultramrines battle order.  They actually fulfill the meme of Space Marines who hold the Codex Astartes as sacred.

You're also leaving this out:

 

Said Champion was given the Captaincy of the 3rd Company of the Genesis Chapter multiple times. And he used a Thunder Hammer. And Xarl fought him to a standstill. With a chainsword.

 

And he killed the marine by headbutting him to death.

 

Honestly, despite what people say about ADB killing off characters: Xarl had the best send-off of any named character in any 40k novel I've read because of the sheer epicness of it.

 

Also: what plot armour? It happened in a Night Lords' novel :lol:Loyalists aren't the ones with plot armour in those novels (unless they're a character with another book series, see Graham MacNeill's Iron Warriors/Ultramarines novels)

[sitnam]

 

Didn’t the big guy in first claw kill an ultramarine champion one-on-one. That’s a heroic amount of plot armor to overcome. (And a heretic winning an even odds fight!!?!?)

Ultramarine successors, the Gensis Chapter. But the Genesis have very close relaions to their founders, and actually will send Astartes to help fill the gaps in the Ultramrines battle order.  They actually fulfill the meme of Space Marines who hold the Codex Astartes as sacred.

You're also leaving this out:

 

Said Champion was given the Captaincy of the 3rd Company of the Genesis Chapter multiple times. And he used a Thunder Hammer. And Xarl fought him to a standstill. With a chainsword.

 

And he killed the marine by headbutting him to death.

 

Honestly, despite what people say about ADB killing off characters: Xarl had the best send-off of any named character in any 40k novel I've read because of the sheer epicness of it.

 

Also: what plot armour? It happened in a Night Lords' novel :lol:Loyalists aren't the ones with plot armour in those novels (unless they're a character with another book series, see Graham MacNeill's Iron Warriors/Ultramarines novels)

 

Compared to First Claws other feats in the series, Xarls ending seems pretty tame as far as plot armor goes.

 

It was a very pleasant suprise that, after two novels of First Claw & friends absolutely clobbering their enemies, that ABD had aspect warriors and Jain Zar doing them in. Probably my favorite depiction of Aspect Warriors fighting Astartes I have read thus far.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

 

Didn’t the big guy in first claw kill an ultramarine champion one-on-one. That’s a heroic amount of plot armor to overcome. (And a heretic winning an even odds fight!!?!?)

Ultramarine successors, the Gensis Chapter. But the Genesis have very close relaions to their founders, and actually will send Astartes to help fill the gaps in the Ultramrines battle order.  They actually fulfill the meme of Space Marines who hold the Codex Astartes as sacred.

You're also leaving this out:

 

Said Champion was given the Captaincy of the 3rd Company of the Genesis Chapter multiple times. And he used a Thunder Hammer. And Xarl fought him to a standstill. With a chainsword.

 

And he killed the marine by headbutting him to death.

 

Honestly, despite what people say about ADB killing off characters: Xarl had the best send-off of any named character in any 40k novel I've read because of the sheer epicness of it.

 

Also: what plot armour? It happened in a Night Lords' novel :lol: Loyalists aren't the ones with plot armour in those novels (unless they're a character with another book series, see Graham MacNeill's Iron Warriors/Ultramarines novels)

 

I think I remember that fight. I've got the third book laying around somewhere. I don't remember much else though, maybe I should reread the book.

 

In a fight of speed versus strength, the speedy person needs to be lucky multiple times, but the guy with the strength only needs to get lucky once. It certainly was a hell of a fight. 

[Captain Jer'ra]

Didn’t Major Rawne kill a chaos dreadnought in Ghostmaker? That’s pretty epic.

 It was Mkoll, not Rawne. 

 

And yes, pretty damn epic

[Grotsmasha]

My favourite mental image from a book is a lone Deathwatch Marine taking out a Tau Battlesuit in the 2nd Last Changers novel

[Rik Lightstar]

Ollianus Pious, when the background said he was just a Guardsmen and he threw himself in front of Horus, giving The Emperor the split second he needed to defeat Horus.

 

Rik

[Tichinde]

not a "victory" as such, but the last stand of the Scythes of the Emperor at the Giant's Coffin on Miral always struck me as pretty heroic.

[smileyjim]

When alpharious came back and convinced everyone he was guilliman then stole dads sword

[Magos Takatus]

I recall there was a comic strip in the Inferno magazine that pitted a lone Eldar Guardian against a chaos space marine dreadnought. He eventually destroyed it by ramming a jetbike into it. He claimed victory, Yay! Then he had to come to terms with being the lone survivor in a battle. Less yay?

[Ishagu]

On the tabletop or in the lore?

[mactire]

Bit of Bias here, but Bjorn laying into Magnus in Battle of the Fang was pretty epic.

[ThePenitentOne]

Heroic isn't the right word- Vandire wasn't expecting to need defense against his own bodyguards, but Alicia Dominica calling him out as a heretic and taking his head in one clean blow... 

 

On the table top, the biggest game I've ever played was a huge 8 player Apocalypse battle. I had a squad of Adeptus Arbites tarpit a Daemon Prince while a squad of Celestians did the same against a Warboss and a handful of nobz. These two tarpit actions allowed my Palatine to recover the Praesidium Protectiva from the Chapel of Saint Katherine's Aegis.

 

To this day, the 3 surviving Arbitrators have scratch built purity seals to commemorate their role in that battle; I converted a new model with a storm shield to represent the Palatine. The Celestians were martyred to the woman, so no trophies were given.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m desperately trying to remember the novel where an imperial hive is under attack and losing and as it’s being overrun the author specifically mentions several acts of heroism by the ordinary defenders that were never seen or recorded by anyone in-universe because they all died. They always struck me as very heroic. I really wish I could remember which novel, may even be something obvious like Helsreach but I don’t think it’s that one.

 

There’s also the cadian Regiment that’s mentioned in the Lords of Mars trilogy that were fighting a desperate defence of a city and some of the troopers were diving from the high buildings with melta bombs strapped to their chests to destroy the attacking vehicles. That’s pretty epic.

 

In purely individual terms Justicar Alaric in the Grey Knights novel was a pretty impressive win and a lot of people have mentioned a few Gaunts Ghosts characters who’ve had very impressive victories. Ciaphas Cain has also got to be pretty highly regarded in terms of some of his individual victories.

[Deafbok]

I’m desperately trying to remember the novel where an imperial hive is under attack and losing and as it’s being overrun the author specifically mentions several acts of heroism by the ordinary defenders that were never seen or recorded by anyone in-universe because they all died. They always struck me as very heroic. I really wish I could remember which novel, may even be something obvious like Helsreach but I don’t think it’s that one.

 

There’s also the cadian Regiment that’s mentioned in the Lords of Mars trilogy that were fighting a desperate defence of a city and some of the troopers were diving from the high buildings with melta bombs strapped to their chests to destroy the attacking vehicles. That’s pretty epic.

 

In purely individual terms Justicar Alaric in the Grey Knights novel was a pretty impressive win and a lot of people have mentioned a few Gaunts Ghosts characters who’ve had very impressive victories. Ciaphas Cain has also got to be pretty highly regarded in terms of some of his individual victories.

I believe you may well be thinking of Vervunhive from Gaunt's Ghosts - certainly sounds like the scope and scale of the thing!

 

I think my vote goes to the team on Gereon in the same series. So many points in that whole damn story.

[WARMASTER_]

Camba Diaz’s last stand in saturnine might be one of the best ever

 

Sigismund‘s last words to abaddon after running him through and while cut in half himself (best death scene in 40K) (black legion)

 

Milo & Mkoll killing Sek (warmaster?)

 

Gaunt killing an iron man (first & only)

 

Duriel Sacrificing himself and his men to kill a Titan (DA primarch book)

 

Hyperion breaking Angrons blade (emperors gift)

 

All the best ones that come to mind

Edited December 2, 2020 by BladeOfVengeance

[WARMASTER_]

Ollianus Pious, when the background said he was just a Guardsmen and he threw himself in front of Horus, giving The Emperor the split second he needed to defeat Horus.

 

Rik

To be fair he now stands alone as Angron charges him down.. still pretty bad ass

[Scribe]

It's not heroic. He now does nothing, gets obliterated for zero impact.

 

Thanks Abnett.

[Magos Takatus]

It's not heroic. He now does nothing, gets obliterated for zero impact.

 

Thanks Abnett.

I suppose that's fairly 40k in itself, how his significance has been inflated over time to become a brave martyr in the face of overwhelming odds. I still prefer the original version though.