Probably the worst moment we had was our librarian - widely acknowledged to be the most unlucky psyker in Imperial service.

Protecting an important imperial official (Administratum Quaestor Senioris) who had been targeted for assassination sounded easy; you can't get much better close body protection than four astartes, can you?

The expected attack came about halfway through the mission. Many goons with knives and small arms charged at the kill-team and most were gunned down in droves. One of them - one of a handful of professionals hidden in the angry mob - charged the librarian, pulling out a powered shortblade.

The librarian reacted by using the psychic power Iron Arm . With the bonus to parry, he easily deflected the attack.

If only the roll hadn't been a double.

If only the result hadn't been a warp vortex.

If only the vortex hadn't opened up to within a metre exactly where the protectee was standing, leading to him being dragged screaming into the immaterium.

The debriefing was amusing....

The debriefing was amusing....

I could imagine... but please, don't spare us the details

Well in our start-up phase, we ran training sessions (basicly we killed tyranids in the watch fortress), because the current squad-leader (me) figured it would smart to get the group to train a bit togeher to actually make a team out of them... as the homogaunts swarm at us, we kick ass... except our tech marine, who's misses his first burst against the horde... But next burst jam the bolter... and with the lack of firepower, we find ourselves in melee... Which isn't that bad for us... except our tech marine, who takes a beating, but with a chainsword and a servoarm STILL can't hit anything.. and then 4 of the bigger mosters attack us (raveners i think)... the first one fall to a burst of heavy-bolter fire... the rest we struggle with for two rounds in melee... Our tech marine gets help from our tactical marine, but he still neither hits or blocks... The tactical get trying to save our tech marine, gets pounced by ong of the (now two) remaining foes, and the rest of us struggle to free him, leaving our severely wounded Tech marine with a chance to restore his honor... rolling a 01!!! which unfortunately only result in hitting, but not damaging it... and our devestator casually draw his boltpistol, and kills it with a single hit...

While the rest of our squad are left with a few scrapes minor injuries, our tech marine has taken 17 damage and is barely standing.. without having drawn any blood in the "simple" training fight.... Leaving him to hope that the emperor was NOT watching... and My character as squad leader to fear what problems his presence might create for the squad....

He should have re-rolled a character on principle.

Or gone on sabbatical or something...

Or gone on sabbatical or something...

Yeah. At least a week of "me time" was in order for that one. Quick trip to Mars to really think some things through.

I could imagine... but please, don't spare us the details

They ended up trying to blame the assassination attempt on some fiendish psyker-assassin, whose abilities were such that he was able to slip in amongst the mob and the Librarian didn't sense him until it was too late. Unfortunately (with hindsight) they were convincing.

The risk of a high-powered renegade psyker working for Tau recidivists was deemed a critical risk, and the kill-team was diverted to hunting him down. Which was difficult, since (a) they made him up, and (b) they had the Ordo Hereticus looking over their shoulder and preventing them fabricating anything convincing to say that they'd 'killed' him. Which led to them being deployed on wild goose chases, getting thrown at recidivist cells in deeper and deeper and more and more dangerous bits of the undehive, for several weeks. Which in turn meant they were out of contact in one of the megastructure foundations when the Tau assault force actually did arrive...

/facepalm

Burning a fate point allows you to avoid death if it's feasible. Being naked in space for example would mean death can't be avoided. So falling so far, how did he manage to survive?

Plus I wouldn't allow burning a fate point to prevent suicidal actions. Any player that did that in my game, would be dead.

With an attitude like that you wouldn't make it past the trials part of joining a Space Marine Chapter.

Player was taking a Wrath of Corax assault marine, a Raven Guard successor with a heavy focus on ship to ship combat. WOCs are okay on land but have tons of bonuses onboard ships. Only problem was all of their adventures were on the ground and WOC assault marines don't get jump packs. Then we got to Ark of Lost Souls. The WOC turns to the other marines, gives them horrifically complicated instructions on attack patterns and how to handle all the bad guys. The instructions involved using bolt pistols to maneuver in zero-g, running up walls and just being a bad ass in space. The other marines meekly pointed out they couldn't pull off what he was ordering them to do. The WOC just glared at them, "Why not? I can!"

Another player was a Screaming Gecko Devastator, a chapter known for its insane bravado and complete lack of defensive strategies. Intro adventure had a hive tyrant swoop down for 1d5 rounds of tossing marines around. Only the Geckos are known for insane acts of courage and in their fluff they have instances of force feeding tyranids bags of grenades. So this guy decides that he too is going to feed a hive tyrant a bag of krak grenades. Called shots, massive penalties and he rolls a 05. Wasn't enough to kill it outright, but made it decide that it needed to be somewhere else. And it was all in character which made it even better.

My second ever session of role playing, I was a Tactical Marine, in a small group with one each of Assault and Devastator, all Raven Guard (it was linked to our tabletop campaign). We were hunting for a Black Legion Sorceror (the GM's tabletop HQ in my last few games, he would lose the game but Xandrek would always escape). After trying to sneak about in under hive tunnels, and failing, I fell on my face in front of two Legionaries and a Squad of taitor Guard. Had to be rescued, and took some in character abuse. At the end of the session though, having located Xandrek performing some dark ritual, we decided to attack. As we got to a position to attack, the ritual ended and a Deamon Prince burst from the warp. The Devastator let rip with his Heavy Bolter, doing some minor damage, the Assault Marine, obsessed with grenades, throws a Krak doing a bit of damage, and, last in initiative order and having listened to the GM tell us how screwed we are, I decided to heroically throw myself into close combat while my comrades escape. What happened was just ridiculous, I basically just kept rolling righteous fury, and sawed the Deamon Prince, a 10,000 year veteran, in half. With a combat knife. When the Grey Knights surprised us by teleporting in, having used us as bait, they stood around with nothing to do. :-)

I always knew there should be a cap for righteous fury...

We have a Iron Hands librarian, a Blood angels Assault, a Dark Angels apothecary, a ultramarine Tech and a Space Wolf tactical. They are going in finding the BL in Oblivion´s edge, and they are in the narrow tunnel surrounded by small access hatches they could not use, but the stealers (for Us will ever be Ben Stilers) attack them through them.

The Ben Stilers begin to rip them in pieces, above all, the tac, armed only with a basic weapon... and a Knife.

That astartes knife killed about 20 Stillers, one after the other.

When they came back, after the hive ship and all to Erioch, he asked Greyweaver to put a distortion field around it, and, after some Mead, and the proper saga, He obliged.

The tally is still building.

Sometimes...scout knives.

Keep'm coming, guys.

So playing more PbP games than live-action, my Deathwatch experience has thus far been limited (more folks seem interested in DH or RT for forum games) but this one is too good to pass up.

Imagine being the only assault marine amongst a group of ranged-happy tacticals, a devastator and a tech-marine. Yeah, sure, you've got a pistol, and once everything gets good and stuck in you're fine... Only problem is, the GM likes starting everything several hundred meters out. Every, single, encounter. Meaning the others have entire hordes chewed to nothing before I'm close enough to use my pistol reliably. For reference, the NPC group of Imperial Guard we rescued in the first encounter had a higher kill count thanks to their help in that one fight than I did for most of the fight. It was a little frustrating, and the GM "already had everything planned" and was unwilling to waver in the slightest. I resign myself to only picking things off randomly with my pistol, as even multiple turns of full-runs only means that I'm going to maybe get one melee attack in, if I'm lucky.

Then it finally happens. Tyranid tunnelers burst up right in the middle of the group on the ground whilst I'm on top of a nearby structure (hey, if I'm gonna be useless, I'll look awesome while being useless), knocking all of them prone since they've failed both perception to realize it's coming and dodge to avoid the eruption, and I realize my Storm Warden's time to shine has finally come. Thanks to Quick Draw I now have two roaring chainswords in my hands, it takes me even less time to drop to solo mode, and then I'm in the air. Wings of Angels is a rousing success, as is the charge. I even go ahead and trigger the Moment of Glory demeanor, as I'm descending on wings of fire as an avenging angel to save my battle brothers who are about to be super-ganked.

In two turns I reduce three melee-happy hormogaunts (I believe that's what they were) to paste. I then take a moment to remind my battle brothers exactly why I had been seconded to the Deathwatch, and that maybe perhaps they might want to save a few rounds and let me clean up their messes for them.

Sadly, the GM had to drop shortly after that, and no one else picked up the mantle. Just when I had finally gotten cool.

Assault Marines *wipes a tear from his eye*

GM likes starting everything several hundred meters out. Every, single, encounter.

Your GM is to kind. I always surprise my players... The mission where they would have to hold a fort with a group of guardsmen, while they were activating a beacon that woud draw tyranid attention... Well, turns out the guardsmen were corrupted and lead by traitor marines... and the PCs are shot down, while cultists swarm them in melee, while chaos marines fire indiscriminitely..

Hey! Funny stories...come on. I know you laughed like mwahahaha when it happened, but lets keep the comedy going.

GM likes starting everything several hundred meters out. Every, single, encounter.

Your GM is to kind. I always surprise my players... The mission where they would have to hold a fort with a group of guardsmen, while they were activating a beacon that woud draw tyranid attention... Well, turns out the guardsmen were corrupted and lead by traitor marines... and the PCs are shot down, while cultists swarm them in melee, while chaos marines fire indiscriminitely..

I would say that the OP's GM is too vanilla and not creative enough. Unless you are behind the scenes rolling for the Marines to roll to spy any odd behavior from the Guardsmen, or awareness check for Chaos Marines, or just the taint of Chaos in general... or God, having hints throughout the mission that something is up, then I would say you are a d*ck. Haha

I only mean, of course, that the players should have every chance to shape their own destiny. I too want to drop a Carnifex on their heads from orbit sometimes, but you have to let them decide to push the "drop" button themselves. ya dig?

Speaking of pushing the button themselves...

This is actually Dark Heresy, so forgive the indescretion, but...

We were in a large hive, there was a radical inquisitor who was competing with us to get to a vile tome of warp nasty, we found the cultists who had it and we fought our way into their bolthole. We got a missile launcher with a frag round off one of them and there were melta canisters laying about. In the center of the room was some kind of sarcophigus decorated with all kinds of wards and mechanicus swag, but our tech-priest had just died so we had no idea what it was. So knowing the inquisitor and the badguys were coming our way, we put the melta canisters on top of the sarcophigus, went into another room and our guardsman picked up the rocket launcher, ready to fire it and blow the crap out of everyone in the room when they barged in.

The door opened, our guardsman rolled his attack...a hit!

GM: Roll damage.

Guardsman: *rolls* Righteous Fury! 37! *looks at the rest of us* And boom goes the dynamite.

GM: *rolls some dice...rolls some more...rolls some more (we're starting to get nervous)...ROLLS EVEN MORE* Okaaaay...you all die.

Group: WHAT!?

GM: The coffin was a fusion bomb, it takes you, the inquisitor, the heretics and half the hive straight to the Emperor's doorstep. You've some explaining to do.

I couldn't stop laughing, honestly. It was the first time the whole campaign our Guardsman had actually succeeded at anything.

That is amazing.

Speaking of pushing the button themselves...

This is actually Dark Heresy, so forgive the indescretion, but...

We were in a large hive, there was a radical inquisitor who was competing with us to get to a vile tome of warp nasty, we found the cultists who had it and we fought our way into their bolthole. We got a missile launcher with a frag round off one of them and there were melta canisters laying about. In the center of the room was some kind of sarcophigus decorated with all kinds of wards and mechanicus swag, but our tech-priest had just died so we had no idea what it was. So knowing the inquisitor and the badguys were coming our way, we put the melta canisters on top of the sarcophigus, went into another room and our guardsman picked up the rocket launcher, ready to fire it and blow the crap out of everyone in the room when they barged in.

The door opened, our guardsman rolled his attack...a hit!

GM: Roll damage.

Guardsman: *rolls* Righteous Fury! 37! *looks at the rest of us* And boom goes the dynamite.

GM: *rolls some dice...rolls some more...rolls some more (we're starting to get nervous)...ROLLS EVEN MORE* Okaaaay...you all die.

Group: WHAT!?

GM: The coffin was a fusion bomb, it takes you, the inquisitor, the heretics and half the hive straight to the Emperor's doorstep. You've some explaining to do.

I couldn't stop laughing, honestly. It was the first time the whole campaign our Guardsman had actually succeeded at anything.

I imagine that their fate points were spent, not surviving, but explaining to the Emperor what happened.

'Well big guy it kinda went down like this......'

I don't have too many funny Deathwatch stories yet.

Probably the two best ones occured in the same session

An Ork Noble is fighting a Blackshield in close combat. He seems to have a metal cast on one arm. It comes round to the orks turn and I as GM suddenly lean over the table and shout 'SUPRISE! Squig Attack Arm to the Face!'

What made it funnier was that the PC with a surprised look on his face did manage to parry the thing before getting sucker punched by the ork Nob.

To the head.

With a power claw.

'+4 Critical please'

After this initial success the Ork Noble then proceeded to roll nothing but fumbles (96, 100 and 99) for his attacks. I determined that his mega armour had seized up so he was easy pickings for the Deathwatch Kill Team that came to their brothers aid.

The other one happened a couple of rounds before the aforementioned Squig Attack arm incident and also involved the Blackshield who was using a missile launcher

The Blackshield takes aim at an ork Gob-smasher (a type of Ork tank) fires his Krak missile, penetrates it's armour, kills all the crew, sets them on fire, explodes the weapon, which then explodes the ammo 'killing' the crew again before exploding the tank probably 'killing' the crew for a third time along with a few orks nearby.

A slightly dramatic interpretation of genuine vehicle Critical hit table results, however we were able to determine that the Ork crew were probably all dead.

Unless you are behind the scenes rolling for the Marines to roll to spy any odd behavior from the Guardsmen, or awareness check for Chaos Marines, or just the taint of Chaos in general... or God, having hints throughout the mission that something is up, then I would say you are a d*ck. Haha

Well i might be

well the story is this: we had run a few tranings sessions where the character practiced against some caught 'nids in the watch fortress (also the players could learn the rules) ...

and the mission they wer explained was going to be one where they had lots of suplies with them, guardsman support... a classic starter mission... and i decided "Hell No! i will surprise them"...

so their thunderhawk is getting ready to land and it ground to air battery guns them down... suddenly the "rutine intro mission" was a brutal struggle for survival... however dispite a minor crisis of faith about how they would survive the few against the Tyranid onslaugh (after having dealt traitors) that would attacck them when they activated the relay... Which lead the glorious moment when the squad leader eventually said "We are spacemarines. We will prevail." and the four man squad went through Tyranid infested landscape, activate the ancient relays station, fighting heroicly to hold the 'Nids at bay... Then the relay fire and powers down... retrive the information, get extracted, and transmits the information (about the hivefleet that the relay just gathered) leaving the imperial forces in a much better position to fight the hivefleet... And they felt pretty smug when they returned... the Annoying NPC Liberian who cautioned against sending them stayed away from the debriefing...

Last night, we found ourselves on the "Black Engine", a Chaos train no less, fighting a mutated psyker and its heretechservitor stooges. Our devastator, walking around with an excellent lascannon, decides to shoot the psykerthing in the face. With a casual roll of the die, he inflicts about 57 damage. Our GM describes:

"Instead of dodging the blast, the psyker jumps right in the middle of the beam. You notice a third eye on his forehead that starts glowing red".

Meanwhile, the assault marine goes into frenzy, and I (librarian) throw a grenade in the middle of the servitors, calling upon the warp for a "true strike" to disable the psyker. The psyker decides to start barfing and create himself a barfshield to augment his armour.

Next round, our perhaps not so bright devastator (and incidently my real life brother), decides that the adagium "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" doesn't really apply to enemies and decides to take another shot at him. This time causing another whopping 45 damage. Our GM makes a facepalm and describes again that the psyker is now manicly laughing us in the face and that his red eye is glowing even brighter.

The assault marine starts clearing up the servitors that came in melee range and I, to clear the path for him (to go melee with the psyker and my own pending melee attacks) use "avenger". Although this dispatches the servitors, the psyker seems only more pleased with this as the fire adds to his power.

The psyker then throws a ball of barf to the devastator, who dodges the projectile easily.

Then, our devastator, not hindered by any rational thought or strategy ( "best defence is offence, right? " ), blasts the psyker one more time with his lacannon, this time hitting the frakker with a whopping 68 damage. At that point, our GM, looking incredulous at the die, starts rolling some die himself, 10 of them , declaring that the psyker has been overloaded and goes supernova, causing 78 damage in a 20 meter radius, which easily encompassed the whole kill team.

Our devastator seemed a bit dumbfounded at that message...

if it's not one thing, it's another...

The past few campaigns I've run have been fraught with disaster for the Librarians in my group. The first one, Barachiel, the Dark Angel lost both arms fighting a Carnifex. He did however in a moment of pure awesome threw a grenade in its mouth and killed it. The second Azrael the blood angel fired an avenger at a door and had it reflected back at him and nearly killed himself( he had already used all of his fate points) the last one is only known for the terrible fate that befell him in the warp....with daemonettes........for two weeks.