Horror Stories

vercingetorix · Post by **vercingetorix** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:10 pm

One time I was playing as Vikings against Carolingian Franks. He had 3 units of cav charge two units of my regular off. sp. guys with archers in the rear rank. Both of my units had generals with them. I won the combat (no suprise since I had an advantage and re-rolling 1s), but then he rolled two 12s and killed both my generals. Both units went disrupted and ended up routing because of that, which basically cost me the battle. It is pretty hard to lose 2 generals and 2 12 stand units and go on to win the game.

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:20 pm

Hence your new nickname... 'Lucky'

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:28 am

Luckyingetorix, thats a mouthful for you.
I think you should have checked for loaded dice, or sacrificed prior to the beginning of the game. Perhaps you need a druid in your camp reading the omens from a sheep or something.

vercingetorix · Post by **vercingetorix** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:42 am

Haha, the guy I was playing is nice and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't use loaded dice as it was only a friendly game.

Maybe those two guys had done something to offend Oden or Thor or something.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 3:01 am

Yes the Gods are touchy.

Perhaps next time out you will end up with an unlucky opponent.

PaulByzan · Post by **PaulByzan** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:17 am

How about this one. The Historicon 2009 Open. On the verge of victory in my first game, I had the winning combat next move. Opponent was Catalan Grand Company. I was using Late Byzantine with Mongol Allies. An enemy LF BG (may even have been already disrupted) was surrounded by my Mongol LH and a unit of Cv Lancers led by a general. We were both down 12 points but his army breaks on a 13, mine on a 14. No units of mine that were fragged or disordered were in any danger as I'd got them well out of range of my opponents troops. I had routed and destroyed 3 of his four Catalan BGs. The fourth was in HTH with my BG of Catalan Guard. Both fighting 4 on 4 bases, neither disrupted or anything else. Dead equal except I had a general with mine so rerolling 1's and 2's. All I had to do was hold on to win in my next turn. So what happened. He rolled got 2 hits. I rolled, no hits but all 1's and 2's so all rerolls. Reroll: No hits again. Oh well so what, he has to break me. No big deal. Morale check. A 1 and a 2. Reroll the 1. Another 1, so we're fragged. Again so what, needs to break me as 13 points doesn't get him the win. Rolls to kill my general. Yep, an 11. Dead general. Checking for the dead general. Fragmented Catalans rout. 2 points gone. 14 total. I lose. This was after I had killed two of his generals on double 6's during the game in successive turns. Oh well, what the heck can you do sometimes.

Paul G.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:15 pm

guess they were kind of mad about those 2 generals you offed on them....
payback....

DaiSho · Post by **DaiSho** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 4:03 am

vercingetorix wrote:Haha, the guy I was playing is nice and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't use loaded dice as it was only a friendly game.

Maybe those two guys had done something to offend Oden or Thor or something.

What period Vikings are you running? Perhaps you should go to a later date and pick the 'in vogue' God.

Ian

vercingetorix · Post by **vercingetorix** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 8:46 pm

I just used dates that were compatible with Carolingian Franks, I'm not sure if they had converted by then or not.

DaiSho · Post by **DaiSho** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:10 pm

vercingetorix wrote:I just used dates that were compatible with Carolingian Franks, I'm not sure if they had converted by then or not.

It depends a lt on who you had leadin?g. there was a great deal of internal fighting that went on with 'staying Pagan' vs 'convertion' and it seems that the two camps were very staunch. I know of at least two Viking kings who became monks after they abdicated their rule (one may have been due to saving his own skin, but that doesn't seem to be the case as when he made great pains to convert people as he went avikingr).

Ian

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:56 am

At the recent IWF a player on an adjacent table contacted LF in the rear with Cv, duly routing the Cv.

babyshark · Post by **babyshark** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:48 pm

Scrumpy wrote:At the recent IWF a player on an adjacent table contacted LF in the rear with Cv, duly routing the Cv.

That was me.

Talk about a below-average experience. I started off the impact phase very pleased with my opportunity to ride a soon-to-be-broken Lf BG deep into my opponent's rear . . . .

<sigh>

Marc

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:05 pm

babyshark wrote:
Scrumpy wrote:At the recent IWF a player on an adjacent table contacted LF in the rear with Cv, duly routing the Cv.
That was me. Talk about a below-average experience. I started off the impact phase very pleased with my opportunity to ride a soon-to-be-broken Lf BG deep into my opponent's rear . . . .

<sigh>

Marc

Good show sir, that is a really rather bad outcome.

I remember one ages ago where I hit a BG of 4 heavy chariots with a BG of 2 elephants. I won the impact, disrupted the chariots and killed a base. Won the melee, fragmented the chariots and killed a base. Two melee rounds later my elephants broke on cohesion loss !!!

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:03 pm

babyshark wrote:
Scrumpy wrote:At the recent IWF a player on an adjacent table contacted LF in the rear with Cv, duly routing the Cv.
That was me. Talk about a below-average experience. I started off the impact phase very pleased with my opportunity to ride a soon-to-be-broken Lf BG deep into my opponent's rear . . . .

<sigh>

Marc

And I was sparing you your blushes Sir.

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:10 pm

I started off the impact phase very pleased with my opportunity to ride a soon-to-be-broken Lf BG deep into my opponent's rear

What happened afterwards is just rewards for wanting to drive anything deep into your opponents rear...

Best Horror story I have seen so far was some LF who had been charged and caught by some almughavars. The LF duly went fragged at impact, meaning the melee was 6 dice against 2, with the Almughavars at double plus (they were Superior and had a general fighting in the front rank)

The Almughavars rolled six dice and missed with all six. Re-rolled the lot and missed again. LF duly won the combat 2-0.

Almughavars went disrupted and lost a base. The Light Foot then killed the general.

It was at this point that the Almughavar player resigned...

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:22 pm

And went back to dbm ?

daleivan · Post by **daleivan** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:10 pm

The above collectively confirms a saying from our local club, "you can't fight the dice."

And sometimes the dice really fight you

Dale

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:49 pm

My horror story started off before I even made the table
Blathergut and I had a game a few days ago, I went upstairs to grab my army which is in one of those plastic towers with the drawers, I was at the bottom of the stairs and was holding it by the top. Note to self don't carry it by the top.... it comes off.
So my two top drawers are now spread about the floor, and being multiparts I have a collection of heads, riders, elephant crews weapons and shields that need emergency reattachment. That took 15 mins of sheer panic to get fixed up and should have been seen as a sign from the Gods that all was not going to go well for me.

Blathergut surprised me with LRR with Nubian allies, I was expecting Dacians. I have +2 for initiative and after tying the first die roll with a 2, I lost the second die roll with a 2. Putting it mildly it went downhill from there. My pike unit went disrupted from his skirmishers, the rest of my line of pikes did not charge the disrupted boys went in full tilt, so I threw the C-in-C in to the front line, survives impact dies in melee. Unit breaks and drags the adjacent unit down in cohesion from seeing it break.
Prety much every combat I went into turned into a loss followed by dropping 1 or 2 cohesion levels and most of my army was in rout and was back in the case while all I had managed to do was kill 1 stand of average legions and break a spear unit with bow fire.

Finally called the game when my attrition score was 12-2, my break was 16.
One of those days I should have stayed home instead

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:10 pm

dave_r wrote:The Almughavars rolled six dice and missed with all six. Re-rolled the lot and missed again. LF duly won the combat 2-0.

Almughavars went disrupted and lost a base. The Light Foot then killed the general.

It was at this point that the Almughavar player resigned...

OK, that is 1 in 729 for the first full miss, times the same again for the second time 1 in 9 for the LF getting 2 hits
That means there is a 1 in 4,782,969 chance of the Almughavars losing 2-0
They would pass the CT on a roll of 8 (beaten by 2, 1HP3B, commander) so that is a 56.7% chance of passing or a 43.3% fail so we are now at 11,051,222 to 1.
Losing a base 1 in 3 takes it to 33,153,666
Killing the commander is another 1 in 12 so 397,844,001 to 1 against.

Now that is what I call a horror story.

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 4:42 pm

Numidian allies.

Personally, I think the horroriest bit was when the superior pikes, rolling 4 dice, needing 4+ to hit, rerolling 1s, rolled two 2s and two 3s.

oh...and it was against a fragmented BG of average Legionaries.

oh oh...which said BG gave 1 hit to the pikes.