"What's your funniest / most embarrassing wargames story? " Topic

Note: this post contains British humour.

Hey guys, too much gloom and angst and underdog on these boards lately. Time to lighten the mood. So what’s your funniest and / or most embarrassing wargaming connected story? Tell us something amusing that’s happened to you or a friend at a club or a convention.

Here’s one for starters: A long time ago in our wargames club, the meetings were held in the basement of an old factory. A permanent location where we could leave battles set up until we finished them – a rarity in those days. It just so happened to also be very near to the home of a Minister of State who was in charge of Northern Ireland security at a very sensitive time in the troubles there.

So, we had decided that this particular weekend we would play a big D&D battle game. Only one of us had a van so we toured around picking up everyones boxed figures ready for the start of the game that evening. Then four of us drove to the club premises, parked the van (in a no parking zone) and hurriedly started to unload these boxes out the back of the van before a traffic warden arrived. This was about ten o’clock at night and fairly foggy

Now there were a few points that we should have considered. Firstly, we were all dressed in old army surplus gear, camo trousers, bomber jackets and stuff. Secondly, one of the group kept his figures in old style ammo boxes from his TA days. (Reserve army / National Guard to you yanks) Thirdly, keeping one member on look out for wardens must have looked a bit suspicious, as was keeping the engine running, as was forming a chain to pass the boxes down to the cellar. One of the guys was also wearing a balaclava because he was getting over an ear infection and was sensitive to the cold. With hindsight its all so obvious now!

Anyway, before we had unloaded half the boxes we were suddenly surrounded by searchlights and shadowy figures bellowing “armed police”. Armed police were an incredible rarity in the UK then, so it was a massive shock.
Shortly afterwards, having been lined up, frisked and cuffed for good measure we were explaining that we were simple wargamers, not IRA terrorists out to blow up the Minister. Then this female cop starts to open up one of the figure boxes and the first thing she pulls out is the D&D book supplement “Eldritch Wizardry” the one with a reclining naked blonde on the cover about to be sacrificed. That was embarrassing enough but she then pulls out the DM’s notepad on which he’s scribbled out “the best method of kidnapping and sacrificing a virgin maiden to raise a demon” rules for his long running campaign.

You can imagine the looks and the questions! We were soooo embarrassed – especially as he wasn’t there and we had no idea what she was reading or questioning us on. So in the space of a few hours we went from suspected terrorists to wanna be satanic kidnappers to sad nerdy wargamers in the eyes of these cops. (I have never been so relieved to be labelled a sad nerdy wargamer!)

Eventually it all worked out and after that the cops used to call in regularly for a coffee late at night when we were gaming into the small hours. (Though we never saw the female cop again, funny that….) Shortly after our incident the local pest controller at the hospital building opposite went up on the roof with an airgun to cull pigeons. He wasn’t as lucky as us and they shot him in the leg! (They were very apologetic afterwards though…… the pest controller was stoical about it. He later said that had he been thinking straight, when they shouted “armed police, put down the weapon” he wouldn’t have turned around still pointing the gun……………

You don't seriously expect anyone to top that, do you? That is quite possibly one of the funniest stories I have ever heard! :)

That was great!

Aaaand that's the end of the thread, folks!

Your story would make an astoundingly good Blackadder sketch.

Strange and silly things must have happened to other people too? or is it just me who inhabits a wierd sitcom universe?

At one particular convention a group of us had just arrived and after a long cramped car journey were all in need of a pee. So in a group we enter the gents and one of the guys is very excited because its his first convention and he's got a couple of hundred quid to spend and hes rabbiting on about which stands he's gonna hit first and which figures he's gonna buy and who gives the best discounts etc etc. Three of us head for empty spaces in the urinals and start to do what we need to, he on the other hand, still looking over his shoulder at us and rabbiting on and on, goes to the other wall and isnt even looking, starts to do what he needs to do. At which point the two gentlemen who are washing their hands in the sinks either side of him start to complain loudly. Yep, he was peeing in a sink. He never lived it down and still blushes bright crimson after all these years if anyone mentions it. For decencies sake I cant actually write down here what his club nickname was after that.

Thanks General, I needed that!

Can't top it, but we should keep the thread going - so here is a sad story of a different type.

Four friends and I set up a big Warhammer battle, with 4,000 points per side. I was part of the dwarf team. My partner and I each created 2000 point forces. One op my picks was a cannon. I gave this cannon the Rune of Forging, which would allow me to reroll a misfire. I also gave it a Rune of Fortune, which allowed a reroll on the misfire table if I rolled a misfire despite the Rune of Forging.

So, for the cannon to explode, I had to roll a "1" on a d6 for a misfire, and then a second "1" when I got to reroll. I would then have to roll a third "1" on the misfire table (explosion), and also a fourth "1" when I got to reroll on the misfire table. It has been a long time since I took probability and statistics, but I think I had a 1 in 1,296 of exploding my cannon.

I hit it on the second turn.

An excellent story. Fortunately I wargame for fun and not for competition so I do not intend to top the story.

Here in New Zealand we are light on Wargames stores, so when I went on my OE in 1995 I intended to call in at the Emperors Headquarters in Chicago and spend a couple of hours there.

After leaving my girlfriend at our hostel, I caught the subway and got off near the road I thought I needed to. I climbed down from the station (this was the above ground bit of the line) and found the road I was after (Irving Park?). And I proceeded to walk (in freezing temperatures as it was the end of March).... and walk and walk. I think I must have walked a coouple of miles at least but soon in the distance I saw my destination.

Well I arrived there, AND IT WAS CLOSED ON MONDAYS. A quarter of the way around the world, a long walk using primaeval mapping methods in the cold and the bloody store is closed. Never did buy anything more from EHQ after that.

A few friends of mine and I were getting ready to play a WWII armor game - one of my friends having a few 1/285 scale T-34 minis in front of him.

A roleplaying-type guy came up and was looking at the game and minis. He asked my friend about how fast one of the T-34s could go.

In response, my friend reached down to one of the minis and said "Oh, about this fast" and zinged the thing across the top of the table and in into a wall.

Guess you had to be there....

Rev

My sympathies. In an old WRG 6th Edition game I managed to roll 3 ones in 5 consecutive reaction tests. This despite changing the dice etc. Much to my opponants amusement and the entire rout of my galatian fanatic army.

"Those who the gods hate, they first torment with bad dice rolls............"

At a Sheffield Triples UK convention in 1980. We did a massive D&D battle combat. There was a very bemused member of the audience that really didnt get the joke when we started measuring the move distances for the invisible stalker (there was nothing there at all, not even a base) She was even more bemused when two guys came up and started complimenting us on the painting detail of the figure! We saw her later approach the table when we were at the bar and serruptitiously pass her hand through the area where the figure was supposed to be. When she saw us rolling around in hysterics she flounced off in a huff. Ah those were the days, I really do miss the CND pickets outside the hall these days.

Sometimes, in the heat of gaming, a person will say something really silly and is rather funny whenyou think about it.

We have had:

"It's good to be outnumbered...it'll give us more targets."

"If I take the shot and miss...that would be bad."

You get the idea.

This story is second hand, but I have it from the central figure and another who was present, so I think it's solid.

It was back in 1979-1980, when my university friends and I had first discovered D&D and were playing in every spare moment. Complete addicts. We spent a long weekend crammed in my dorm room playing an old Judges Guild module (remember them?) called "Under the Storm Giants Castle". The brave adventures had to go down into a magic cloud to rescue a cloud giant's baby that had been kidnapped. Among the odd fauna inhabiting the interior of the magic cloud were a race called "balloon people" because, well, that's what they were. Any hit on a balloon person by a sharp object killed the BP immediately. There was a chance the characters could have negotiated with the BPs, and gathered information about the missing baby - but only if the party had no sharp weapons showing. Well, being all of us fairly new to the game, the players' characters ALWAYS had their weapons drawn. Every time the characters entered a section of the cloud with Balloon People, the BPs would scream "PINS! PINS! KILL THE PINS!"

This happened a lot over a long weekend, that stretched into the wee hours of Monday morning. After a time the players got in on the fun a shouted "PINS! PINS! KILL THE PINS!" with me whenever a new group of baloon people were encountered.

The next morning one of the players managed to stumble into his early Intro to Economics class. One of those large, amphitheater lecture halls that seat 250 students, he sat about two-thirds back and promptly drifted into a semi-conscious state.

The lecture that day was on the economist Adam Smith. Specialization of labor, assembly lines, etc. Smith's example? Pins...

The first time the professor said "Pins", my friend jerked awake and bellowed out "PINS! PINS! KILL THE PINS!" Fortunately, now awake, he had the presence of mind - as scores of students turned around in their seats to see whom the nutcase was - to turn around in his own seat to look behind him.

I wish I could have been there!

While at a convention, I was speaking with a friend who also owns a shop at the table he had set up in the dealers' area. Another guy he knew form another con (Paul gets around) came and we started talking about various things gaming related. (Un)fortunately for Paul, he stocks a very good collection of anime. This draws more than his fair share of gaming AND comic book geeks (double trouble).

One of the most unhygenic gamer/comic book geeks walked up and inserted himself in our conversation. He introduced himself after a few minutes and extended his hand to me. I shook it, wondering where it's been, and perhaps more frighteningly, what it's been doing, if I recall, Paul did the same. The third guy looked at Geeky's hand, up at his pudgy face, back at his hand, looked him dead in the eye and says, "Uhh, I don't touch other people." Paul and I were shocked it was all I could do to keep from busting out laughing. Geeky, looking quite crestfallen, retrieved his paw, and listened for a few more minutes of our conversation before sulking off.

I'm not sure if it's a good defense aginst the Smelly Geekys out there (and there quite a few) or not. It was funny at the time, but I'm not sure I would do it.

We had a fellow in one game of Fire & Fury who tried to hide behind a lake. I don't know what he was thinking, but when we started shooting across the lake into his flank he was most upset!

In my only game of "Pony Wars" we had some settlers who had a rather sad experience. I don't know it's officially in the rules but the way we were playing was that if the settlers were attacked by Indians they always saved bullets for themselves and the wife and kids, rather than be captured. One of the fatures of the game is the settlers only get a limited amount of ammo. It happened that we had this wagon train heading to the fort. It ended up being attacked by a large band of Indians and rolled very poorly for the available ammo. In accordance with the accepted practice, I shot all the women and children to save them from a "fate worst than death" and then fired the few remaining rounds off at the Indians. As it turned out, I rolled really well for the shooting and actually cause a casualty. This caused the natives to roll morale, for which I rolled really poorly. I rolled so poorly, in fact, that they all ran away! Leaving the settlers standing there feeling rather foolish...

Well here goes, myself and four other guys go off to Gencon. This has to be about 1978 0r 79. We were camping and we set up our trailer (caravan for you in the UK). It has been raining a lot and the trailer is on a slight incline. All of us are sitting around the dining table anticipaing a great time tommarrow. We hear a loud thunk and several more. The trailer starts to shift, let me tell you. It was all elbow's and a*****e's going out that door. We looked like the keystone cops. The trailer shifted and the frame caught on the picnic table. We were lucky. The van was parked in front of the trailer. I can laugh about it now, but there was a high pucker factor for a few moments.

In my misspent youth I was the Games Workshop US “Demo Guy” out of Baltimore. I was flying to GenCon back in ‘88 or ‘89 to run the GW 40K and WFB tournies and had packed all the figs for the games into a pair of big ‘ol rifle cases I’d picked up at Sports Authority. They were sturdy, space efficient, and had nice egg-crate foam, all perfect for lugging many many pounds of lead cross county. Or so I thought. I’m bopping through BWI airport with my rucksack and my “Chapter Approved: Morally Pure” t-shirt, full of anticipation for the upcoming convention and just reeking of the sort of attendant scruffyness that only those early twenties, just out of collage gamer guys have - with two big gun cases in hand. Bear and mind please that this was still a few years before Pan Am 103 and many many years before 9/11. So, I’m wandering up to the security gate to get my stuff checked, and about 25 yards out I notice that one of the guards kind of snaps to attention, not quite alarmed but definitely looking hard at something. I think, whoa! Is something going on here?, and look over my shoulder to see if anything is going on behind me. (Yes, yes, my obliviousness here is astounding.) I get up to about ten feet away from the guard and he is looking _very_ hard at me and I notice that not only is the cover to his side arm now unsnapped but that his hand is hovering distressingly close to its butt. The guard himself is one of those big, ex-Marine looking guys, big not so much in his actual, you know, big-ness per se, but more so in that disarming way that communicates to you that the guy could just absolutely tear you apart without much in the way of apparent effort. Some little corner of my pre-limbic lizard brain is now screaming at me that Something Is Wrong, but my highly evolved, opposable-thumb-wielding, abstraction-capable forebrain is continuing to draw a blank. I take another halting step or two forward, now very conscious of the fact that my t-shirt _is_ really kind of dumb looking, but still utterly oblivious to the real problem right at the tips of my fingers. The guard stared at me hard for another second or two and says in a low, utterly humorless voice, “Boy, what’chew got in doze cases?”. Enlightenment arrive three hundred year or so too late to be of much help to me. I think to myself, “Jesus MFC, you moron!”, (in later years it would have been, “D’oh!”), and mutter something like, “Uhm, er, ah, toys, um, toy . . . soldiers. I’m . . . ah, going, to a, uhm , toy . . . soldier . . .convention . . . Sir. ” Guard Guy goes, “You put dem boxes down on the floor, and you open’em up for me here. Real. Slow. You got it?” I do, and I do. He comes over and looks at my Dwarves and my Skaven and my Space Orks and my Eldar, and gives me that “Just what the hell _is_ this stuff”, kind of face. Feeling relieved that I’m apparently _not_ going to be shot or strip-searched or any of that kind of stuff, I start telling him about GenCon. About Games Workshop. About drybrushing. I think I was starting on about The History of Imperium when I realize that people around me are laughing. Oh, yes, at me. The guard passes me through with a dismissive hand wave that says, “Get out of my face you moron.”
The Hispanic lady in the gray suit and floofy fabric tie-thing who actually checks my bags chuckles at me as I go through the check-in line, as do several of the folks who accompany me to the departure gate and I feel about thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis tall until much later when we get up into the air.

But the convention rocked. And I bought better figure cases.

Mark

Many years ago, my friends and I played a game of Harpoon at a convention in Toledo Ohio. It was set in the Persian Gulf, and there was no declaration of war at the start of the game, so the capital ships on each side were very close to each other. I had a command of a swarm of Libyan missile boats, but my friend had command of a large Russian cruiser which was at point blank range to a US warship. The goal of the scenario was to sink a supertanker located some distance away and proteted by a bunch of Aegis cruisers.

First turn after the declaration of war occurs my friend gets to fire his guns first. If I recall, it was ten shots at the US ship with a 90% chance of hitting. He rolled the percentile dice for the first shot. Miss. Second, miss. Third. Miss. With each roll the expression on his face went from eagerness, to frustration then to dread at the next roll. He missed all ten shots.

I, however, fired every missile I had the first turn. This effectively took me out of the action as the swarms headed to their target, the supertanker. It took several turns for them to get there. So while my buddies continued there ship to ship combat with the capital ships, I roved around the convention hall, even played briefly in a WWI dogfight game. I checked every so often on my missiles' progress until it was time finally to roll for the results. My missile volley totally devastated the target, sinking the tanker and winning the game. In effect, the game was won on turn one, when I fired my initial, and only, salvo.

I rec'd the best gamer prize and was awarded a gift certificate to a local gaming store. It has been the only one I have ever won a prize for my gaming, and for a game that I put almost not thought or effort into. Meanwhile, even though its been over ten years, we still take great delight in ridiculing my friend's enormous bad luck. Truly a memorable game.

LPG

I'll bite...

My very first experience with historical wargaming took place at American Eagle hobbies in Ballard, WA. I had been into the shop a few times to browse the fantasy stuff and had seen the historical guys playing in the back room. One day I decided to join in the Spearhead microarmor game on tap for that day. Everyone was very friendly and I was given a battalion of british infantry, supported by a company of Valentine infantry tanks, and told to "go keep the 88's busy" over at Halfaya Pass while the rest of British knocked some Italians about. I dutifully set off to accomplish my mission, fully expecting to get wasted (i'd read about Halfaya Pass). As I came into range of the 88's, I started to lose Valentines and when all of the Valentines were dead, started to lose infantry. In Spearhead, you make battalion morale checks at 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3 of your starting strength and must roll a 5+ on a d6 or your battalion is removed as combat ineffective. At the 2/3 mark, I tested and passed. My resolute lads pressed on. At the 1/2 mark I tested and passed. Stiff upper lip indead. I reached the base of the pass and began attacking the infantry and AT guns there. They were quickly routed and upon reaching the 1/3 mark, I tested and passed another morale check. Victoria Crosses all around! At this point I happened to be fiddling with the die I had been handed and something odd: it was entirely made up of 5's and 6's. I was quite embarrased and figured to be run out on my first day of historical gaming, but everyone had a good laugh at my "beginner's luck" and I ended up where I am now...with a closet full of historical minis :)

Later

Brian

Some of these are mine. Those that are not are first hand to me from those involved.

#01
Playing a WW2 anti-shipping strike, the RAF are attacking with Beaufighters TFBs and Mossies armed with 6lber guns, vs my motley collection of merchies and flak boats. The rules are d10 based (this bit is important)

High scores (9-10) are needed on the dice to hit the ships - but he can't roll this to save his life. We are commiserating with him after his fourth firing pass with 6 planes has failed to score a strike when we spot something odd about his dice.

They're d8s.

#02
Napoleonic game. The French have a reserve formation they need to bring up fast. But its on the wrong side of the table. Then it appears right where its needed.

The Allied players look askance and enquire how it got there...

The French player looks at us like we're imbeciles and says "it marched down that road there" - pointing to what was shown on our maps (and his as it turned out) as the Danube.

#03
WW2 game. Chap has a Hungarian division which is part of of German assault on a Soviet Shock Army. Suspecting that it will wrong foot the Russian defences he is given a Tiger unit (Spearhead so 4 models). Oh, says he, as he puts them out on the tabletop "In all my years as a wargamer I've never lost a Tiger" (He never usually plays with them and may never again) - a sharp intake of breath is heard from the other players at his table (about 8 of them).

Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Hungarians are not blessed with SPAA. The Russian player makes his call in die rolls for his Sturmoviki (3-4 planes turn up). He then makes his hit rolls on the Tigers while the Hungarian flak train is unlimbering, and brews up all four Tigers....

Delighted with this he then performs what has gone into legend as the "Happy Dance" and high fives the 25 other Russians!

The Hungarian player looks stunned.

The Germans just don't know where to look.

#04
This happened to a friend. For real.

He works in the defence industries. He and his chums were trying out a new scenario for their Twilight 2000 RPG, and, as some had moved away, were conducting it by email. Planning a raid on a research establishment (as gamers do they used what they knew best as a frame of reference).

Didn't realise that their internal email was monitored.

Well, not until after Special Branch & others (think FBI with less public accountability) arrested them in their homes and at work and interrogated them for a day before realising the sad truth and giving the IntSec guys a right rollicking for triggering a false alert....

I was heading home from college over Christmas break 1984. In the back seat of my car I had several cardboard boxes of miniatures taped shut with electrical tape. I reached the Canadian border at about 4:00 am after several hours of driving (a short cut from Michigan to the east coast USA), I was asked by the Canadian border Guard what were in the boxes I was carrying.

To this I sleeply replied "Little Men".

My short cut turned into four hours of detention and questioning while my car was systematically searched....

Some shortcut..

Funny quotes from gaming SLA Industries:

1) "Down!"

A cold, wet and thoroughly irritated Harold Tasker in answer to the question "Which way is the rain slanting?"

2) "The target is at somewhere between a walk and a run...with an armchair it's kind of hard to tell!"

A lesson on why to look before you shoot from GM Richard Avery

3) "Kills: one map, one lock, and one sense of humour."

Notebook recording of John "The Snake" Goodman after missing the armchair, above.

4) "Who the hell are you two - Sergeant Petty and Captain Hindsight?"

An un-named non-player character.

5) "I hope Crazy Eddy remembers that I have a long, long memory."
"It may be long, but it's f*cking defective, as his name's Crazy Herman!"

The ever-sarcastic GM Richard Avery again.

6) "How would you describe this person?"
"Dead."

And again!

7) "All hail the dice of death!"

Nathaniel "Nog" Norgren.

8) "You are the Helen Keller of the sniping world!"

Harold Tasker.

SirG (now sniggering merrily away at the memories!)

There was a battle, where a goblin player had used some cheap glue, his army literally fell apart on the battlefield. Of course it was realistic the way arms and heads were being lopped off.

By the way I think I currently hold the Genisis book of records on most ones rolled. I finally gave up on GW games, I was so bad

Evening All
Ive been gaming with the same mates for about twenty five years and one of the stories we always remember when drinking after a game is this one.

At one of our mini tournaments many moons ago we were indulging in a bit of warhammer fantasy. Steve had spent the last 3 months building and painting an undead army from the GW skeleton army boxed sets (you got infantry, cavalry and chariots all in plastic). It was very impressive, fully painted and based, with a general in a chariot as the centre piece.
In the first round Steve is playing mark who has, shall we say, a less than impressive army. The good figures are stood up. Most units are just in heaps.
The game is actually quite interesting and in the final stages things are reasonably even.
At this point mark has to take a break test for a unit which could cost him the game.
"Id better use my lucky dice" says mark and goes to roll them using the standard 'important dice roll underarm flick'.
The lucky dice were made at school in metalwork lessons and are a marvel of modern technology. The metal work teacher had helped to craft these things, they were perfectly symetrical.
So mark went to roll his lucky dice (by the way these things are 3 inches square each of solid steel)
Due to the sheer weight and the vigourous under arm flick mark gives them the 2 dice are launched out of his hand like miniature ballistic missiles. The initial point of impact is obviously the generals chariot where they bounce off in opposite directions through the neat ranks of delicate plastic skeletons.
The resulting carnage is incredible and is met with total silence except for the sound of 2 dice whirring to a stop on the garage floor.
Mark then says " shall we call it a draw?"

Steders

Evening All
Ive been gaming with the same mates for about twenty five years and one of the stories we always remember when drinking after a game is this one.

At one of our mini tournaments many moons ago we were indulging in a bit of warhammer fantasy. Steve had spent the last 3 months building and painting an undead army from the GW skeleton army boxed sets (you got infantry, cavalry and chariots all in plastic). It was very impressive, fully painted and based, with a general in a chariot as the centre piece.

In the first round Steve is playing mark who has, shall we say, a less than impressive army. The good figures are stood up. Most units are just in heaps.

The game is actually quite interesting and in the final stages things are reasonably even.
At this point mark has to take a break test for a unit which could cost him the game.

"Id better use my lucky dice" says mark and goes to roll them using the standard 'important dice roll underarm flick'.

The lucky dice were made at school in metalwork lessons and are a marvel of modern technology. The metal work teacher had helped to craft these things, they were perfectly symetrical.

So mark went to roll his lucky dice (by the way these things are 3 inches square each of solid steel)
Due to the sheer weight and the vigourous under arm flick mark gives them the 2 dice are launched out of his hand like miniature ballistic missiles.

The initial point of impact is obviously the generals chariot where they bounce off in opposite directions through the neat ranks of delicate plastic skeletons.
The resulting carnage is incredible and is met with total silence except for the sound of 2 dice whirring to a stop on the garage floor.

Mark then says " shall we call it a draw?"

Steders

Sorry for the double post

Steders

forgot to edit one

The first (and last) WH40K tournament I played in was back in the good old days of Rogue Trader and cheap miniatures. It was Space Marines (mine) versus Space Marines (his), and it was a bloody, brutal, knock-down drag-out fight. Came down to barely a handful of troops on either side. My remaining Dreadnought slaughtered his, and his Rhino slaughtered mine. Then, the face-off, machine v. machine. The Rhino charged, and my Dread opens up with everything...a hit! A huge hit, a CATASTROPHIC HIT! Rhino destroyed in an amazing manner! By the rules (I think), the front of the Rhino dug into the ground, and it flipped over forward...to land right on my Dread, destroying it. Both of us had a good laugh, ready to call it a draw, when I noticed he still had a technician cowering behind a low wall.

I had to tell him. It was a spectacular second place.

Illumisar: Me, too. I came through British customs with my minis in a pistol case. The guy at customs looks it over and says, "What's this?" Now, I'm pretty proud that I thought to get such an innovative way to carry my minis, and I declare, "It's a pistol case!" As he starts to get rather excited, I realize my error… Of course, I brought back a box full of lead ( we were buying by weight at the GW factory ) , and got pulled out of line leaving Germany because of the item in my luggage that wouldn't scan.

The worst was going back to Germany 10/11/01, just after 9/11. I went up to Koblentz, and the evening I get there, that other plane goes down in New York. The next day, I head out to visit the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung ( see link ) , or the "Military engineering study collection." Sounds like a museum, right? Not speaking German, I dutifully followed all the signs that said "Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung." It was pretty out of the way, and under an overpass, and into a rundown industrial area, until I get to a gate that says Passkontrolle. I'm getting my German/English dictionary out to read the signs when two German military guards come out and start asking me "Who are you?" and "*WHAT* are you?" like civilian, military, etc… Here I am, a month after 9/11 with another plane down in NY AND I AM TRYING TO GET INTO A GERMAN MILITARY FACILITY AND I HAVE FORGOTTEN MY PASSPORT. Heh. They didn't arrest me, but were thoroughly confused. I *did* find the AWESOME museum and it's very nice book store, but it's not actually at the Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung!

Oh, and while I was at Games Day '96 (I think), I played in the Blood Bowl tournament, as Skaven. I was bragging to some of the guys there about how I had a special technique to roll doubles for mutation. Now, I'm just showing off and having fun, not really expecting it to work. My first player with a skill I put on the table with his teammates in a ring around him, and his Verminlord coach pointing right at him. I roll into the ring-- doubles! Pretty cool, and everybody is like, yeah, but you can't do it again. What the hey, I put the next guy in, roll into the ring-- doubles again! I jump up and let out a good ol' American WHOOOOOP!-- and the entire convention hall stops dead quiet, everybody in both the Blood Bowl and Necromunda tournaments turns and looks at me. ;-)

Slightly different take on embarrassing. Not as amusing I'm afraid.

Big Con out east. Phone my friend from college that I haven't seen in some years and talk him into driving out from Philly to see me and maybe play in a mini game. In college we played board games together a couple of times but that was before I discovered minis. So this is his first experience with mini gaming.

I see that a pickup WW2 game is being run by a well know rules author. Hey, I tell him that's the guy that wrote the rules this should be great.

We are the only two people who show up. The author has two buddies with him. It's Russians versus Japs. I suggest one of his friends play on each side as I had only played the game a couple of times, my friend had never played at all, AND neither one of us has a clue how to play the Japs. No, it will be fine they say. After the first couple of turns they have taken out our only AT defense so it's clueless me and my clueless friend trying to figure out how to fight off this Russian horde of tanks. Can't get any of them to give us advice on which is the best way to fight tanks with infantry even when asked a direct question ("Should I close assault them or just shoot at them?"). They just let us fumble around getting our butts kicked. It felt very much like we were set up.

Left a very bad impression on my friend and I since I had told my friend how the author was such a celebrity in the hobby, I was truely embarrassed to be treated that way. Unfortunately, I was still too young to speak my mind and we skulked away like we had done something wrong instead of telling them what I thought of their "game".

My most embarrasing moments happened outside of gaming, but were caused by it.

I worked in the local games store by day, and as a bouncer in a local club by night. Not much crossover in clientele. I'm in line to see a movie one afternoon, and there's a pretty (VERY pretty) girl in line in front of me. She recognises me from the club, and we strike up a conversation. Things are going really well (we had decided to see the movie together!), when the stereotypical Smelly Gamer Geek comes up to us. "Hi! Alex! What movie are you here to see? Can I join you? After the movie my buddies and I are going to play Dungeons and Dragons at my mom's house! One thing though (and here he glares at the hot chick) - we don't allow girls to play, so she can't come"

I am open-jawed in shock. Sure, I play D&D, but I usually don't mention it in my pick-up conversations with club girls...

She makes an excuse ("Um... maybe I'll see you at the club next weekend), and turns her back to me. I tell the smelly geek that I have other plans, and walk out of the theater. I saw the girl a few times at the club, but we never spoke again.

That particular geek remained on my bad side for the rest of my tenure at the games store.

I aslo worked at the sotre through the Pokemon craze. Myself and one other employee handled most of the tournaments and league play - we got ourselves certified as Judges by Wizards of the Coast and so on. I became acquainted with about 200 local 6-13 year-olds.

I also worked out at the local athletic club at the time. I normally went late at night, but one day I went during the family hours. I did my workout, and went into the showers. I'm standing there, naked, when I feel a little poke in my side. I turn around, look down, and there's this little naked kid standing there.

"Hey, aren't you the Pokemon guy?"

"Um... yeah, I am"

So the kid's face lights up, and he runs out of the showers yelling - "DAD, DAD! It's the Pokemon guy! Come see!"

I hurry out of the showers, to face a locker room full of middle-aged men looking at me, wondering why a naked 8-year old is yelling about me.

I dry, dress, and leave quickly.

A skirmish game of Brits in Malaya, they had to move through a village which they did in classic leap-frogging fashion. To clear the first hut however, the lead scout runs up, tosses in a grenade and stands back against the wall. At which point the player realises his mistake, "Oh God - it's a bamboo hut, isn't it?" He and the hut exploded.
Later on a couple of guys had been pinned down and were waiting for covering fire to clear the way, there was a smoke grenade tossed outside the hut they were sheltering in, as the battle had moved on further up the village, so they ran. Straight out into an lmg's supressive fire that just started. Three of them, one after the other.
Well, we thought it was funny.

I had a friend coming through schipol airport in Holland who had bought a big bag of 15mm figures in England. He'd left it in his hand luggage. When it went through the xray machine it sparked an alert and the dutch guard asked him "Wat is dis?" and showed him the image on screen, which looked just like a handgrenade! My friend, thoroughly redfaced at being stopped mumbled "Its, lead soldiers, its not a handgrenade or anything!"

The dutch guard only recognised the words "soldiers" and "handgrenade". You can imagine what happened next!

A bit like the opening story, but not quite...

About 15 years ago some of my wargaming friends and I were also involved in running a military vehicle club (you know, restoring old Willys jeeps & GMC's and so)in Belgium. Most activities of these clubs are during summer, so we thought it would be nice to organise a winter night-dropping, using the vehicles to search a rural area for "enemy troops" (members of different sportclubs in camo gear, wit ID-numbers on their back).

We had been doing this for 3-4 years, working together with the local police chief and had great fun ànd were successful: 30-40 vehicles hunting down up to 150 "commandos"...

We recruited participants by distributing leaflets in the said sportsclubs and - being wargamers - we added some flavour by choosing a different theme each year, e.g. "Skorzeni" "Arnhem" etc. It was quite well organised, with map-reading, checkpoint and scenery (we once even built a "battery" with large plastic pipes and camonets and a full size foamcore bunker).

Unfortunately, the last time we organized this event, we designed a leaflet calling for mercenaries to serve in Central Africa under colonel "Cramme" (the real colonel - called "Schramme" - being a infamous mercenary leader in the Congo during the 60's). All this would not have been too bad if the Chief of Police would have been loved by all the members of the town council. Unfortunately he wasn't popular with one particular council member... To cut it short: according to the law it was not up to the police to authorize our activity, but up to the town major. So this council member took the opportunity and - in order to discredit the chief of police - got hold of one of our leaflets and contacted the Belgian Home Office the day before the dropping was to take place. Events were set in motion: our club-secretary was plucked from behind his desk at work to be questioned and I only escaped the same faith because the secret service officer in charge in my home town happened to be a club member and knew - of course - the real background. Not surprisingly, things leaked to the press, and the night of the event not only the 150 or so participants were present, but also a number of (freezing) journalists of the major newspapers, their presses on hold for the frontpage news for next morning: "Mercenaries training for Africa in the backyard of Antwerp!". They were not altogether happy to find a number of nuttcases and some 50 year old military vehicles instead...

Anyway, this was the last time we were allowed to play there...

Actually, this didn't happen to me, but I know it to be true:

In the early days of D&D and Fantasy-gaming, M'figs UK was one of the few firms offering 25's for the new market. Some of you might still remember the old M'figs boxes with yellow, red and green coding... So, one guys walks up to the M'figs trade stand at a convention in the south of England and asks Neville Dickinson (M'figs MD) if they happen to have an Air Elemental in the range. Without blinking, Neville gives the customer an empty box and charges him GBP 2. The guy opened the box to find it empty and pointed this out to Neville, who correctly stated that the customers had received exactly what he asked for (he was joking, of course, though you never could be sure with Neville...)

A lot of these storiesseem to boil down to saying stupid things to airport security. You'd think people'd learn ... :)

As for the 'roll lots of ones' stories, my D10s are smarter than that - Void is D10-based, rolling high is good, while in Vor, while D10-based, rolling low is good. When I play Void, I can't roll above a 3, if I'm lucky. When I use the same dice in Vor, I get 8s, 9s and 10s.

One of my buddies played in a skirmish game once at a convention where the players were operating a rescue team of Special Forces types trying to save some downed pilots in North Vietnam.

A jungle base had been located where American captives were kept by the Reds. The players job was to attack the base and save the prisoners.

Well, during the ensuing firefight my buddy managed to get his explosives expert in close to a thatched building and he has his guy toss in a satchel charge of explosives into the building.

Sure enough, building blows to ribbons and then the ref states:

"Good job - you just blew up all the pilots."

End of scenario - well except for the laughter!

Some years ago my best friend and I decided to play WW2 using (at that time) a new set of rules called Battalions in Crisis.

I have a beautiful collection of Kibri, Vollmer and Pola Ho and N scale houses and buildings that work well for Europe from 1700-present, so we decided to use them and do a German defense of a minor crossroad.

His platoon of Brits along with a platoon of Shermans and section of Stuarts faced off against my squad (yes SQUAD) of Falshirmjager and two Tigers and a mixed AT/AP light minefield across the road at the entrance of the town.

When I deployed, due to terrain limitations, I set one of the Tigers at a 45degree angle in the middle of the road at my base table-edge.

He advanced at full speed up the road with his Stuarts - one going down the road into the town while the other held back - the one entering the town passed through the minefield without harm! (look of surprise on my face!)

I announce that I will fire with my Tiger:

"TIGER?! from WHERE?!" he demanded.

"From THIS tiger sitting out in the middle of the road cunningly camouflaged as a TIGER TANK sitting in the middle of the road!", I said with a rather smug expression.

So, instead of AIMING and firing one good shot I decide to fire and if bad fortune occurs I'll still have another shot. Well, since I was sitting still, et al, I had a very good chance of hitting, which it DID... and succeeded only in jamming the turret ring! So my ELITE paratroopers decide to fire one of their two heavy panzerfausts at it from about 20 yards and they MISS! SO the grizzled old veteran Sgt. leans over a balcony from above, fires, destroys the lowly Stuart in a blaze of glory and succeeds in killing the soldier that fired and missed AND the Corporal next to him! :-)

Come to think of it, that was our first and only game of BiC. ;-)

HOstaeg resuce games...

Hmm funny I forgot that one. This was me, in person.

Scenario - launch strike on enemy held airport to rescue hostages. Nothing stealthy, go in all guns blazing.

Turn One - as we enter the area one of my AFVs sprays the highest thing it can see with suppressive MG fire.

Subsequent turns we engage and kill the terrorists but find no sign of the hostages in any of the buildings we hold so far.

Then we enter the building I fired at the top of on turn one. There are five levels to it (it was an obvious spot for a sniper - that's why I shot at it.) and we tart climbing the levels still looking for the hostages.

Get to the top, there are the hostages. Looking more than somewhat suppressed.

Oops.

Modern air combat - a free for all contest, pick any jet plane from any era - I had a pair of Hunters (iirc) - cannon armed only, mixing it with a number of other chaps flying planes with missiles and stuff.

So I'm flying nice and close to folk - I have to if I'm going to shoot anyone.

End of move three we find that one of my aircraft has collided with that of another player. We roll for damage - as I take to the silk to vacate my newly crippled aircraft, he is vaporised as his plane explodes.

We plot our moves for next turn and execute them. Guess what?

My surviving aircraft collides with the surviving aircraft of the guy I whacked last move. We roll for damage. My pilot watches from his chute as the other one is vaporised by his plane exploding.

I act as umpire in a WW2 air game.

Spitfire flight bounces a Ju88 staffel. The Spitfires engage, needing 4+ on d10 to hit. They all miss. The Ju88s fire back, neeeding 10 on d10 to hit. They all hit.

Exit one Spitfire flight.

And speaking of die rolls...

Was playing in a game of WW2 again the authors of a (once) very popular set of WW2 skirmish rules. In addition to my sniper teams and Panzerschrek teams I had a Wespe (ooo ahhh). Well, I had deployed it so as to protect the south approach to the town from over a bridge.

For several turns I had been waiting for American recon commander (hi Jim) to move his scout cars into the open where I could get a clean shot.

Finally the chance I'd been waiting for! He moved his M-8 onto a bridge at the other end of the table within sight! My sniper to his extreme range shot - THUNK! The commander that had stood up to spot for the off-board artillery crumpled down into the turret.

Now was my chance! My Wespe rolled around the corner (now that the M-8 gunner/CO as dead I had naught to fear), leveled their sights; the tank commander gave to order to FIRE! The gunner pulled the lanyard - KLANK! MISFIRE!

My HOT dice had suddenly turned ice-cold! Had it not been for the Command Section and the single smoke grenade the CO was carrying, my Wespe would have been done for! ;-)

Forgot to mention that we did go on to WIN that game in spite of Wespe's performance! :-)

I called my uncle up on the phone and arranged to take some free games from his house. Some of them I thought were oldies I remember having so much fun playing in my younger years. I was so excited in leaving the driveway, I smashed the right passenger side of my car into the car next to it. I hit it hard enough to shatter the blinker light cover on that side. Afterwards when I used the right blinker, it would flash really fast, but it still worked.

A solitaire space battle, to get the feel of the Red Chicken Rising rules, six ships against six. First salvo: one heavy cruiser (in the fleet I was secretly rooting for) suffers a critical hit -- a bridge hit, d10 crew damage on a ship with a crew of 10 -- I rolled a 10. Exit one heavy cruiser. Then the other heavy cruiser got attacked and suffered an identical fate. The battle was effectively over.

The odds against this happening are up in the five-digit range. But the odds of the EXACT SAME THING happening AGAIN the next time I played... inconceivable! I hate bridge hits.

The critical hit thing reminds me....

Fictional 1905 Pre dreadnought game -

The French are observing an Anglo-Russian naval clash - they have no intention of getting involved for either side, but have been told a) they should make friendly noises to the Russian player, b) they cannot engage the British unless fired upon first, c) if they do engage the British then honour demands they just do at least as much damage to them as they take....

The British Admiral mistakes the intentions of the French 'observer' squadron and orders his cruisers to engage the French while he himself takes care of the Russians.

The cruiser squadron captain obeys his orders. his first shot hits the lead French Cruiser. It scores a Special hit.
Roll d20 - 1 chance of a hit on the main turret. It hits a main turret.

The shot has to penetrate to cause damage. Shot has to score 5+ on a d6 to penetrate. Scores 6.

Having penetrated it loses the turret. 1 in 2 chance of taking the magazine (and ship) with it.

Exit ship in one shot.

Next French cruiser in line returns fire on the British ship that fired on its comrade. And achieves the exact same result!

This has to be one of, if not THE BEST thread on TMP in a very long time! :-) I laughed out loud over and over!:-D

Kudos and thanks Montcalm!

I agree - many kudos for the thread. This is some funny stuff.

Great topic General!

My tale of laughter. Two years ago at Drums Along the Maumee I was running the Battle of Savo Island using Genral Quarters Vol. 1 rules. As the battle of Savo Island is a night action and GQ 1 has no really good rules for handling spotting at night I drew some up along with how ships radar (just being deployed on the bulk of US ships at that time) could work to spot enemy "blips." The radar cannot be used for fire control but can aid in spotting.

Anyway, the game begins. Out on "picket" duty is the USS PATTERSON. Her radar picks up a blip out away from the main fleet body. The captain brings his ships to full readiness and tells his lookouts to be on the watch for anything suspicious coming from the bearing and range indicatde on the radar. As the weather is crummy they have difficulty spotting the Japanese task force heading straight for them. They also almost completely miss the heavy cruiser CHOKAI bearing down on them. I said ALMOST. As luck would have it on the last possible spotting roll before the CHOKAI would run down, or run astern of the PATTERSON she manages to both spot and ID the target. Here's where the fun begins.

On board the PATTERSON the order is given to fire all guns at the new target which is done. They hit. The damage dice (one d6 for armament and one for hull) are rolled at the same time as the targeting dice scoring a critical hit. Now we roll for Critical Hit Damage: the US player rolls a "6" which is a Turret Barbette or Magazine critical. On a 1-5 the turret along is knocked out. On a 6 the whole ship goes KABLOOIE as the magazine gets touched off. Guess what the US player rolled? Bingo! A nice fat, juicy "^" and the CHOKAI was no more. Needless to say things didn't go well for the IJN after that.

In case your wondering thwe "^" should read "6". Sorry bout that.

The gaming moments:

40k V2 using my Genestealer Cult army. My Magus is standing on top of a building. He gets shot at by a lascannon. He makes his displacer field save and promptly displaces 3 inches foward and falls to his death.

Space Marine V2 using my guard. I have a Storm Hammer tank that gets charged whilst on overwatch by an Ork mob. I cackle happily to myself as I pick up 14 D6s and prepare to blow the Orks away as I only need 2s to kill them. I roll 14 ones. I dread to think what the odds are on that!

In real life:

Like others I'm not your typical gamer, even as a teenager I didn't really fit the stereotype. There was a guy at my local group who was about 30, lived with his mum, dressed like he was 14, had some serious hygene issues and believed in pretty much everything he read in AD&D. His special skill was to bore everybody to death about his AD&D character. For the Red Dwarf fans out there it's like when Rimmer is telling Lister about his Risk campaigns but far less interesting.

One Friday night I'm out on a date with a girl I met the week before in a local pub. We've got a nice small 2 seater table all to ourselves. You already know who walks in through the door. Not only does he come over, he drags a chair next to us, sits down, ignores my date and promptly talks about the new history he was writing for his AD&D character.

His other special skill was to be completely oblivious to people telling him to fk off.

Whilst he's blathering away I'm making "Help!!" faces at my date and luckily she interjects with "Is that the time?! We'll be late for that party!" and we did a runner.

Luckily she thought it was very funny and we dated for a while.

An amusing story from my Warhammer Fantasy days. My Empire army was fighting against another player's Dwarven army. One of the artillery pieces in my army was a "Hellblaster" cannon (think large-bore Gatling gun). One of the special rules for this weapon was that if a misfire were rolled for the first shot, all 9 barrels fired off at once.

The Dwarven gyrocopter strayed a little too close to this gem early in the battle, so I fired off the first barrel to try to bring it down. Of course, a misfire occured. I then proceeded to inflict 60some hits and 40some wounds on that poor gyrocopter. It didn't so much crash as rain down onto the field below it.