This story was so funny and surprising to me that I just had to post it here to share with other Mechwarrior players.

This is the story of how I snatched defeat from the hands of victory.

I was playing a casual 450 point (only generic pilots /gear) game with a new friend.

The game was coming to an end.

I had eliminated his only Mech, destroyed all of his vehicles except for one and he had a single formation of undamaged infantry.

I was left with a formation of very damaged infantry and another lone damaged infantry running around with reconnaissance and my Mech was on its last un-salvaged click. I thought to myself that I could easily out-maneuver and out-range his remaining infantry to win the match. All I had to do was eliminate his artillery that was only damaged by pushing over the course of the match.

My formation of infantry had forced-marched to try and avoid the artillery pog that was threatening them. I had run my Mech into his deployment zone to base his artillery and was on it's last click of the heat dial before shutdown and avoided shutdown and heatsink overload.

At the start of his turn, the artillery resolution dice rolled a very lucky low value and perfectly drifted onto my infantry and destroyed all but one of the formation. He used one infantry to take a pot-shot on my damaged infantry and destroyed it. He moved his infantry formation to intercept my lone reconnaissance infantry. He cleared his artillery.

With only my Mech and lone infantry left, there was little that I could do for two turns but vent my Mech and tried to evade his infantry formation with my lone infantry.

Then, he rolled to break away with his artillery and spun the unit on it's center dot out of base contact with my Mech. His infantry cleared.

My infantry cleared and my Mech vented again.

He pushed his infantry to have two individual units fire on my lone infantry; destroying it.

Ok, I thought to myself. I can still win this with my Mech.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

He announced he was going to push his artillery to RAM my mech.

Wait a second!? Is that possible?!

Yes, the vehicle had an attack value and could therefore make a RAM special attack even though it had no movement value by spinning on it's center dot.

In all the years of playing the game, I had never heard of such a thing or even imagined that it was possible. But there it was in the basic AOD rulebook; it could be done.

Then came the attack roll.

It was a Critical Hit!

My Mech took three impact damage by the artillery slamming it's barrel against the legs of my Mech, destroying it. The artillery took it's impact damage and pushing damage and was on it's last salvage click.

There it was. I had lost the match due to something that I had never imagined and all I could do was start laughing out loud in the game shop.

So, there it is fellow Mechwarriors. Please laugh along with me at this highly improbable situation and if you desire, share one of your stories.