The Little Tortoise That (evidently) Could...

[LewisDTC]

I am absolutely gutted that I didn't think to screenshot any of this at the time. I know, I know... "Pictures or it didn't happen" and all that but even without them I feel I need to share this with y'all.

So, I've recently returned to Rimworld after a long hiatus. Been playing and getting back into it, downloading a load of the new mods - that good stuff. I've been playing a lot of Rough, Ironman Randy Random and I'm pretty certain that is what I was playing when this happened.

So I'm playing Crashlanded. Have about 7 colonists and we're doing well: temperate forest with a mountain fortress, decent defenses involving chain-link fences, security barriers and massed low-level firepower (an assault rifle, a bolt action, a few pistols and some recurve bows). A raid turns up: a whole army of tribal warriors with bows. We fight them off with only one casualty and a few non-lethal injuries. Nothing too bad - and we managed to capture a decent looking prisoner out of the affair. Considering the dead guy was going through pretty bad withdrawal effects, I saw it as a net gain overall.

Within the same day, another event drops. Specifically, a poison ship drops out of the sky, right outside our perimeter walls. It was a problem because we didn't really have the firepower to take on mechs, but it needed to go. I healed up my guys over a couple of days and built some defensive positions to take on the ship from out of sandbags. A couple of my guys were missing fingers or toes - even a couple of eyes here and there - but we were about as prepared as we were going to be. We launch the attack.

Immediately, a centipede with a grenade launcher (I forget the name of the weapon - a charge blaster?) appears alongside a scyther. We fight for a little while and two colonists are knocked down. It's looking bad, but the scyther is dead.

Event: Flashstorm.

Great. Just great. Fire starts spreading across the map. The centipede is between my colonists and their base and we are taking a lot of hits. Another colonist goes down. Things are going really bad and I'm pretty certain I'm going to lose this game to a combination of poor decision making and sheer bad luck. It turns out I'm correct, but not for the right reason.

I zoom out to see how bad the fire is and make a quick sweep of the map. While I do this however, I notice that the explosions caused by the mechanoid's weapon have stopped. I flick back to the battle and see it facing away from my colonists - engaged in a fierce brawl with an enraged manhunter tortoise.

...It takes me a few seconds to process this...

The little hero is tanking the single most dangerous thing in the game. Not only that, but it's doing a pretty damn good job at it too. I start laughing, and I have my colonists stand down. I issue the order for those still standing to rescue the others. I watch as they weave around the fire caused by the flashstorm and one falls from his injuries: dropping the guy he was carrying. The fire catches them and they start burning alive. Meanwhile, the others are limping (extremely) slowly back to safety. Too slowly, it would seem.

From behind them, another motherf*#king tortoise leaps in and attacks. I'm stunned again: all of my colonists are bleeding out or burning to death. I move over to see whats happening to the centipede... and it's dead. Killed by the same tortoise that has come after my guys. He's still on half health.

I quit the game after that and rolled up a new colony, but let me tell y'all that I've now got a whole lot more respect for the hard shelled little buggers.

[Hans Lemurson]

Tortoises: invincible murder machines.
http://cad-comic.com/comic/we-never-stood-a-chance/
http://www.rimworldcomics.com/post/154136089715
http://www.rimworldcomics.com/post/154136026795

[Razbari]

That's amazing. It's too bad you didn't get any screenshots or video recording of this. I can't say I've quite seen anything like that in any of my games.

Why did you decide to quit the save after such an epic sort-of-victory?

[LewisDTC]

At that stage, my last colonists were bleeding to death and missing limbs: sadly, there was no coming back from what happened. I have to say though, Rimworld often feels cheap to me when it throws absurd stuff at you for no real reason, but this was what I define as an enjoyable loss.

[Razbari]

Lol I get way too attached to my pawns once I cross the one year mark. I struggle through until everybody has succumbed to horrible, painful deaths.