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[Mitchewawa]

Long time player and forum stalker, short time poster. Anyway, the first post worthy thing happened to me today:

My doctor, whom I forgot to disable hauling, went outside after an ambush to pick up a bismuth bronze spear. This doctor had arrived with a novice skill in spear, dodging and fighting, and was enlisted into my small militia. He was also a  (around) high-master surgeon, diagnostic and suturer. During his picking up of a spear, he was jumped on by another ambush group! A squad of five, I figured, 'Oh well, guess I gotta train another doctor...'

I also saw one of the gobbos flashing blue. 'Oh crap', I thought, 'A master; he is definitely screwed'. I saw bits of red fly everywhere, but my doctor wasn't flashing under status effects; he was beating this axemaster gobbo and 4 buddies, single handedly, without much training, a crap weapon and no armour. After the elite had been struck down, the others turned tail! 'Hah, what a badass.' I thought. 'But why did they all run? It's only one goblin...' I hovered over the goblin and nearly raised my eyebrow through my forehead. 'No, that can't be right...' I checked through the battle report; It was the goblin warleader! My medic killed the goblin king alone! He gained instant titles (He is now the Celebrated Haze of Weather, celebrated is damn right), promotion to militia commander and a fitting custom name; 'Killsmith'.

So, share your stories. What fights/instances have you escaped through by the roll of a computer generated die?

[NRDL]

Was fighting a bandit leader, threw something ( might have been a rock, maybe a knife ).

The rock/knife hits Urist McBanditleader in the head, crashing through the skull and destroying the brain!

Urist McBanditLeader has been struck down.

[Saint]

@op, that's a waste of a good doctor. keep him the doctor until you have better.

[Matheld]

@op, that's a waste of a good doctor. keep him the doctor until you have better.

Agreed.
A doctor with a heroic title but a doctor nonetheless.

[Angel Of Death]

Squads of gobbos decked out in quality armour with good weapons came and decimated my steel armoured military. I sent one, just one scrawny, weak miner wielding a copper pick to his doom. The miner killed most of them and left the others almost fatally wounded.

[Endiqua]

This was several forts ago, but I've not forgotten it. 

I had "Urists cancel everything, interrupted by giant" messages come up.  Zoom to location and it's my dining room/food storage complex.  I tell my only squad to hustle on their way to that location, pronto.  One recruit arrives first.  She has no military skills, not described as tough or strong, just drafted and given a mix of copper, bronze, and goblinite.  In an eyeblink, I have a dead giant on the floor and she casually walked over to the drink room.  She apparently punched its brain out with one shot.     I had a new military commander!

[rojiru]

I had this unfortunate pathing situation set up around one of the outside towers of my fort. I had put an emergency escape doorway running out of the back of my hospital and down the mountainside. Unfortunately I didn't realize that creatures that could break doors would make a beeline for this as it was the path of least resistance.

Well I had a minotaur rush up there and start beating on my door. Leading around the outside of this tower I had a 1 tile wide scaffolding set up around the outside of the tower still, so my military started walking single file around this tower, one by one into the minotaur.

The first dwarf to get into contact with the minotaur got absolutely wrecked. The bullman kicked him first in the upper leg, shattering the bones in it immediately. As the dwarf fell to his knees the minotaur gored him in the mouth and landed a devastating punch to his chest, sending him sprawling off of the catwalk to the ground below. The blow was so bone-shattering that it must have lodged the poor recruit's ribs into his lungs, and he suffocated moments after hitting the ground.

Well after that recruit died, several marksdwarves rounded the corner and started firing their bolts at the creature. Several of them caught the minotaur in the legs, a few in the guts, and in a pained rage the minotaur threw himself from the catwalk. My dwarves quickly rallied around to the right of the tower, waiting for the minotaur to once again climb the outside staircase. But, being filled with rage at the loss of their comrade some of them lost sight of their orders and began to charge down this staircase...directly into the waiting arms of the minotaur.

The minotaur grabbed the first dwarf's raised arm, axe in hand, and bent it back over the poor recruit's shoulder. This beast then picked the dwarf up by the legs, bending them like pretzels, and dropped him to the ground. Bolts flew into the minotaur, striking him in his massive guts again. Dazed, the rest of the recruits rushed in. An axe cleaved into the minotaur's legs, dropping the beast to the floor. Able to get better access to the brute's more sensitive areas, more axe blows fell into it's chest and head. It probably lasted a lot longer than it should have, because after the first blow to the legs it would have surely bled out and died.

[jedrek_burak]

There is a less known Akira Kurosawa film called (rather appropriately) Red Beard. In one scene a main character, a surgeon, beats up single-handedly and without any weapons a gang of (armed) unpleasant people, mostly thanks to the fact he knows where to hit them to disable them. He ends the fight with a badass comment like "Make sure you never get into the hands of a surgeon".

[thegoatgod_pan]

I had a nice two story arena with no walls (just floors and ramps) suspended 20 z levels above the ground in a particularly large cavern I was inhabiting.  There I kept giants, cyclopses goblins and the like, but never my own troops--the danger of them dodging off the edge and into the cavern below was always too worrisome.  I did use trained animals though. Once 10 unarmed goblins, 20 trolls and a giant ended up in the arena just as the wardogs in a cage that was not wired to open gave birth to a large litter of puppies.  The  goblins and trolls killed most of the puppies. The giant smashed the goblins, smashed the trolls and faced down a single surviving puppy.  He rushed at him, puppy tried to bite the giant, giant dodged...and sailed over the edge, 20 z-levels down to go splat.  Puppy got honorary chain near the werewolf baroness (she made her bones in the arena too). 

[Yoink]

Why is it that I have literally nothing to add to this thread?
If there was a 'Fights you should have won, but lost' thread, however...

[darkflagrance]

I was under siege by a horde of modded-in giant spiders from the Fortress Defense Mod, who launch webs in such numbers that an army of dwarves would be trapped and rendered helpless. Since their webs become exponentially more dangerous the more of them there are, I decide to lure them into my defenses few by few so that I can overwhelm small groups of them with my entire army. However, the spiders are accompanied by a siege force of iron-armored warwolves who charge my gates the moment they are brought down. My army holds the gate and kills them off, but then three squads of four run out the gate to hunt down the survivors, straight into two detachments of giant spiders.

Mentally I prepare to accept my losses, but somehow my desperate retreat orders get through and the dwarves pull back from the oncoming horde instead of rushing it blindly like they should have. This is helped by the solo charge of one of my champions, a swordsman related to the mayor if I can recall correctly, who drew the attention of the spiders away from the other fleeing soldiers. I sealed the gate and ordered the crossbowmen in the towers above to shoot the spiders, while I ordered a slab be prepared to calm the angry haunt that would surely arise from the champion's webbed, torn body. But instead, he endure an entire season of attacks from the mandibles of the spiders that surrounded him, despite getting all his limbs broken in multiple places.

Heartened, I opened the gates again and rushed out the rest of my soldiers. The distracted spiders paid them no heed as their shining blades carved chitinous legs from bloated abdomens. The champion who had spent weeks buried under a terrible pile of arachnid violence spent a year recovering, but later returned to duty in time to be killed in his next engagement by a goblin arrow.

[Tiruin]

My Talented Elven Swordsman versus a Night Terror!

My speed = ~1600
It was faster than me, I kicked open the door to its lair and announced my presence. Prepared with my iron sword and pine shield, I thought my speed would give me an advantage. I had no armor but leather on.

It glared at me with three giant eyes, brandished its silver cleaver and rushed me. Next thing I see are two letters dancing in the ground.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All I got was DODGING MESSAGES, 20x approximately before I got in a good counterstrike. My dodging skill was just at Adept level.

My lucky shot cut off the hand that held the blade, next aimed strike at the lower left arm sent the creature off a three-z-level cliff. It lived, I then figured my luck and decided to test it by Firing a singing arrow at the terror.

It got stuck in the brain.

My best battle yet.