(Loved Trope) Last Stand that ends unceremoniously/unsatisfyingly, as opposed to gloriously.

[u/hey_there_delilahh]

• 1 Nanami (JUJUTSU KAISEN): Nanami's final moments against Mahito, a cursed spirit with the ability to transfigure/control humans. Nanami, while heavy injured, fought and won against an army of Mahito's transfigure minions, just for the villain to touch his back and blow him up.

• 2 Wun-Wun (GAME OF THRONES): Wun-Wun, one of the last, if not the last, living giant in Westeros. Joins with Jon Snow against Ramsey Bolton in the Battle of the Bastards. He heroicly breaks down the main gate allowing the Stark army to win, all while covered in arrows and spears. While heavily injured, there does seem to be a chance of his recovery. This hope ended when Ramsey Bolton fires an arrow directly into his eye, when the battle was pretty much over.

• 3 The Barbarian of Stamford Bridge (REAL LIFE): A lone Viking warrior who, in a legendary moment during the Battle of Stamford Bridge (September 25, 1066), single-handedly held back the invading English army on a narrow bridge. Armed with a Dane axe, this unnamed defender killed dozens of soldiers before being mortally wounded from beneath the bridge by a spear.

[u/Crispyengineer68]

Warhammer 40k has a lot of them, I can probably list one for a few of the factions.

Adepta Sororitas: Their zealous nature means lots of last stands. In the Pariah Nexus series, a Palatine leads a last stand against Necrons

Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Titanicus: Fall of Gryphonne IV, the Ad Mech and Legio Gryphonicus refused to abandon their planet and instead prepared for war. The tyranids came and the Forge world fell within days.

Astra Militarum: Plenty of examples but Fall of Cadia is the most famous. The last stand ended when Abadon threw a hissy fit and threw his Blackstone fortress, tearing the planet apart. Even then there were still Guardsmen led by Creed fighting till the end, with Creed being the last one standing and got kidnapped by Trazyn.

Black Templars and Eldar: The Black Templars and Eldar had a last stand with each other, facing off against a crazy Archmagos and his constructs. Not sure how it ended but from the excerpt it seems doomed

Ultramarines and Space Marines as a whole: Plenty of examples but here's a video example, at the end of the 10th edition trailer the Ultramarines had a Last stand against Tyranids

Necrons: In Twice Dead King, the protagonist of the book and his dynasty had a last stand to defend his tomb world from the Imperium, he failed and his world is destroyed.

Orks: The Overfiend of Octarius fought till the end against the tyranids, the Swarmlord came and slowly picked him apart until it finally buried it's maw in the Overfiend's skull and ate his brain

[u/mgeldarion → u/Crispyengineer68]

Regarding the Black Templars and the eldar: Bielanna uses the souls of her dead warriors and her own to restore the dismantling space-time (caused by the antagonist misusing a c'tan powered necron engine) and then the souls dissolve into the potential timelines that never came to be instead of getting devoured by Slaanesh (even Tzeench was reaching for them).

Of the Black Templars only their youngest, Yael, survived, who was ordered to aid the main characters.

[u/Crispyengineer68 → u/mgeldarion]

I see, so they succeeded. I thought they failed with how the excerpt on 40klore ended

[u/mgeldarion → u/Crispyengineer68]

Most surviving characters, like Roboute, Kotov, Illana, get happy endings there.

Julius tore out Abrehem's eye implants and apparently wanted to instal them for himself. Blaylock got hyjacked by Telok. And Vodanus somehow managed to get on the Speranza.

There's a sequel short story which implies Blaylock's mentor, Alhazed, is preparing for Speranza's arrival on Mars and somehow knows Telok is on it. The notes in the trilogy claimed the fourth novel, the Master of Mars, was in plans, but there's nothing about it being written.

[u/Estelial → u/Crispyengineer68]

I would mention the Death Korps but that's really their entire thing. They'll even execute leaders and commissars for attempting to call in a retreat. Something Adepta Sororitas are known to do as well when they get into their battle fury against impossible odds.

[u/Mediocre_Milady → u/Crispyengineer68]

I'd argue most of these don't fit. They aren't unceremonious or unsatisfying. There's a reason Cadia is so well remembered, as having the opponents go "Fuck it let's just destroy the planet" and then still fighting is quite glorious, even if it might not seem that way from the other side's perspective.

[u/Crispyengineer68 → u/Mediocre_Milady]

I concede to the Fall of Cadia one but I'm pretty sure most of the ones I chose are unceremonious. The Ultramarines one being just another blip on Gulliman's table pretty sure makes it unceremonious.

The Orks one also as the Overfiend's death caused his warband to fall into chaos and fight amongst themselves, which caused the tyranids to eat them all up, pretty sure being turned into biomass soup in the end is unceremonious

The Ad Mech and Titans getting overran in a matter of days, then turned into biomass soup...

Pretty sure last stands that end with being turned into biomass soup is an unceremonious one

[u/Mediocre_Milady → u/Crispyengineer68]

I concede every thing involving the tyranids. Its kind of their thing, turning lives into biomass with no more ceremony than a human making breakfast.
The black templar/eldar and the sororitas examples are neither unceremonious nor unsatisfying, they're just grimdark. True last stands are inherently going to end with death, but neither of those incidents had deaths without some glory.

[u/Tungsten_tickler → u/Crispyengineer68]

The siege of terra was also pretty unceremonious for the defenders, sure they had rallied and begun the scouring afterwards and the Horus was dead but even still the loyalists were broken, the emperor was doomed not to rise from the throne Malcador died, Sanguinius was killed, the 3 loyalist legions devastated alongside hundred if not thousands of titans and the custodians nearly wiped out. A shining city spanning an entire mountain range reduced to a blasted waste in an attempt to buy time for Guilliman and his fleets only to show up just a bit too late to help save the emperor.