What is the worst-case scenario you guys have had in mind when you designed your portfolios?

Did anyone decide what his portfolio breakdown on the basis of what it would look like during a mild recession or did you make more doomy and less probable projections and subsequently used them as a baseline for your minimal expected returns. I am striving for a very conservative portfolio, the one whose odds of beating inflation would be the highest, not the one with the optimal return/risk ratio or with highest predicted returns. I am however more than enough distrustful of bonds and precious metals than most in a similar position.