INTRODUCTION
Hi everyone. I’m new to this forum. Sorry for the long post, but I think that I’ve run into an issue that affects not only me, but also many new Battletech players out there as early as during their first game using introductory rules, and since I would really like to see more people playing the game, I believe any rules questions regarding such basics should be discussed in detail, so that any answers and possible resulting errata are as complete and as easy to understand to new players as possible. Also please forgive me any grammar, spelling, stylistic mistakes and the like. English is not my first language, and while I usually don’t have a problem understanding it, I do sometimes find it difficult expressing myself in it.
THE MAIN PROBLEM
I can’t find the rules which determine when torso damage is applied to the front, and when to the rear sections of a ‘Mech record sheet anywhere in the Total Warfare book(third printing) or the Introductory Rulebook (2013 printing – the one from the box with an Atlas on the cover). I suspect that the issue has remained unreported for all of those years because the rules are so obvious to anyone who learned the game from another person or ever run something like Megamek, that we think that they are in the rulebooks even if they are not. Either that or I’m just so blind or stupid that I can’t find where they are. They are certainly not where I expect them to be.
THE RESEARCH I'VE DONE, AND ADDITIONAL PROBLEMS FOUND
The closest thing to those rules I could find are in the Transferring Damage section (p. 44 of the Introductory Rulebook and p. 123 TW) where it is stated that “Damage from the rear firing arc that hits a missing limb is transferred to the appropriate rear torso location.” and in Advanced Hit Locations on page 77 of the Tactical Operations book (second edition), which mostly deal with an alternate way to resolve attacks from ‘Mech’s sides, but I feel there are a few problems with those.
1. Having to look for such basic rules in TO and figuring out TW or Introductory rules from them is obviously out of question, so I won’t discus them here in detail.
2. As far as I can tell nowhere in BattleTech rules other than in the sentence I quoted above there is such thing as taking damage from rear firing arc. Firing arcs are defined on p. 34 Introductory Rulebook and p. 104 TW (and other pages for non-’Mech units), apply to the Attacker, and determine where your rear mounted weapons (or flipped arms) can hit. To determine where the attack is coming from we use Attack Direction defined on p. 42 Intro and p. 119 TW (and other pages for some non-’Mech units), and some hexes which fall into ‘Mech’s rear firing arc do not belong to it’s rear Attack Direction. It seems logical to me, that Attack Direction should be used to determine weather we should use rear or front armor, and Advanced Hit Locations from TO seem to support this interpretation, but as far as I can tell nothing in TW or Intro rulebook seems to do so.
3. If we read the first step of Damage Resolution section (p. 43 Intro, p. 122 TW) literally a ‘Mech we can get a situation when a ‘Mech has lost all of it’s front or rear armor in a torso section (but not both front and rear), but can’t take damage to it’s internal structure in this section, because this step does not specify that in case of torso hits if you lose all of the front armor in the section from an attack that does not apply to the ‘Mech’s rear the remaining damage go to the internal structure. Same with attacks from the rear, when a ‘Mech has front armor left. All of those rules seem written as if their author couldn't decide if a ‘Mech has three torso sections (left, center and front) or six (three front and three rear). I know this entire point may seem obvious to someone who played Battletech for years, but I can imagine someone reading the rules for the first time getting lost here.
3a. As a side note the rules for automatic breaches on p. 121 TW seem to suffer from a similar problem – it is not clear if a torso section is breached if it looses all of it’s front OR rear armor or it needs to lose both front AND rear armor.
4. As I wrote at the beginning of this post there seem to be no clear rules in the Intro rulebook or TW, which specify when we should use front and rear armor when resolving damage to a ‘Mech (especially confusing with side shots since they usually came from direction of a ‘Mech that is closer to it’s rear than it’s front, but affect front armor), are front and rear sides of left/center/right torsos separate sections, and what exactly happens when a ‘Mech loses only front or only rear torso armor.
MY THEORIES ON WHAT THE RULES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE
I believe that:
A. When resolving damage to a Mech torso we apply it to the rear torso armor when it is dealt by an attack from rear Attack Direction, or the rules specifically tell us to use rear Hit Location (for example after rolling a 4 in Facing After Fall Table on p. 68 TW / p. 28 Intro Rulebook), or simply say that the ‘Mech takes damage to it’s rear or back (as in damage to the ‘Mech which performed an unsuccessful DFA attkack – p. 54 Intro / p. 150 TW, a ‘Mech which “successfully” at hit a unit while accidentally falling from above – p. 55 Intro / p. 152 TW or a ‘Mech in a hex hit by a bomb if they rolled 4-6 when determining hit direction – p. 246 TW). If all rear armor in a given location is destroyed all remaining damage strike internal structure (and transfers to central torso rear armor if it destroys all internal structure in side torso location). All front torso armor is ignored while resolving such damage.
B. In all other cases including attacks from front and side Attack Directions, damage otherwise applied to front or side Hit Location or damage which does not specify weather it hits the back or the front of a ‘Mech (like damage to a ‘Mech falling to a basement p. 179 TW – or is it? Vehicles take damage to front or back depending on whether it moved forward or backward when they fell, but I don’t see a similar rule for ‘Mechs). If all front armor in a given location is destroyed all remaining damage strike internal structure (and transfers to central torso rear armor if it destroys all internal structure in side torso location). All rear torso armor is ignored while resolving such damage.
C. A torso location of a ‘Mech is automatically breached if it loses either all front or all rear armor (not necessarily both) for the purposes of flooding as described on p. 121 TW and other effects where sealing matters – like in Vacuum or Trace Atmosphere on p. 54 TO.
MY QUESTIONS
I. Am I right about points A-C, and if not – what am I understanding incorrectly,
II. Are there any important rules that I missed in Intro rulebook/TW (and TO) about when front/rear armor is used and other issues I’ve discussed that I’ve missed? If so – please point me to them.
III. What do you think errata (if any) should be reported in the errata forum? Personally I think, that we need the following changes:
- p. 123 TW, p. 44 Introductory Rulebook in the third paragraph of Transferring Damage section change “Damage from the rear firing arc that hits a missing limb is transferred to the appropriate rear torso location” to “Damage from the rear Attack Direction (or otherwise defined as affecting ‘Mech’s rear or back) that hits a missing limb is transferred to the appropriate rear torso location”,
- p. 122 TW, p. 43 Introductory Rulebook change the first step of Damage Resolution section to make it clear that in case of ‘Mech torso hits only front or rear (as appropriate) is considered in this point (both in answer to the yes/no question, and when applying damage if yes),
- at some point in p. 119 – p. 121 TW, and p. 42 – 43 Introductory Rulebook insert rules explaining when torso damage is applied to front and when to the rear torso locations (or add page references to those rules if they are elsewhere in the book); depending on how the changes to Transferring Damage and Damage Resolution sections are phrased include clarification if front and rear torso armors are considered separate sections,
- at p. 121 TW under Underwater Units make it clear, that ‘Mech torso location is automatically breached if either front or rear armor protecting this location is destroyed,
- at p. 54 TO Vacuum – under Hull Integrity add clarification about breaching ‘Mech torso locations analogous to above,
- as an extra errata at p. 56 TO under Tainted and Toxic Atmospheres clarify when armor is breached for the purposes of those effects. Possibly something as simple as stating that the rules for those breaches are identical to those for Hull Integrity in Trace Atmosphere p. 54 TO will be sufficient – unless they are not, and in Tainted and Toxic Atmospheres breaches occur on rolls other than 12 or only after complete destruction of an armor section.
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Edit - just some reformatting for now.
Edit 2 - added titles to the sections of the post to hopefully reduce reader's confusion.
