AoE & Mechanized/Swarmed BA

[Colt Ward]

I cannot find the thread this came up in, pretty sure it was Weirdo discussing it but . . .

 . . . we were talking about AoE, artillery & ammo explosions dealing damage to mounted or swarmed BA.  As I cannot find it, I believe the contention was that they were not subjected to the AoE damage b/c they were either riding a mech or veh as a friendly or hostile unit.

This weekend, I had a MM battle where I lost two points of Elementals to vehicles that were swarmed but had the ammo hit, both cases chain reactions of the ammo bins.  One I think was 43 points of damage (MG & LRMs)  to that hex and the other 34 (AC/2 bins).  The first was to the tank they were swarming IIRC while the later is the more interesting case . . .

The latter, a immobile AC/2 carrier was in the same hex as a Demolisher that was swarmed by Elementals.  The AC/2 carrier took a hit to a AC/2 ammo bin that then set off the rest of the bins which caused 34 damage to everything in that hex.  The Elementals were noted as 'failing to take cover' -a roll I missed seeing?- and each suit took 34 damage for being in the same hex even though they were swarming.  The Demolisher also took 34 points of damage with the Elementals not decreasing the damage taken.  The Elemental Point died since no suit could take that sort of damage.

With the way AoE damage work this is what I expected . . . but IIRC Weirdo was saying it was not the case, that the only way the Elementals would take damage was if they were on a location the Demolisher was taking the damage and IF the roll said they were in the way.

Granted this was MM, but is it really one of the cases where MM differs?

[Weirdo]

That sounds like a bug in MM.

[Colt Ward]

Yeah, I was trying to find the thread we were talking about it in but I could not.  I was also wondering if it was a simple vs advanced rule option . . . but MM has a few known divergences b/c of programming requirements.

[Insaniac99]

Total Warfare Page 228

Area-Effect Attacks: When resolving an area-effect attack on a hex with a unit carrying battle armor, the battle armor does not take normal area effect damage, but suffers damage as described above instead (roll 1d6 if the location a battle armor trooper takes damage, etc.).

I haven't looked fully in TacOps, but I couldn't immediately find an optional rule.

They may, however, be incorrectly applying Page 219's AOE note:

Area-Effect Weapons: Area-Effect Weapons always apply their damage to every trooper in a battle armor unit.

Which seems contradictory, but would result in the MM result/

[Colt Ward]

Hmm . . . so IIRC the 1st tank I mentioned . . . IIRC the Elementals crit the ammo of the one they were riding- and then all the ammo went up.  Wonder if that was properly applied . . .

It was a brutal battle with 9 of 36 mech warriors killed to headshots or cockpit crits, 2 or 3 died from injuries (head hits, falls & CASE'd ammo explosions), one went up when a FS9's ammo going set off a downed PXH's ammo.  Losing 9 Elementals to ammo explosions was par for the course.

[Insaniac99]

If the tank exploded and was destroyed due to an ammo explosion, the BA is instantly dismounted into the hex the vehicle was in.  This happens before the AOE damage from the optional Ammo explosion rules are applied. The AOE damage would then apply to all of the BA and see the BA be destroyed from the AOE damage.