Hello,
I had a question come up in a game yesterday pertaining to how damage calculations are performed. The attacking unit is a 5-trooper Point of Afreet battle armor equipped with dual vibro-claws. The defending unit is a 24-trooper Platoon of Inner Sphere Mechanized (Tracked) SRM Infantry. The infantry do not have any personal armor equipped.
* Attacks against Mechanized Infantry ref TW pg. 217 "Successful non-conventional infantry attacks against conventional mechanized infantry double the number of troopers eliminated unless they are made with burst-fire weapons."
* And "Against successful conventional infantry and burst-fire weapon attacks, double the damage each mechanized infantry trooper can sustain before being eliminated."
* Vibro Claw ref TW pg. 218 - "For battle armor units equipped with a single vibro-claw manipulator, assign the number of hits as 1 point each; for units equipped with two vibro-claws, assign the hits as 2 points each. Against conventional infantry, the controlling player simply applies the damage."
From these two references, my interpretation of the attack sequence and damage calculation is as such:
* The suits perform a Vibro-Claw attack. The to-hit number is based on the suits' anti-mech skill, plus the target's movement modifier, plus any miscellaneous/terrain modifiers.
* Base damage is two per battle armor trooper with dual vibro-claws, rolling on the cluster hits table to determine number of hits.
* That damage is not from a conventional infantry attack and is not Rapid Fire, so is doubled against mechanized troopers.
* If the attack occurs in Clear terrain, the damage is once again doubled.
* Each point of damage would kill a mechanized infantry trooper.
So my interpretation is that Vibro-Claws, as a non-CI/non-Burst attack, would kill between 4 and 20 troopers with a successful attack, or double that in Clear terrain.
Other possible interpretations:
* If the vibro-claws are treated as a conventional infantry attack, the way that AP Mount weapons are, then each two points of damage would kill a single mechanized trooper, resulting in vibro-claws being weaker against mechanized troopers (killing 1-5 troopers).
* The phrase "the controlling player simply applies the damage" could be read as indicating that no multipliers for infantry type are used, and that you roll on the cluster hits table and apply a flat 2-10 damage to any CI, resulting in a sort of middle-of-the-road result of 2-10 troopers killed.
Unfortunately, the example text of the Afreet battle armor in Total Warfare describes an attack against basic foot-mounted infantry, rather than Mechanized, so that doesn't help.
