Confusion regarding Torpedoes, and the Devastating rule

[Murlo]

Hello, i’m having troubles with the Devastating rule effect. I’ll make a practical example to see if i got it right. I fire 5 torpedoes at a target, and 3 hit. i roll 3 D6’s (the ones get discarded), and roll 1-5-6. That’s 11 damage done to the hull of the ship (ignoring torpedo belts). Now i roll for critical confirm, and get a double 4+, which means double critical, at that point i roll 2 D10’s, and get Crew and Engine areas. Now, with a normal weapon both those areas would get a +1 to their critical score, but since it’s a torpedo i roll a D6 instead. If i roll 6 here on both Engine and Crew, does that mean that they instantly shoot up to Critical Score 6 (and thus apply all the damage and penalties of the preceding levels, and becomes unrepairable)? If i’m already at level 6 on a certain area (or both the critical torpedoes land on the same area) do their crits get canceled since it’s already at the cap? If i’m already at critical level 3, and roll 5, shooting up to 5, do it reapply every penalty or just level 4 and 5? Thanks

[Nat]

Hi Murlo,

short answer is yes you have the right of it on damage… however  all Engine, crew & weapon areas can be fixed, its just some of the effects cant be removed.  A repaired level basically means drop the level down by one & remove the penalty row entry unless stated that its cant be.

If you roll a 4 or less for level and the ship was already at level 4 then nothing would happen.  If you roll a 6 then you only apply the levels that have not already applied, so in this case 5 & 6.

So for example a ship that had a level 6 crew level 1 weapons & level 2 on engines got two devastating crits* which result in a level 6 to crew  4 to engines, you would ignore the 6 on the crew result completely however you would apply levels 3 & 4 on the engines.

If the dice results where the other way round (a 4 on crew & 6 on engines) you would ignore the crew as its a higher level than the current level and apply levels 2-6 on engines, now level 6 on engines applies another level on crew which WOULD be applied as its a result of the Engines critical and not the Crew one….

Now the other critical results issue that crops up is: crew 6 then applies engine 6 creating a loop of destruction and so removes the ship so a common house rule is that a critical area result may only be applied once per source, so a level 6 crew would apply a level 6 engine but this wouldnt then apply a level 6 crew result.

*its the devastating trait that means its level D6 instead of level +1, Dive Bombers also have this trait.

[Murlo]

Thank you for confirming that i got it right, what i meant by “areas can’t be repaired” was that i was referring to the rule that says “Locations with a critical score of 6 and critical hits to Vital systems may never be repaired”. Which i suppose makes sense since if you already suffered the critical level 6 explosion and survived it, at that point it would make no sense to repair and go a level back risking it to proc again later. Way i understood it and played it if i got it right is basically “once you reach level 6 of a critical area (be it crew, engine or weapons) and suffer the 2/3 D6 explosion that whole section completely exploded and there’s that. it can’t go lower or higher, so the ship just suffers permanently the debuffs on that column, but can’t be damaged more by the Extra Damage on that column since it’s already at the cap

[Nat]

correct it cant go lower (my ships never last till the end phase when they’ve gone up to level 6 so I keep forgetting that level 6 cant be repaired :p)  however level 6 can be re-applied each time that area gets a standard crit… but not from a devastating hit (you cant get 7+ on a D6 :P)

“If an area lready has a critical score of 6 and receives another critical hit to that area, apply both the extra damage and penalty for a critial score of 6 again”

[Peter]

Good Morning. I do not understand where one rolls a D6 for amount of damage to the target vessel. There is no statement in this roll in the rules. Please refer to page 45 of the rulebook.

The way I play this rule is it is a logical progression of the damage chart.

Request thoughts on this rule query.

[Nat]

Hi Peter,

Its the devastating weapon trait (cant give you the page ref as in work….but its pg 12 in the Battle of the Pacific booklet which has the same wording) basically it goes – instead of causing 1 point of damage if you equal or pass the targets armour you do D6 damage…

Theres is debate if a natural 1 does 1 damage or 0 as its still effectively an armour roll which has the rule of natural 1’s always fail – to tone down Devastating I tend to play it as 0 damage.

Basically with a devastating weapon (Torpedoes and Dive bombers mainly) you roll to hit and if you do then you roll damage – if its a 5 or 6 then you get to roll on the critical table with a level of D6 instead of just increasing the crit level of the target area by one…

(Do check out the cheat sheet in the ‘news from the wardroom’ thread …)

[Author]

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