[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by Tom H.

I started studying the 2015 Car Wars Classic rules. I'm considering playing a game after many years away from Car Wars with my nephews to give them perspective in case 6th Ed. becomes a hit.

I wanted to get feedback on a rule that I may have played incorrectly back in the day.

Whenever you attack an enemy and score hits with multiple, identical, aimed, linked weapons; do you combine the total damage into a single application?

Here are some considerations.

1. Attacks produce a hazard.
Combined damage may produce a single D3; whereas, separate damage may produce multiple D1's each requiring a separate control roll.

2. Damage location.
Combined damage may penetrate deeper into a vehicle via a single route. Separate damage may hit different components on a side.

3. Breaching buildings.
Without combining damage, buildings may be difficult to breach for lighter weapons.

4. Metal armor.
Metal armor will be more effective against separate damage from lighter weapons. (This is a case in which I support the separate application of damage.)


For better or worse, I tended to combine my damage from linked weapon hits.* I would be interested in any "official" corrections. However, I'm also interested to know how some of you ended up playing this by default even if it was "incorrect."

* By the way, I was also bad at remembering to apply hazards from attacks and to penalize attacks made in the same phase in which hazards or maneuvers were incurred.

Rules to consider.

On p. 33 under Linked Weapons, it's clear that each weapon uses a separate to-hit roll. There is nothing explicit regarding damage.

On p. 15 under Hazards and Road Conditions, it's pretty explicit that if a vehicle is hit by three weapons in a turn, each hit inflicts a hazard that requires a separate control roll. I still question whether this makes sense when all the hits are from the "same attack" in the same phase.

On p. 25 under General Combat Procedure, "[a]ll damage for the phase is resolved simultaneously at the end of the phase." That seems like a pretty strong clue. Still, what about the metal armor dilemma?

1. You add damage from linked weapons together to determine their hazard. This one was clarified and confirmed by Scott as how it should play.

2. You roll individually for each attack that applies hits past the armor. (And note that there are only 3 possible hit locations on cars: engine/crew/other).

3. You do not add damage together when determining whether or not a building is breached. You'll note that the phrasing on buildings uses the singular "weapon". There's a more tangential argument in the original change to the gas tank rules which cited how buildings work that backs this up too.

4. Metal armor treats each weapon shot separately. Note that if multiple groups of linked weapons or weapons from multiple vehicles hit metal armor in the same phase that the defender would still get to count his/her initial metal armor for the phase when determining the damage from each, as weapons fire is considered simultaneous.