Defensive Fire Close Assault Damage

[Raid1280]

This happened in a game last night:

It was my assault phase. My Sherman was in a hex with a Panzergrenadier. I attempted to move the Sherman out of the hex. My opponent made a defensive fire attack in the hex I was leaving . He suceeded and kept the now disrupted Sherman in the same hex. I placed a face up Disruption counter on the Sherman. It was now his assault phase. He close assaulted my Sherman with his PG and got two hits.

He thought that the Sherman should be destroyed now because it was just disrupted and has now recieved 2 additional hits, I thought that the Sherman was just redisrupted and and damaged because the disrupted counter the Sherman recieved from the defensive fire was face up.

We rolled on it and continued the game, but I just wanted to see what you guys thought about this one, thanks,

Eric

[Y2UAsk]

You were right, your friend was wrong.

A face-up disruption counter lowers the target unit's defense by 1, making it easier to disrupt, damage, and destroy. If it also counted as a face-down disruption marker, that, too, would make the unit easier to damage and destroy. You would effectively be getting a double effect from that counter. Your friend's PG got two hits against the tank because the tank was disrupted (lowering its rear defense to 3 instead of 4). That allowed him to damage it instead of just placing another disruption marker. If the tank hadn't been disrupted, the PG would have gotten only one hit -- which, against a tank with a face-down disruption marker, equals damage. So (in this case at least), it all comes out as a wash.

Steve