How many to hit rolls should a war engine take if a neighbouring war engine suffers critical damage that causes hits or possible hits?

Specifically a Feral Ork Steam Gargant blew up and the question was how many hits should it's neighbouring Gargant take?


OK, so for most rule purposes does not mean for all. Here was the result of my research.

Pretty much for all Blast Marker purposes the war engine counts as the DC equivalent number of units:
Teleport FAQ, 2.1.17, rolls number of dice equal to starting DC to see how many BM awarded.
Blast markers treat each DC as a separate “unit” for allocation, suppression and purposes.
In particular each extra blast marker on a broken war engine does one point of damage.

By contrast for Dangerous Terrain Tests, War Engines only roll once. FAQ 1.8.1

Placing Barrage Templates, FAQ 3.2.1, counts a war engine as number of units equal to starting damage capacity.
But then they only rolls to hit once unless the centre of the template is over the model when you get half the number of DC, rounded up, to check for hits. A halfway house as it were.

On other issues hits are allocated one per DC, so again, effectively treating each as a separate unit.
To repeat, each extra blast marker on a broken war engine does one point of damage.
Number of attacks in an assault is based on one per DC, so each DC is like a unit.
Losing zone of control requires one unit per DC to negate the war engines zone of control.

So in the context of other similar rules there is a spectrum of options from the critical damage causing
one hit (each war engine model is a unit) to one hit per DC (war engine counts as DC units).

Here's my take on it...

Situations when WE does count as being worth a number of units equal to its starting damage capacity:
1. Allocating hits to WEs (one per starting DC) [3.2.1]
2. Formation suppression / break point (BM must equal starting DC) [3.2.4]
3. No. of dice rolled in an assault (equals starting DC) [3.3.2]
4. Determining how many infantry units can receive a cover save from being in base contact with a WE (e.g. a 3DC WE gives equivalent cover as 3 AVs would)
5. Determining how many units are needed to remove a WE's ZoC or to trap units inside a transport WE (e.g. 6 units are needed to trap the contents of a 3DC WE and likewise 6 units are needed to trap the contents of 3 AVs)

Situations where it counts as only one unit:
1. No. of dice rolled for dangerous terrain tests (one per WE) [1.8.1 FAQ]
2. No. of dice rolled when under a barrage template (one per WE) 1.9.8. Although when under the centre of the template the no. of dice is equal to half their starting DC [3.2.1] (either way the WE is not worth a number of units equal to its starting DC)
3. A maximum of two units may move into base contact with each defender. A WE counts as a single unit here (otherwise a WE with a starting DC of 3+ couldn’t move into base contact with a non-WE) [1.12.3].
4. Two units in base to base contact are needed to trap enemy units inside a transport (a WE counts as one unit when trapping enemies).
5. In the Tournament rules formations where half or more of the units (rounding up) are scouts can garrison. Each WE counts as a unit.
6. No. of dice rolled when a WE is within range of another WE doing splash damage from a critical or a drop pod’s deathwind (one per WE).


Finally, situations where it is not clear:
1. Whether a WE losing a point of damage in a crossfire counts as a destroyed unit 1.11
2. No. of dice rolled for BMs on teleportation (NetEA and EpicUK FAQs differ)