Name: Booby Trap
Type (Category): Equipment (Other)
Technology: Primitive, Inner Sphere
Available To: BattleMechs (BM), IndustrialMechs (IM)
Reference: Tactical Operations: Advanced Units & Equipment (p. 109)
Description:Long a tactic of the desperate and the fanatical, booby traps have been used to deny spoils to a victorious enemy, or to deliver a devastating close-quarters attack after all other weapons have failed.
Though modernized for the mechanized battlefield, the concept of a highly explosive “spoilsport” weapon remains too extreme to become a mainstream weapon system (indeed, the practice went nearly extinct in the centuries after the fall of the first Star League, and the Clans do not seem to employ such devices at all). However, some forces—most notably those of the Capellan Confederation, Taurian Concordat and the Word of Blake—have been known to use booby traps en masse.
Game Rules:The Booby Trap is a one-shot device that can be activated during a unit’s Weapon Attack or Physical Attack phase, regardless of the unit’s engine type. Once activated, a Booby Trap explodes immediately, destroying the booby-trapped unit completely (leaving nothing for salvage).
The controlling player of a unit that activates its Booby Trap may attempt to use any on-board ejection systems to save the warrior or crew at the same time, but must apply a +4 modifier to the target number for a successful ejection, in addition to any modifiers based on the ejection system used. If successful, the ejected warriors or crews land outside the exploding unit’s hex (either adjacent to it or a number of hexes away, based on the ejection system used) in the following turn.
In ground combat, the damage inflicted by a Booby Trapped unit is treated as area-effect damage similar to an artillery blast. Against all units in the same hex as the exploding unit, this damage is equal to the booby-trapped unit’s Engine Rating. If the unit has no Engine Rating, multiply its Cruising or Safe Thrust MP by its tonnage and use that value in place of the Engine Rating (to a maximum of 500). For Mobile Structures, multiply the structure’s MP value by its size in hexes times its height in levels, and use that value for Engine Rating (again, to a maximum of 500). In addition, against all units 1 hex away from the exploding unit, the Booby Trap inflicts damage equal to the exploding unit’s Engine Rating, divided by 2. This damage is halved again (to one-quarter of the unit’s Engine Rating) against units located 2 hexes away, and again (to one-eighth the Engine Rating) against units 3 hexes away. Round all fractions up. Units 4 hexes or more away from an exploding booby-trapped unit suffer no damage.
Airborne units that employ a Booby Trap inflict no damage to other units unless another airborne unit is in the same hex on the Low Altitude map (or, if a non-aerospace airborne unit, within 3 hexes and elevations of the exploding Booby Trapped unit). In such an event, the other airborne unit must make a Control Roll/Piloting Skill Roll when the Booby Trap explodes. If this roll fails, the other airborne unit suffers damage equal to one-quarter of the exploding unit’s Engine Rating (as computed above). Aerospace units operating on the space map that activate a Booby Trap inflict no damage to nearby units.
If an atmosphere is present and the underlying terrain is not water, the hex occupied by an exploding Booby Trapped unit is filled with fire after the unit’s destruction. Critical hits to a Booby Trap will not set off the device, but will simply disable its arming systems, rendering it inoperable.
Construction Rules:
May be mounted on any available unit type with adherence to the following construction rules:
May mount up to one per unit May only be mounted in the Center Torso
