So, this might be a stupid question but it came up at a game today:

If a ship with the Ruthlessness EPT hits with an Assault Missile, which ship is or which ships are "the defender"?

I am assuming that it is only the ship that rolled green dice against the Assault Missile attack but there was a "voice" at my FLGS which insited that all ships that are dealt damage as result of the attack were in fact "the defenders" (and that way the Ruthlessness-splash damage could be transfered almost up to Range 2).

ps. In a similiar vein: A Bomb detonating is not considered an attack and thus doesn't benefit from the EPT of the ship that deployed it, right?

The defender is the ship hit by the attack.

The ships hit by splash damage are merely unfortunate bystanders.

The defender is the ship which is declared as the target in Step 1, Page 10: Once declared, the target ship is now the defender,

And a bomb detonation is not an attack. It doesn't come from any particular ship, and abilities can't affect it.

Your "voice" was sadly just a screeching mynok.

Let's pretend for a moment that Lt. Blount is equipped with an assault missile. He targets a ship, it becomes the defender, dice happen, then he confirms the target as 'hit' any way like a baller, then the damage is dealt to all ships in range one. They were never directly 'attacked' so the game never sees them as 'defenders'.

If we want to pretend that Blount was not restricted by such things as morals and able to equip Ruthlessness, because that would be SWEET, he would be all "Screw this Academy Pilot I'm shooting at, and screw this Obsidian squadron guy, and screw this other Academy bloke, and screw this Howlrunner in particular!"

...For the longest time after the preview I missed the fact that Ruthlessness was Imperial Only, okay!? I was really looking forward to this combo

^ That woulda been totes OP

^ That woulda been totes OP

Yep. Blount would quickly become one of the most popular pilots.