Here's the siuation:

Luke is activating. He is close enough to move into base contact with the unit leader of a speeder bike group, but cannot reach the other one.

The melee rules say that vehicles don't have to reform around the person who just engaged them in melee I think.

Luke attacks and deals 6 damage.

Does the Unit Leader die, even though you're supposed to deal damage to non leader units first? because that was the only speeder he was touching? Does then the other speeder just get promoted to the leader? I assume the excess 3 damage doesn't get sent over to the other speeder bike right?

1 hour ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

Here's the siuation:

Luke is activating. He is close enough to move into base contact with the unit leader of a speeder bike group, but cannot reach the other one.

The melee rules say that vehicles don't have to reform around the person who just engaged them in melee I think.

Luke attacks and deals 6 damage.

Does the Unit Leader die, even though you're supposed to deal damage to non leader units first? because that was the only speeder he was touching? Does then the other speeder just get promoted to the leader? I assume the excess 3 damage doesn't get sent over to the other speeder bike right?

AFAIK there is no "target eligibility" requirement for melee that you be in physical contact with the model being killed.

If you're in contact with the unit during a melee attack, all the models are fair game for receiving wounds.

From my understanding so far, this would kill both bikes.

Oh, I misread.

Yes, both models die. Damage is dealt to the unit as a whole, so if you kill one model the next one will immediately start taking damage.

12 hours ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

Here's the siuation:

Luke is activating. He is close enough to move into base contact with the unit leader of a speeder bike group, but cannot reach the other one.

The melee rules say that vehicles don't have to reform around the person who just engaged them in melee I think.

Luke attacks and deals 6 damage.

Does the Unit Leader die, even though you're supposed to deal damage to non leader units first? because that was the only speeder he was touching? Does then the other speeder just get promoted to the leader? I assume the excess 3 damage doesn't get sent over to the other speeder bike right?

When wounds are suffered, the non-commander minis are killed first. So Luke hits the speeder leader for 6, the first 3 damage is dealt to the other speeder, and then another 3 to the leader.

If you dealt 5, the non-commander suffers 3 and the commander suffers 2.

For melee, you don't have to be in base contact to deal damage to the entire unit.

Here's a question based on OP's question:

When Luke enters melee with a unit of speeder bikes, do the speeder bikes reform into melee with him? In other words, if Luke bases one of the minis and enters melee, must the mini that is not in base contact with Luke then reform such that its base is also in contact with Luke?

57 minutes ago, Xiervak said:

Here's a question based on OP's question:

When Luke enters melee with a unit of speeder bikes, do the speeder bikes reform into melee with him? In other words, if Luke bases one of the minis and enters melee, must the mini that is not in base contact with Luke then reform such that its base is also in contact with Luke?

No, only because speeder bikes do not have a melee weapon.

PG 32

If the opponent’s unit does not have a melee weapon, the opponent does not move their minis into base contact with the unit that started the melee.

Huh. That just seemed super weird to me that the bike Luke isn't even close to takes damage first and dies before the bike he's right next to get's touched.

I thought maybe since during ranged attacks you can't wound minis you have 0 LOS to, something similar might apply in this situation. Feels thematically very off to me.

4 minutes ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

Huh. That just seemed super weird to me that the bike Luke isn't even close to takes damage first and dies before the bike he's right next to get's touched.

I thought maybe since during ranged attacks you can't wound minis you have 0 LOS to, something similar might apply in this situation. Feels thematically very off to me.

I can't find anything that says you can't kill a mini not in base contact but belongs to a unit in a melee.

18 minutes ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

Huh. That just seemed super weird to me that the bike Luke isn't even close to takes damage first and dies before the bike he's right next to get's touched.

I thought maybe since during ranged attacks you can't wound minis you have 0 LOS to, something similar might apply in this situation. Feels thematically very off to me.

Minis not in contact can contribute dice to the attack, which means minis not in contact can suffer damage.

PG 32

Minis that are not in base contact with an enemy mini can still contribute to a melee attack if the unit to which that mini belongs is in a melee.

Could this be one of those situations where you would replace the model that isn't in base contact with the Leader model if you didn't defeat both?

15 minutes ago, NeonWolf said:

Could this be one of those situations where you would replace the model that isn't in base contact with the Leader model if you didn't defeat both?

Damage is assigned to non-leaders first, so no. But the effect is the same.

Getting hung up on aesthetic realism will cause problems in a minis game. Where your unit commander is is more of a representation than a literal.