Apologies if this has been asked before, but my search came up empty.

If you target a minion group with a weapon that has the Blast quality, how should the Blast take effect? Do the minions count as individual characters, or are they a single target?

Say, for example, you throw a frag grenade (Damage 8, Blast 6) at a group of four standard stormtroopers (Soak 5, Wound Threshold 5) and get a final result of three Successes and two Advantages. Which of these would be correct?

Option 1

The minion group takes 11 damage (base 8 plus three Successes), minus 5 soak for 6 total. One stormtrooper goes down, Blast has no effect because the group counts as a single target.

Option 2

One stormtrooper takes the primary hit, doing 6 damage to the group after soak, then each of the other three takes 9 Blast damage (base 6 plus three Successes). Soak has already been applied, so the group takes 27 blast damage, for a total of 33. The group is wiped out.

Option 3

One stormtrooper takes the primary hit, for 6 damage, then the other three take 9 Blast damage each but each applies their own Soak of 5, resulting in a total of 18 damage after Soak (6 base plus 3*4 Blast). Three of the stormtroopers are killed, one survives (just).

With three success and two advantage.

One trooper takes the direct hit for 11 damage, 2 Advantage to activate blast, the other three are hit for 9 damage each.

So one Damage 11 hit, three damage 9 hits. Soak is applied to each hit, making it one 6 Wound hit, and three 4 Wound hits. Total 17 wounds. Three troopers are removed from play, one remains in play with 2 wound applied.

10 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

One trooper takes the direct hit for 11 damage, 2 Advantage to activate blast, the other three are hit for 9 damage each.

So you add the damage from the initial 3 Successes to the Blast damage as well? I did not realize this.

12 hours ago, Edgehawk said:

So you add the damage from the initial 3 Successes to the Blast damage as well? I did not realize this.

Yep, Gear and Equipment: Item Qualities: Blast: Paragraph 1, last sentence.

Makes those weird weapons and attachments with things like "Blast 2" make a little more sense.