When ramming, the rules state: " The ramming ship then takes damage equal to the defending ship’s Armour plus 1d5 to their prow armour, also ignoring void shields ."

I can parse this two ways:

A: This is an attack on the the ramming ship that hits the prow armor for X amount of damage. If it doesn't get past the prow armor, there is no effect.

B. The armor takes the damage, so if this causes 20 points of damage on a prow with 23 points (example: Ork Brute Ramship), the ramming ship now has 3 points of armor left in it's prow. Any excess damage would be applied to the Hull Integrity.

Which is correct?

Thanks!

I guess its damage in the prow arc.

There is really not a single case of damage to armour specifically. And this would be a strange "works totally different than the rest of the game" stiuation.

You are right Voronesh. I sent in a rules question and here's the official word:

Sam Stewart to me
show details 8:21 AM (2 hours ago)
Hello John,

I can understand the confusion. The first (Option A) is correct.

Hope this helps!

Sam

The question came up when I was tearing up my players with Ork Brute Ram ships. I was doing it right, but wasn't sure.

In Battlefleet Gothic, Ram Ships are nasty, but one shots. In RT, they are just nasty. 4 Brute Ram ships + a Kill Kroozer gave my players quite a challenge.

Ramships are terrifying here. They do a huge amount of damage, and as the escorts got a huge boost in RT, you have very little chance to stop them before they get in at least one ramming run, especially if you have a slowly turning (light) cruiser. We home ruled evasive manoeuvres helps (even if it is not shooting, it is logical that trying to evade ramming helps a lot), and that is quite needed. Of course, if they miss you, they offer a nice shot up their bum, but being orks they don't seem to care.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

Now why doesn't Speed of the Ramming Ship taken into account with damage? Wouldn't a ship going at 11 VUs do more damage than one going at 5 VUs? And take more damage as well...