It depends on how you blind fire.
If you stick your Ares Alpha up over the edge of the boat, you'll only be at -3 for "Attacker firing from cover with imaging device". This, in my opinion, is ridiculously generous, but I don't want to come up with something new on the fly.
That is ridiculously generous. That said, I'm not keen on giving these guys a Defense Test, so I'd rather fire through the barrier and hit them Unaware, with only their cover bonuses -- should they have them -- to save them.
If you want to try to fire through the airboat and make holes in your own cover, well that's interesting too. That would probably be the regular Blind Fire penalty, although the power of the projectile would be reduced by whatever the airboat soaks before passing the projectile on.
I'd like to further reduce my chances of hitting by making a Called Shot. Bulls Eye Burst would seem to fit the flavor here. The point is to reduce the holes that James is putting in his own cover, while trying to mitigate some of the DV loss.
(A very literal interpretation of the rules would say that there's a break here at the beginning of the CT, since suppressive fire only goes until the end of a CT and they technically haven't had an action to resume yet, but they have no intention of letting up so I am ruling that the suppressive fire is ongoing.)
Yeah, that's silly. James is fast, but he's not slip up between a lack of bullets that only occur because rule sets fast.
For now, Illeana will spend her actions updating AROs while trying not to vomit inside her mask. James figures that the non-shooters may try to encircle you. If they used something like a Waveskipper then odds are good that they are faster and more maneuverable than an airboat, although maybe they're using something else since they managed to set up their ambush without making too much noise.
This brings up a new question. Of the 8 AROs, how many of them are elevated? I'm curious how many are entrenched in their positions vs. likely on the move.
Back to wonky rules discussions, has the Spirit been using any movement? Since Fear is a LoS power, by RAW it should be able to use that power even while putting some distance between itself and the shooters, so that they suffer range penalties. On the other hand, a retreating Fire Spirit doesn't seem to really put the fear of Dunkelzahn into someone like a spirit right up in their face would. On the other, other, hand, a Force 8 spirit is fucking scary, and the attack is magical in nature, not necessarily reflective of the critter itself.
Since shooting through the air boat seems like a go, I'd like to take the shot first, and then do my movement. This way, if they try the same thing back at James he will have at least put some distance between himself and the location he was in when he fired.
CT2 IP1
Free: Called Shot: Bulls Eye Burst
Simple: Take Aim
Simple: FA burst.
James will single out the chummer with the LMG if he's able to discern from what direction the big gun is coming from. If not, he'll take his clearest shot.
Recoil is: Free (1) + STR (3) + Gas Vent III (3) + Shock Pad (1) = 8. Well over the 6 that I need to avoid further penalties.
For shooting I have: AGI (11) + Firearms Group (8) + Take Aim (1) - Blind Fire (6) - Called Shot (4) = 10 dice. Fingers crossed here.
FA burst on LMG chummer:
10d6t5 3Perfectly average. At least it should beat cover bonuses.
Base damage is 11P -18AP, staged to 14P -18AP against the barrier. AP is calculated at: Base AP (6) + [Base Weapon AP (2) X Shots Fired (6)] = 18. Also, -18AP is the most that the Alpha can reach, so no going Complex FA to hit -26AP.