I'll decline to say what type of grenade it was, although James might reasonably conclude that it was less-than-lethal given the fact that it didn't vaporize the boat.
I'm not opposed to a reasonable amount of OOC cherrypicking but I probably wouldn't go so far as to let someone pick which dodge test applies to which suppressive fire attack. That should be random, but the good news is that it's a 50/50 chance in this case.
We also need to apply some common sense. Flechette suppressive fire is supposed to be unavoidable, although the rules do state that Full Defense is an option for standard suppressive fire. That said, I don't see any logical way that we could apply Full Defense within the confines of an airboat (say, 2 meters by 4 meters, probably half of which is fan and engine) without jumping overboard or taking cover. Even the regular dodge test (REA + EDG) seems generous, given the fact that there are roughly (2 shooters * 20 rounds per CT * 1/3 per IP)
13 rounds of flechette fire flying by the airboat (which is far smaller than the 10 meters x 2 meter cone for suppressive fire, or 5 meters x 2 meters for Enhanced Suppressive fire)
each second. Logically, that's just not avoidable.
In other words, we're breaking the rules a bit. This is inevitable, as the rules can't mirror every possible situation. I'm not going to ban the REA+EDG test, but I will say that Full Defense isn't an option unless you're using it to jump overboard. The dodge test is also subject to the defense adjustment from flechette suppressive fire (see p.121 of
Run & Gun). In this case that's -3, which costs 3 hits from the 8-hit test and 1 hit from the 3-hit test.
We'll flip to see which attack is which. 1 = LMG, 2 = not LMG.
Coin Flip:
1d2 1, congratulations
Now I actually have to roll to see what the suppressive fire hits are.
LMG:
Agility + Heavy Weapons + Smartlink:
?d6t5 2 hits, misses!
Not LMG:
Agility + Automatics + Smartlink:
?d6t5 4 hits, connects
James gets tagged and needs to soak (base damage + flechette - DV adjustment from range)
11P +3AP. That won't exceed his armor value so any damage will be Stun. The boat's armor does not apply if James is standing up to pilot the airboat, but you still have 26 dice. In theory that should take care of 9 boxes, but you have a 22% chance of not taking any damage at all.
CT2 IP3James: 13Shooting at Fire Spirit: 6
Shooting fire spirit:
Agility + Firearms + Bulky + Smartlink + Take Aim:
?d6t5 6 hitsFire spirit dodge:
Reaction 11 + Intuition 8 - Background Count 5 - SA Burst 2 - Wounds 1 - Second Attack 1:
10d6t5 3 hitsFire spirit gets tagged again. Soaking:
Body 10 + Armor 9:
19d6t5 8 hitsGood soak roll, plus 5 auto-hits from Immunity makes for 13 hits total. Fire spirit takes an additional 2P and is now at
7P.
CT2 IP4James: 3
The boat is still in the suppressive fire cone. The Break Away action will incur negative modifiers from the suppressive fire (-6 total) but the fancy get-out-of-suppressive-fire vehicle test looks like a straight Reaction (7) + Edge (5) - Flechette (3) test to meet the threshold of 4 established by the shooters. If it doesn't, James will be eating another shot or two.