Capsule:
Suppression fire is intended to keep your opponent's heads down whilst you're on the move or you're providing covering fire for an ally. This makes it difficult and somewhat dangerous for your opponents to return fire.
Effect:
A character may opt to provide suppression fire whilst declaring his/her actions for the turn if your side is going first. The player must decide how many suppressive shots he/she will fire on top of any other actions for that round. Suppression fire shots have a difficulty value of difficult and are worked out in the normal manner. For each successful suppressive fire shot for the action phase add +1 to the difficulty for the opponents returning fire in that phase. In addition, any opponent who fumbles their returning fire shot has mistimed getting up and has been hit by the blaze of fire. To work out the damage, select the highest to hit roll made by the suppressing side in that action phase and work out damage as normal. If multiple people fumble then descend through the to hit rolls. In the situation where the number of fumbles out weighs the number of weapons being used by the suppressive side, work out fumbles as normal.
Example:
Aves, Jarre and Jones are facing off four Stormtroopers in a warehouse. Aves' side wins the initiative and decides to act first. Aves and Jones are going to cover Jarre while he moves forward, and they decide to fire two suppression shots whilst Jarre moves twice, Aves also declares that he's going to fire his light repeater on blanket fire mode for both shots. The Stormtroopers elect to fire twice. Jarre moves successfully. Aves fires his three suppression shots and gets 12, 24 and 18, so only two shots are successful. Jones fires his suppression shot and gets a 19, so his shot is successful. This means that the Stormtroopers add +3 to the difficulty when returning fire. The Stormtroopers all take a shot at Jarre as the others are behind cover. Jarre decides to dodge and gets 18. The Stormtroopers need 21 or more to hit Jarre (18+3=21), they roll 10, 15, 20 and 19, therefore no hits.
For the second actions, Jarre moves successfully. Aves fires his three suppression shots and gets 17, 20 and 26, so all three shots are successful. Jones fires his suppression shot and gets a 16, so his shot is successful. This means that the Stormtroopers add +4 to the difficulty when returning fire. The Stormtroopers all take a shot at Jarre as the others still are behind cover. The Stormtroopers need 22 or more to hit Jarre (18+4=22), they roll 5, 12, 23 and 17, so one Stormtrooper managed to hit and another one fumbled his roll. The Stormtrooper who hit works out the damage as normal and manages to stun Jarre. The Stormtrooper who fumbled his roll gets hit by Aves' Light Repeater, as Aves rolled the highest to hit in that action phase and works out the damage at 4D (See Repeating Blasters Article for full rules on repeating blasters) and manages to wound the Stormtrooper.