How do Boost and Primary Target interact?

[The.Vortex]

While thinking about building a melee soldier, I stumbled upon an interaction of two rules that I am not sure about how to handle:

The "boost 1dX" trait allows to spend an action to add damage dice to the next attack made with a weapon.
Using a melee soldier and Whirling Swipe, I can Area Attack with for example a Painglaive and get a Primary Attack melee strike with that weapon as well.
To which of those does the boost apply?

Possible lines of thought I had:

1: To the primary target attack - it is the first attack to resolve after the boost
2: To the area attack - it is the action with the attack trait that you "activated" after the boost
3: Both, since the free strike is part of the area attack action

I think it would be 1, which then leads to a rather interesting choice: Do I want to do more area damage by skipping my primary target free strike? Or do I want to make that strike for maximum damage against that single target?

[Baarogue]

It's #1. You declare that you're going to make an area attack to trigger primary target's trigger, but you make the primary target attack first. This is in the language of primary target where it says, "Before you make an area attack..., you can make a ranged Strike as a free action"

Yes, this could lead to situations where you might forgo the primary target Strike to get more damage on the area attack. I'd say it'll come down to whether you're just facing a bunch of fodder or if a tougher target as well. Don't forget that if you hit your primary target their save vs your area attack is worsened if they roll a success so that could swing the math if you're only facing a couple foes

[Finoan]

I will agree with Baarogue on the RAW.

I do have to raise an eyebrow and some balance concerns for being able to apply Boost trait damage to more than one enemy.

Currently, no weapons have both Boost and either Area or Automatic fire. The only way to get this interaction and have Boost damage affecting more than one target is with Soldier turning single-target weapons into Area weapons.

'The game devs forgot how the rules work' is a hard bar to reach. But that is also why we have errata being published on a regular periodic basis.