A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 18 May 2014
Heyo, this has come up in the local environment recently.
Situation: I have a big unit with followers and ominous armor. My opponent destroys the personality from an action, like a duel or something. The way my local play group is interpreting it is that since the rulebook states that the unit is first destroyed but then the armor prevents the personality's destruction, only he would be alive, but the rest of his unit would still die. Is that how that works?
Also, does it work the same for rampant paranoia?
A player, 18 May 2014
It depends a lot on the exact wording of the action destroying the Personality. If the card explicitly states that it destroys the unit (eg Thoughtless Sacrifice), then the Ominous Armor will save the Personality but everything else will be destroyed. Destroying the entire unit works as your group described.
However this is rarely the case. Most cards destroy just the Personality (for example duels, Ranged Attacks, etc). In this case, the rest of the cards in the unit are only destroyed if the Personality they're attached to is effectively destroyed. If the Ominous Armor saves the Personality, she and her attachments (other than the Ominous Armor itself) will stay in play, because their destruction is a consequence of the Personality's destruction, not of the action. Negating the destruction will save everything.
Same works with Rampant Paranoia.