This came up in a game at Expo on saturday and it occurred to me that I've always played it differently to how my opponent (dptdexys) played it, without ever realising it.

The scenario is actually very simple:
A formation of bombers makes a ground attack, and is attacked by ground flak during its approach move. It receives a blast marker for coming under fire. In a later action, enemy fighters intercept and fire on the bomber.
Q1. Do the bombers receive a second blast marker?
Q2. If another formation of fighters intercepted the bombers in a subsequent action, would they receive a third blast marker?
Q3. If the bombers were to be attacked again by ground flak during their disengagement move, would they receive a fourth blast marker?

This is what the rules say:

Aircraft formations collect Blast markers under the following circumstances:
• Any aircraft formation that suffers any attacks (from ground flak or being intercepted) receives one Blast marker for ‘coming under fire’. The formation can only receive one Blast marker during the approach move and another Blast marker during the disengagement move, no matter how many different units from however many different formations attack it.
• The aircraft receives one Blast marker for each aircraft unit
that is shot down or point of damage that is suffered if it is a
war engine.

We played it dptdexys' way, and so the bombers got one for coming under fire in the approach move, and another for the interception (which was the next action). Now that I look at the rules, I'm not sure if this is correct or not. At home I would have just treated the intercept as being lumped in with the approach move attacks without even thinking about it, so more like "one for the action phase, another for the disengagement move". The rules seem to directly contradict themselves, in that:

a) they specifically mention interception, in the context of "only one for approach and one for disengagement, no matter how many flak or intercept attacks it suffers".
b) interceptions don't happen in either the approach or the disengagement move

At the very least this means that intercept works differently from CAP in terms of blast markers, and in fact you could conclude that, because intercept doesn't happen in either move, attacks from intercept don't place blast markers at all.

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Tricky question. The issue is that the rules are using the same words in two different contexts. In 4.2, aircraft on CAP are described as taking an 'interception action', while those using an Interception activation are described as moving and attacking the enemy aircraft units. Strictly RAW, this suggests that dptdexys is correct, and the aircraft will get a separate BM for each separate "Interception" activation that is launched against it.

To answer your questions:-
Q1. Do the bombers receive a second blast marker? -
A1. Yes

Q2. If another formation of fighters intercepted the bombers in a subsequent action, would they receive a third blast marker?
A2. Yes

Q3. If the bombers were to be attacked again by ground flak during their disengagement move, would they receive a fourth blast marker?
A3. Yes - this has always been the case (see 4.2.7)

If people wish to use the alternative definition, then only provide a single BM for any attacks made during the approach or before the aircraft disengages, and another for any attacks made during the disengagement. Simply done, if the aircraft has any BMs, do not add any more for any extra attacks until it disengages.

It's not "my way" it's the rules.


No the rules do not mention intercept in that context, only if you misread the first and second sentence of the rule could a player come to that conclusion.

4.2.7 Blast Markers

so the formation receives a BM for "coming under fire" as normal units would.
The second sentence states that only one BM is placed during the approach move and during disengagement move no matter how many formations make attacks. The rule does not say they do not receive any BMs in between those two moves.




I cannot see how intercept could be concluded not to place BMs.
The rule states they receive BMs in a similar manner to other units then gives 2 specific periods where only one BM could be placed.
There is no reference to not receiving BMs for the period between approach and disengage moves so should not be played any differently to basic rules.
We are told to use the core rules in all situations unless there are special rules that contradict them. The only contradiction the above shows is for 2 specific situations "during approach move" and "during disengage move" not at any other time.

I can understand the confusion here actually. It's confusing because it talks about the BMs received specifically for coming under fire specifically, and then talks about a limit of one regardless of the number of formations that attack it which sounds like a generalisation but I think it's still specific to those BMs from coming under fire only.

I think the point it's making is that you only get one for being shot at during the approach move and another for the disengagment move. Basically all of your approach flak attacks are lumped together for the purposes of coming under fire and the same for the disengagement move. You still get additional BMs for each casualty inflicted though and you also get BMs for coming under fire from each interception activation targeted against them and any casualties they cause.

Does that sound about right?

Alf, you are correct as far as the approach and disengagement moves are concerned. Kyrt is questioning whether a subsequent "Interception" activation also places a BM or not. It seems you agree with Dptdexys that each Interception adds another BM.

As I suggest earlier, it seems that the "Interception" activation is not worded as an 'interception action', and this is the source of the confusion.

Yeah, ok - I think I might have got slightly the wrong end of the stick. I still think I agree with Dptddexys's interpretation though. Interceptions coming from CAP get lumped in with the firing that you come under from other flak attacks or whatever, but you could still take additional BMs if you lose, say, one unit from each attack. Subsequent interception activations would generate their own BM for coming under fire. Basically, all firing during the approach move and disengagement moves count as one "free" activation, despite the possibility of it being spread across several units - I think that's probably the point that was trying to be made...

I have to agree with dptdexys, I think the rules are reasonably clear, you can only pick up a maximum of 1BM on approach or disengagement, hence you don't pick up an extra BM if you fly through flak AND get CAP-ed as they both occur during the approach move

if you're intercepted by planes on an intercept order, you pick up a BM for coming under fire as usual as you're neither approaching or disengaging at that point

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Sorry dptdexys, when I said "your way" I didn't mean to imply you were making it up on the hoof I meant "not the way I was used to". So, sorry if it sounded that way. I totally accepted it, it made sense, and the only reason for the topic is because later when I looked at the rules (actually for a totally different reason) it didn't make it any clearer for me.

However I think it's obvious that my question was based on having already read the rules, so IMO it is a fair question.

Alf is pretty much correct, the existence of the two alternative interpretations of the rules is not based on "misreading" them, it is purely a consequence of the sentence structure and parsing it literally as it's written:



The way the sentence is written it can go like this:
"a formation that suffers any attacks receives one blast marker for coming under fire"
As written, this is a straightforward sentence structure of "if X then Y", i.e.
"IF [formation suffers any attacks] THEN [formation receives one blast marker]"
Or in other words:
"Did it receive any attacks? Yes, OK, then give it a single blast marker".
Since the next sentence says "only one for the approach and one for disengagement", it follows that this is a refinement of the previous sentence, i.e.:
"make this check twice, once in approach, once in disengagement"
Note that this is perfectly in keeping with the principle of "use the normal rules unless otherwise specified", because it is being specified - i.e. when you read it this way it looks like both sentences are an exception to the normal rules for accumulating blast markers, in this case affecting specifically the part regarding BMs received for coming under fire.
In addition it is also possible to interpret this as saying "place blast markers for coming under attack, but only in the approach and disengagement moves". This last bit however is obviously problematic because it would exclude interception (hence the conflict I mentioned in my OP). This leads you down the path to conclude that the rule is just badly written and hasn't been thought through properly.

The alternative view (and judging by the replies, the most common) goes like this:
"a formation that suffers any attacks an attack receives one blast marker for coming each time it comes under fire[/b]. It's not technically what is written, but makes sense if you choose to interpret this sentence as a simple re-iteration of how the rules normally work. That means that when you read the subsequent sentence about "one for approach, one for disengage", it is only that bit that is a change to the normal rules, i.e. it is reducing the number of BMs that you would normally receive. You're just expected to know that the rest of the section is meant to be a needless and badly worded re-iteration of the normal rules.

I recognise both and am still perfectly happy with the way we played it, it's just that as written it doesn't exactly say one or the other so I wanted to clarify. If I was unsure, maybe someone else might be. The rule jumped out at me as going out of its way to describe things differently to the normal rules when a) it is not necessary and b) there are far more logical and simple ways to do it. I do tend to read things in a very technical "formal logic" way - sometimes it's helpful, other times it makes me second guess what the author originally intended when things don't make sense as written.

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Also just to clarify, it has nothing to do with the definition of an intercept, it was only about the scope of the special aircraft-y part of the BM allocation rules.

True, it's a bit weird that it ends up working differently for intercepts that are done via CAP and intercepts that are done via intercept actions, but I think it's pretty clear that CAP is lumped in with "approach flak".

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We've always played it this way.

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