FAQ wont solve the problem (or rather, it will result in yet another situation when the Rules are explicitly contradicted by the FAQ)

the question is, Onyx, are you a bad enough dude to save the president? (or in this case, actually alter the rules as written)

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I can understand what you're saying but doesn't make AA fire very easy to suppress? Especially when you consider AA tend to operate as single units.

I really can't help feeling that flak attacks were intended to be exempt from suppression, almost because it's not mentioned in the aircraft section at all. Flak seems to be treated as being something other than shooting - certainly not shooting that "takes place in the action phase when the unit takes its action" which the suppression rules apply to.

Wouldn't it be easy enough to end your move outside the flak bubble, get your shots off and risk the flak on the way out, giving you more chance to remove the AA with other weapons during your turn if you wanted to? And if you can't do that your opponent is doing his job...

Of course I could be talking out of my behind!

I get your point, but it removes some of the tactics from the game, many marine armies for example have to work to gut the AA of the opposing side by either killing it (hard) or suppressing it (slightly less hard)

having AA units which could never be suppressed would make the game simpler in a negative way IMO

It also forces you to position units more carefully instead of just shunting them around willy nilly

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You seem to be under some confusion as to what "explicitly" means. By saying "AA weapons can shoot at aircraft" they don't explicitly say anything about suppression. In formal logic, the absence of a statement that something is true does not mean it is definitely untrue. If you were to apply this to every occasion in the rules where something is stated about one situation but not stated about another, the game would be a very strange one indeed.

To put back into the real world: AP can't "shoot" at AVs either, but they don't need to in order to be suppressed.

By your logic of rule by omission, you must think that flak cannot be suppressed, since it doesn't say that units must be unsurpressed in the aerospace rules either, whereas it does say that in the shooting rules and it does say that AA need range. Only range. Nor can targets claim cover, or myriad other things which we assume by common sense.

With the greatest respect, there is non need to be condescending, which I'm afraid is how you are coming across. You can put it in as many capitals as you like, but I am quite capable of reading the rules and I don't think they say what you think they do. It's not that I want them to be different, it's that I think they already say something different. So clearly, they are sufficiently ambiguous as to be worthy of an FAQ, as evidenced by this thread demonstrating that the majority of players don't read it your way.

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nope, you're missing the point too.
The part that is explicit, is that AA units can shoot even though they're out of range.
By including an explicit statement discussing the situation in which it is possible, and not including any other statement as to it being possible in any situation elsewhere, it is quite clear that the rules do not allow for other shooting to shoot whenever.

its not rule by ommission. it's rule by exception. there are rules for shooting. the AA rules provide an exception to this rule for certain circumstances. They list the situation in which AA fire differs from the main rules (AA capable ground units can shoot as they pass through) but in all other circumstances, the rules are followed as normal.
thus, supression is allowed from units that lack the ability to hurt the target (just like AP only units shooting at tanks) but they still follow the range rules as normal.
In a normal situation, if the aircraft was a ground unit, it could not be shot at, because the only unit in range is supressed by the blast marker on the formation. the fact that the unit is in range only due to a special rule does not confer that special rules effect to all other units in the formation.

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You are, actually, reading the rules wrong. These are GW rules, not legal texts (or Warmachine rules). They are not meant to be read and followed explicitly, but rather in a conversational style. Checking suppression at the time you check range is a perfectly valid interpretation of the rules as written.

no, they freakin arent.

they say a unit the rule applies to
you cannot use that as an arguement to then say it also applies to all other instances.
if it was a standard rule, they would not specify the situation when it applies, they would just say that it applies

Unless of course you also believe the following:
I have a Warhound titan. It has a plasma blast gun. that gun has the special rule, that says that the weapon can hit anything it wants, and that it ignores armour and cover saves. now, it provides a clear and obvious example of what weapon uses the rule. but on the other hand, there are other weapons i'm shooting and because it is read "in the conversational style" I can thus claim that its Vulcan Mega Bolter also ignores armour? "Perfectly Valid Interpretation"

How about Airborne Flak
It has been FAQ'ed and played for some time, that an aircraft that flies through enemy aircrafts AA weapon range and does not end there, cannot be shot at by said aircraft. the ability to shoot at aircraft "that within their weapon range during their approach or disengagement move, even if the aircraft is no longer within weapon range when the attack is made." is reserved only for ground units with AA.
but if we choose to ignore the part of the rule which says what it applies to (or choose to believe that the rule also applies to things it doesnt say it applies to) then surely i can shoot at it with my aircraft too?


Now, since it seems to have been forgotten again, I'm not saying this is the way the game should be played. What i am saying, is that this is the way the rules say the game should be played, and if we disagree, we need to edit the rules, so that everyone is on the same page, not simply ignore the rules or provide a contradictory FAQ that peopl can ignore at will, because the rules say differently. FAQ is for clarification of rules, not creation or contradiction of them.

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JGT - as dptdexys has pointed out it is a matter of how a couple of lines are interpreted, and I can see how both systems could be read. It is not black/white right/wrong as you are making out

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I agree with Steve.

I suggest a vote, at the least it will ascertain the most common interpretation.

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how is a rule that begins by stating that it applies to AA units, in any way open to interpretation that it would also apply to other units that might also want to use it? aside from wishful thinking, what part of the rule even implies that it applies to anyone else? it flat out states that it applies to one type of unit, and makes no mention whatsoever of any other type of unit. other precedent backs up this interpretation, and there is no reason to believe that the alternative interpretation is covered by the rules, except the "we think the game is better if it does"

I dont doubt that the way most people play it is to interpret the "units with AA can shoot at things even if they're out of range" rule to also mean "and so can anyone else, we just wrote "ground units with AA weapons" because we thought it would sound cooler, we totes mean everyone, we just didnt actually say that because where would be the fun in that."
and, i fully support that being the rule. I think its a good rule change.

but it IS a rule change, and the rules should be modified to reflect that.

The rules, as written are being misinterpreted by what i expect is the majority of players. this misinterpretation is, by most all accounts, a good thing, but it would be better if the rules themselves reflected this state of play.

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Guys, I think we all agree (and I have always said) that a FAQ is needed to clear this up because the air rules are somewhat fuzzy in several respects and this is compounded by suppression, which is not intuitive in itself.

I think we agree with the principle that Ground AA units can fire at enemy A/c that have moved into or through their arc of fire unless they are supressed. If we accept that Ground AA should suffer suppression like all other shooting and we accept the same principles of suppression should apply, we only need to consider when suppression is applied - I think we all agree that for simplicity firing is resolved at the end of the A/c movement as stipulated in the rules.

There is one other question or guiding principle; whether we expect to suppress AA wherever possible, or whether we expect Ground AA to fire wherever possible. This is best illustrated by the example of the A/c flying straight over an enemy formation and the earlier discussions as to when the AA was suppressed, if at all.

Given the potential for the air-game to unbalance the game as a whole, I personally prefer allowing AA to fire whenever possible which is also simpler to FAQ - it is effectively what Steve and others have already presented.

So we would end up with a FAQ worded something like this

JTG - nobody is saying that non-flak units can shoot at aircraft. AA weapons can shoot at aircraft as they move past; AP weapons cannot. That's what the rules are explicit about. They are saying that there is an omission in the rules that does not specify how to handle suppression, which normally is measured in exactly the same way as the shooting units. It mentions how to handle LoS, it mentions how to handle range, it omits how to handle suppression. Believe me I am normally the one saying what you are saying: that if the rules don't say something then it is not true. But what you are missing is that there can be alternative interpretations of what the default is.

In your contrived examples, the rules are clear that special abilities apply to individual weapons, and the default rules for handling weapons without those special abilities is also clear. I don't know why you think that the conversational style of the rules somehow means special abilities apply to every weapon on a titan. A better example would be how hit allocation works with mixed ability weapons like ignore cover - the rules don't say, so you try to work out what the default is from the rules that do exist. Sometimes, like in hit allocation, that gives you a clear answer. Sometimes it does not. Likewise, the flak rules actually state the firing conditions for defensive aircraft AA and ground flak separately - it's not like one is specified and the other is not. So the rules are clear and the FAQ is purely a clarification of the rules. Some people might want the defensive aircraft AA system to work like it does for ground flak, but You have to push it very far to interpret it that way.

Back on topic:

Normally, to shoot, a unit must have LoF, range, and not be suppressed. The suppressed units don't need to be able to shoot the target, they just need to satisfy the same range and LoS conditions as the ones that can shoot. You are free to interpret that to mean that you do everything at the end of the move, and only do range differently (one interpretation of the word "resolve"). Or, as most people do, you can interpret it to mean that the targeting rules work differently for flak, and apply the same conditions for the non-shooting units as for the shooting units - like you would for regular shooting:
Aircraft is moving towards me
Do I have LoS? yes
Am I in range? yes
Am I suppressed? no
I can shoot!

Edit: basically the difference is that, here, suppression is seen as an effect applied to units that are shooting, and not as shooting itself.

Both are valid interpretations, hence: FAQ.

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I think that about sums it up. In my view, when I read the rules I see the intention/spirit as "fire at aircraft as they move past", with a game mechanic of when to actually roll the hits tacked on the end. If you see it that way, I think you naturally end up concluding that it should be "fire wherever possible".



It still reads a little bit unclear to me, though the last sentence clears it up somewhat. How about:

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JTG: In a "legalese" ruleset you can read the rules carefully and tease out an interpretation, because that's the way the rules have been written - they're comprehensive and are meant to apply to everything. In a "conversational" ruleset, if the rules don't mention a thing, it means that the rules are unclear - they say nothing about it, because the designer didn't consider it. In this case, the rules say nothing about how suppression is applied to flak units. We can look at other rules and see how we think it should work, but we can't carefully parse sentences to find the "hidden meaning", because there isn't any. So we need a FAQ.