Using ground attacking aircrafts as flak umbrella isn't only gamey as hell it is against reason and against the letter of the rule.

_________________
We are returned!
http://www.epic-wargaming.de/

Yeah, sorry if my tone was too harsh, but I *do* have strong opinions on this, yes. Specially as I only discovered through this topic the way apparently a lot of people play the rule, and as BL said, it does look both very gamey and a quite energetic bending of the actual written sentence to me. The actual surprise probably explain a bit of the "Shame on you !" tone I might have used.

All apologies.

But still ! Really, shame on you all

I am positive we asked about this ~18 months ago and it was clarified that the AC AA was purely defensive.

I really cannot believe that now they we are being advised differently due to one example.

I totally agree with Athmospheric and BlackLegion in their opinions.

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

Play it however you like. Just put it in the "5 minute warm-up" discussion.

The "ends a move in the AA arc" was what was used during playtesting, but that was 6 years ago and it's not the only thing that was not clear when written down. I agree that the RAW support for that is wonky and relies on grammatical hair-splitting and parsing out which clauses are explanatory as to concept and which are intended as hard rules.

I completely understand why people disagree and it's definitely not unreasonable to go with an "only interceptors" reading.

The only caveat I'd offer is that if you're going with "only interceptors" then I'd say the RAW never qualifies which interceptors are valid targets. The most literal interpretation in that case would be that any interceptor could be fired at, regardless of what the interceptor's target is, e.g. 2 bomber formations in close proximity would both be allowed to fire if either were intercepted.

But, again, play it the way you like.

neal, do you think there would be an significant impact on points costs and balance if people choose to play 'only interceptors'?

If Neal says the rule was intended to be "umberella" coverage then that's good enough for me.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

No. Obviously, it's a change in utility, but I wouldn't expect it to come close to warranting any price change.

It will on lists with no ground based AA. Like Epic-UK's Vanaheim which was developed using the umbrella interpretation of the rules. This is what, as far as I am aware, is in common use at UK tournaments. It is certainly the way I explain it when asked.

It was certainly a factor when testing Hellblades during pre release Chaos testing - the whole exploitation of planes taking individual attack tracks to end up pointing in advantagous directions to provide additional flak defenses.

The rational at the time was it was meant to represnt defensive aircraft formations, escorts and the like.

Well, if you knew it would warrant a point change, why'd you ask me?

More seriously, if one or more EUK lists are affected, I'd expect Matt (or another judge) to make the call at tournaments based on the assumptions used to design the tourney lists.

On the plus side, it's nice to know Matt is running the tourneys using the same rule interpretation.

If the AA umbrella wasn't intended then why did Jervis have us testing alternate Air rules for a year or 2 to prevent it.

When I next see Jervis at Warhammer World I'll tell him he was playing the rules wrong all those years .

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

But coherency is measured after a move - the aircraft have one move to reach their target with a turn allowed every 30cm. The coherency issue is only at the end and start of the move.

I was, as some others, phasing out of the hobby at that time, after it became very apparent that support for "specialist games" was being cut down (I was in the optimistic group of people at first). That was the blast marker that broke me. Well, let's say I just have always read it wrong in genuine innocence during E:A play testing.

I still hate mechanisms like the AA umbrella provided by bombers (I say bombers because most aircraft with an all round AA attack are bombers) and flak rushes (intercepting with flakwagons.... yeah right) that the official interpretation allows.