Aircraft barging was in the very first FAQ. 4.2.5, first question, emphasis added:
Quote:
Q: Can an aircraft land in an enemy ZoC?
A: Only if they are making an Air Assault. In such a situation the aircraft could land right in the middle of a formation, and, assuming it was a War Engine, it could barge enemy units out of the way in order to make space in which to land.
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Jaggedtoothgrin wrote:
aircraft ignore ZoC and figures until they suddenly appear and push everyone away from them like a big rock fell
Exactly.
Quote:
which is even less supported by the rules than the other two options, because it selectively enforces differently them at arbitrary points along the sequence (hence the confusion as to what is allowed and when)
The rules for transitioning between aircraft status and ground unit status are fuzzy. Landing is just a vague, "magical" transition between two radically different sets of rules. Things you plan to do after the landing as a ground unit can affect what is legal during operations as an aircraft, even though the aircraft operations happen first.
So, yes, it's arbitrary in the sense that rules are enforced at different points based on the particular action. It's a collection of "what works" in a series of situations rather than a coherent system which can easily be extrapolated from for new applications.
For the record, multiple attempts have been made to fix various things in the air rules or just generally simplify them, but everything has been unsuccessful.