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:
Quote:
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 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.