I don’t feel any obligation to do the designer’s job. I also think that it’s fair that my opponents (who don’t read these boards or HGD) should be able to reference the rules of play using the documents provided. In my gaming circles, it is common for less experienced players to look through the rules to see if their strategy is legal. They don’t want to ask, because that gives away their plans.
If designers want us to play a certain way, it’s their job to reflect that in the rulebook or errata/FAQ. It’s not our job to guess their intentions and have a debate. Sometimes what a person says is more important that what they mean - especially with regards to a formal document.
Personally I would never assume the rules are meant the way you think they are meant. That would buffer would encompass almost half the Pacific Ocean. By your (generous) interpretation, Japan parking a transport in sea zone 7 would be an act of war! Really?
This would be ridiculously ahistoric, completely unnecessary from a balance perspective, and totally unsupported by the rulebook and FAQ.
@GeneralHandGrenade:
This is all a bunch of B.S.
Players exploiting this rule because of a grammatical error should hang their heads in shame. You know damn well what the intention of the rule is but you exploit it like a despicable lawyer getting his guilty client off on a technicality.
Maybe you are joking?
To compare my desire to play by written rules to a serious moral lapse, I guess you can’t really be serious.
Worth noting I intend to play by the rules when I am assigned the Allies too. This ought to shoot a big hole into the notion that I am somehow exploiting something.