edit: omg I guess hitting enter posted this early, one sec

During setup, after the "Place Forces" step, you may discard any number of your equipped Bomb upgrade cards. Place all corresponding bomb tokens in the play area beyond Range 3 of enemy ships.

Can you place them all separately? Each Cluster Mine token is its own individual token. Together they are a set, and the reference card for Cluster Mines describes how to drop a set of Cluster Mines when using the action on the Cluster Mine upgrade card.

However there is no rule that says when placing Cluster Mine tokens outside of using the action on the card that they have to be placed together. Seems RAW you can split them up with mapper.

And please no "FAQ incoming" answers and no speculation without rules backup, we have a SC coming up so we don't get to wait a month for an FAQ on this.

... Based on the text of your post, you've already done the research and reached your conclusion.

Any answers beyond that are RAI and "FAQ incoming," I suppose.

Edit: Our local TO group is putting together their own mini-FAQ for folks going to events. They're siding on them needing to be clustered. I don't believe they have any specific text they're referencing, but have taken a, "RAI" as best as possible stance, when answering questions FFG hasn't cleared up yet.

Personal view is go with the safe thing and keep them grouped. On a RAW view the Cluster mine token is its own token BUT all three of them together are always referred to as a "cluster mine token set". Also the mapper says to " Place all corresponding bomb tokens..." The corresponding bomb token that is listed on cluster mines is "Discard this card to drop 1 cluster mine token set. " a cluster mine token set.

As for the statement

Quote

However there is no rule that says when placing Cluster Mine tokens outside of using the action on the card that they have to be placed together.

you need a rule in order to do something, that same argument can be made with all the other bomb tokens which placing them on their sides or by placing them they lean on each other, they only thing we can gather on how to place bomb tokens is by their rules reference card which talks about dropping them but inside of the dropping them talks about placing them which is after the 1 straight in the guide nubs part. Lack of a rule is not permission. Yes Minefield mapper says to place the corresponding bomb tokens anywhere, but the Cluster mine card refers to the bomb as a "Cluster mine token set" a singular bomb token grouping made up of smaller tokens. The only RAW way of dropping a cluster mine token set is together (as seen in its bomb reference card). It would matter on how the game counts "cluster mine token set", but it is still fuzzy and could be either way.

3 hours ago, Oberron said:

Personal view is go with the safe thing and keep them grouped. On a RAW view the Cluster mine token is its own token BUT all three of them together are always referred to as a "cluster mine token set". Also the mapper says to " Place all corresponding bomb tokens..." The corresponding bomb token that is listed on cluster mines is "Discard this card to drop 1 cluster mine token set. " a cluster mine token set.

As for the statement

you need a rule in order to do something, that same argument can be made with all the other bomb tokens which placing them on their sides or by placing them they lean on each other, they only thing we can gather on how to place bomb tokens is by their rules reference card which talks about dropping them but inside of the dropping them talks about placing them which is after the 1 straight in the guide nubs part. Lack of a rule is not permission. Yes Minefield mapper says to place the corresponding bomb tokens anywhere, but the Cluster mine card refers to the bomb as a "Cluster mine token set" a singular bomb token grouping made up of smaller tokens. The only RAW way of dropping a cluster mine token set is together (as seen in its bomb reference card). It would matter on how the game counts "cluster mine token set", but it is still fuzzy and could be either way.

Yeah, I think that RAI is clearly together. But since the bomb reference card is "to drop this, place the tokens together", and minefield mapper skips to "place tokens" and never mentions "drop", that clause of the reference clause doesn't apply. RAW would allow them to be separated, but it's clearly against the intent.