HQ Tokens

If the HQ pool is empty at the start of a turn, can a player who spends HQ tokens during their turn later acquire those same tokens at the end of their turn?

Example: There are no HQ tokens in the pool. I pay 2 tokens into the pool in order to play the "Box Barrage" card. Can I then re-acquire those same tokens at the end of my turn?

this is a tricky one.

The rules state
"Spend the required number of HQ tokens out of your HQ reserve, temporarily placing those tokens on the combat card; at the end of the game turn, return these tokens into the common HQ token(s) pool, and discard the combat card onto the discard pile next to the combat card deck."
www.commandsandcolors.net/thegreatwar/th...24-combat-cards.html

So it depends when in Phase 5 the return of tokens takes place, and the drawing of new tokens from the Common Pool happens.
www.commandsandcolors.net/thegreatwar/th...e-5-end-of-turn.html

In reading Phase 5, it seems like any End of Turn activities can happen in any order, for instance the Improved Logistics Combat card can be played, and HQ token drawn.

So I'm inclined to think that the Combat card HQ tokens could be returned to Common Pool, and then drawn as an End of Turn action, but I agree it isn't clear.

Thank you for your response, Mark.

We interpreted the rule the same way you did and permitted a player to both pay HQ tokens into the pool during his turn, then take those same HQ tokens out of the pool at the end of the turn. However, this felt a little, uh, incestuous or, at the very least, self-serving and unfair. Now, perhaps it was the intent of the game creator to have the system work in exactly this way so that the active player could carefully play their combat cards and continue to starve their opponent of HQ tokens.

On the other hand, I can totally see the rules as requiring the active player to have to take his tokens out of the common pool BEFORE he pays in his HQ tokens. That "feels" right too. It doesn't seem fair to pay in and take out the very same tokens. The strongest argument for this second position is the fact that the active player's HQ tokens are not paid into the pool immediately*. Rather, those tokens are temporarily placed on the combat card and returned to the common pool at the end of the game turn. Why have that rule unless its intent was to keep the player from re-aquring his own HQ tokens?

*HQ tokens spent to initiate reserve artillery attacks DO go immediately into the pool.