In my case, I had 3 Palladors in his deployment area, so in a 3" zone only 12" long, there wasn't much space left. I didn't feel this was quite fair, so we ruled that if you couldn't deploy in the designated area, you could deploy in your main zone. You are correct, I believe, that normal deployment does not specify a 9" buffer, so in many cases , a deployment would put you within 9" or even in base-to-base contact. This situation occurred as an accident when I had moved my Palladors into that position to anticipate a move from my opponent and to defend an objective, so it was a strange situation.