Welcome to Luzerne #2: Assembling Your Sources

 Who? What? Where?

Putting together an Abstract Combat System engagement is relatively easy when basic information from, say, the Alpha Strike Combat Manuals (or for the time being, from the Combat Manual Lite fan creations) are available.  But not only do we not have that information for the 3rd Davion Guards, the campaign dictates that the 3rd was already under strength from facing off with the Grey Death Legion during the Skye Rebellion and that they and the 208th suffered severe losses on their approach to Luzerne.  How does this translate into the actual TO&E of the unit at the start of the campaign?

To answer this question we will have to engage in some research.  The first step of which is to assemble our sources.  The Sarna article for Luzerne is a natural starting place.  But not the article itself!  Its the footnotes and bibliography we will want to investigate.  From here we are going to assemble a list of any sources that would have pertinent information about either the battle you are planning or the units involved.

To start, I looked up the sarna article on the planet of Luzerne, and under the Operation Bulldog section we have a footnote to The Dragon Roars.  We also have the Historical Turning Points:  Luzerne pdf.  There! We have our two main sources.

Two kinds of sources

For Battletech campaign planning, there are two kinds of sources you will need to collect.  You will have to collect story sources.[1]  Then you will have to collect rules sources.  The rules sources can actually be more complicated than they seem.  There may be rules considerations embedded in your story sources, and the sometime Battletech rules are not exactly laid out well.  In this case, the Abstract Combat System heavily references the Strategic Battleforce rules.  Both of those are in Interstellar Operations: Battleforce.  There are some alternative rules for planetary campaigns in Campaign Operations so it is probably worth having a copy of that around too.

In addition to this, the rules for Strategic Battleforce force creation for Clan and Comstar forces is only available in the Tukkayid Supplemental.  We will probably have to build the sources in Strategic Battleforce and up-convert them to Abstract Combat System.

More story sources

In addition to the sources, you will need information of the history, force composition and relative strength of the unit during this battle.  Etc.  Most of this is relatively easy to locate.  Historical Turning Points:  Luzerne doesn't have it though, so instead you have to turn to the Combat Manuals, and the Combat Manual Lite series.

Except there isn't one for the Federated Suns. So instead, we will have to collect the Field Manual  series and see what we can gleam from there.

Finally, I am also using this really good fan created guide to support units.  I also used an online google sheet about planning dropship and jumpship counts.

That's next time on War Journal Luzerne!

[1]  I refuse to use the term "lore." Sue me.

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