Welcome to Luzerne #4: Record sheets for the SLDF

Here are Abstract Combat System (ACS) record sheets for the SLDF invasion force as it arrived in the Luzerne system, as laid out in the previous post. 

I worked really hard on this, which is why it took so long to write this post.  There are undoubtedly mistakes.  My conversion of the warship CSV Harmonious Thought feels especially off.  I am sure I misunderstood the rules for doing that one (I annotated some of my thinking on it on the record sheet itself).

I had to do one of two things to build these forces.  For the Davion vehicle and armor regiments, I used to the ACS table in the First Succession War sourcebook for those units, figuring there was a rough technological equivalence between that period and the Clan Invasion.  For the 208th Comguard Division I took the SBF formations from Tukayyid Supplemental and converted them up to the ACS using the rules in Campaign Operations.

For some of the Formations, I converted them up from individual Alpha Strike elements.  I have included the Strategic Battleforce record sheets I used for the conversions here.

Several times I actually got ACS and SBF record sheets mixed up.  I think this is because Formation is a loaded term that has slightly different meaning in each system.  I made the following diagram to help me keep them straight.

 Again, I did my best but I am sure mistakes were made.

 So, About Those Conversion Rules

The rules to convert units between these various systems are poorly written.  The wording is kind of awkward[1].  Sometimes the instructions to divide by 3 are the start of a rules block, sometimes they are at the end.

"based on"?????

 

I think CSV Harmonious Thought conversion is off because I cannot figure out how to roll-up capital, subcapital and missile weapons.  Do they have their own own range and bracket entries or do they get converted into the CAP and SCAP special abilities?  When I put the invasion force together I assumed it was the former.  But in hindsight I think it is the latter.  My original opinion was based on the ACS gameplay rules for Advanced Aerospace (IO: BF 249) which says "As with ground combat, Abstract Combat Aerospace (ACA) is based off Advanced Strategic Battleforce rules (see pp. 180-194)."  A little bit further down the same page it says "Abstract Combat Aersopace uses the Capital-Scale Strategic Aersopace rules (see pp. 194-229) except as noted below."  However the second set of pages given (194-229) do not include Aerospace rules at all.  Maybe it meant to repeat 180-194 as it was listed above?

Irregardless, I took these instructions at their word.  There is nothing in the ACS rules that contradict the SBF rules for weapon class, arc, and range.  I based the case for keeping these range brackets broken up on this paragraph from the SBF rules (IO: BF 187 (first screenshot below)), and these paragraphs from IO: BF 188 (second and third screenshot below).

This jives with the rules for converting Alpha Strike elements into a SBF unit (IO: BF 257).  I don't know how you fit in into the record sheet, but keeping weapon classes separated for arc and range makes the most sense for SBF play. 

What has started to give me pause about this decision is how poorly some of the rules are written.  Not just poorly written, but incomplete in a couple of places.  For example, the Special Ability conversion rules explicitly references a "Used in ACS" column in a nearby table.  Only no column exists in said table.  Again, there is nothing in the ACS rules changes the existing SBF rules on this front.

I now believe the intention behind ACS Advanced Aerospace rules is to take those different arcs and weapon classes and convert them into the CAP and SCAP special abilities.  I think this because IO: BF 259 instructs the converter to sum the different arcs into one and divide by 2.  Taken with the short blurb at the start of the step (Step 2F) which says "Total the each[sic] range (S/M/L/E) or attack (ART, IR, and similar)."  So maybe CAP, SCAP, and MSL are attacks and not damage classes like standard weapons are?  And yes, those typos are absolutely there in the text.

So am I misunderstanding the conversion rules or is there a mistake/omission in them?  Are the rules accurate but just hard to follow?  So I think using the CAP, SCAP, and MSL special abilities in ACS encapsulates the spirit of these rules.

There are still reasons to think this is not the case.  For starters, the Special Abilities table does not include a # sign to indicate it should record a number afterward (see Flak in the same table to understand how this might work, e.g. FLK#/#/#/#).  Not only that but the CAP ability is listed in the Ground table, and the SCAP ability is listed in the Aersopace abilities.  So who knows.

 To make matters even worse, the rules reference an ACS column in the Special Abilities Table for conversions (IO: BF 262-264).  But the column does not exist.

There is no ACS column

I suppose if the Special Ability detail has an ACS section you can infer that it is used in ACS, but maybe some of abilities listed in the table don't have an entry in the detailed section.  The rules should be clear in this matter.

Next Steps

In the next post, I am going to discuss the condition of the SLDF as it landed on the ground and show how I changed the record sheets above to reflect that condition.

Bonus

As a make-good for taking so long to post, here are the Alpha Strike quick reference sheets I created.  They just take a couple of tables from the end of Alpha Strike:  Commander's Edition, so they can be printed onto cardstock and used during a match.  I have a version in inches and in hexes.