Crossfire
Arty Conliffe, Designer of Crossfire:
At Historicon in 1995 a friend challenged me to design a historical miniatures wargame that lacked two features present in most rulesets: rulers and fixed game turns. The result is Crossfire - a fast-paced simulation of shifting tactical initiative, where the action unfolds like a film highlighting the critical events of a battle. Crossfire offers the player dozens of critical decisions to make every game, and each one may decide the battle.
Crossfire focuses on company-level, infantry operations by stressing three interrelated features: movement, firepower, and terrain. It assumes the tabletop action is occurring well within the effective ranges of WWII small arms. By stressing these fundamentals, player commanders in Crossfire are encouraged to use covered terrain routes for troop movements, and establish fire bases that both support their own movements and interdict those of the enemy. Variable troop quality and national command & control differences modify these fundamentals. These conflicting tactical concerns will challenge the best gamers in our hobby. And because these concerns were paramount in the minds of real commanders, I believe Crossfire also succeeds as a simulation, in spite of its abstractions.
We have included a Scenario Generation system which enables gamers to simulate typical combat problems with an infinite number of outcomes; tournaments may be played with this method. One specific scenario has been added showing how to design games based on historical actions. We will be releasing a book of such scenarios in the future.
The average Crossfire game can be played quickly with about 40, 15mm or 20mm figures on a side and perhaps a vehicle or two, and the game works equally well at any figure scale. Rebasing is not required.
I tried to "push the envelope" with this design, and extend the possibilities of traditional miniatures games.
At Historicon in 1995 a friend challenged me to design a historical miniatures wargame that lacked two features present in most rulesets: rulers and fixed game turns. The result is Crossfire - a fast-paced simulation of shifting tactical initiative, where the action unfolds like a film highlighting the critical events of a battle. Crossfire offers the player dozens of critical decisions to make every game, and each one may decide the battle.Crossfire focuses on company-level, infantry operations by stressing three interrelated features: movement, firepower, and terrain. It assumes the tabletop action is occurring well within the effective ranges of WWII small arms. By stressing these fundamentals, player commanders in Crossfire are encouraged to use covered terrain routes for troop movements, and establish fire bases that both support their own movements and interdict those of the enemy. Variable troop quality and national command & control differences modify these fundamentals. These conflicting tactical concerns will challenge the best gamers in our hobby. And because these concerns were paramount in the minds of real commanders, I believe Crossfire also succeeds as a simulation, in spite of its abstractions.
We have included a Scenario Generation system which enables gamers to simulate typical combat problems with an infinite number of outcomes; tournaments may be played with this method. One specific scenario has been added showing how to design games based on historical actions. We will be releasing a book of such scenarios in the future.The average Crossfire game can be played quickly with about 40, 15mm or 20mm figures on a side and perhaps a vehicle or two, and the game works equally well at any figure scale. Rebasing is not required.
I tried to "push the envelope" with this design, and extend the possibilities of traditional miniatures games.
Finding Crossfire
I first noticed Crossfire from a battle report in Wargames Illustrated a few years ago. The description of the game and the rules that were used to play it was intriguing; so intriguing that I went out the next day and bought the rules. As promised, they lived up to my expectations and several years of happy gaming lay ahead for me.
I wasn’t a WWII gamer at the time. I didn’t have any WWII figures and hadn’t had since my 1:32 scale Airfix figures that I bought around 1970 which were long gone. An extensive collection of Commando and War Picture Library comics had also disappeared. Somewhere my interest in WWII had left me.I had three WWII games in my collection, Axis and Allies, Storm Over Arnhem and Up Front!
Each of these offers a different gaming experience in the same general setting; none of them rely on detailed knowledge of the period or the hardware. Up Front! Is the most significant of these, a revolutionary board game about small unit tactics in WWII that uses cards. There are no distances and range is expressed only in terms of semi-abstract bands. The game puts you in the position of a squad commander and gives you a realistic objective to accomplish.
You use your hand of cards, tailored to reflect your national characteristics, to move, shoot and position your forces relative to your opponent. The choices the game presents you with are very like the choices that a real squad commander is faced with. You try your best, sometimes trusting to luck if necessary in an uncertain setting, never sure if your opponent has got you in his sights and is just waiting for you to break cover. Tactics that work in real life work in the game. Things that would bring your career to an abrupt halt do so in the game.With Crossfire I found that Up Front! Had essentially been transferred to the tabletop.
The Crossfire System
The basic idea in Crossfire is that you can continue doing what you want to do until it doesn’t work. This means that when you have the initiative you may move, shoot and close assault with your troops until you either lose the initiative by failing to carry out an action successfully or have the initiative taken from you by the enemy’s reaction to one of your actions.
There is no measuring, figures move from terrain feature to terrain feature. Each of these hops can be countered by enemy reactive fire if he can see you. If his fire has no effect, or he doesn’t shoot at all, you continue moving and only stop when you get where you wanted to go.
There are no ranges. The table represents an area that is small enough to be within range of the weapons of the period. If you can be seen, you can be shot.
Shooting is carried out a squad at a time. Each squad rolls a number of D6 dependant on its type, a rifle squad rolls three, and any 5 or 6 is a hit. One hit will pin the target, two hits will suppress it and three hits will kill it. A suppressed squad that is suppressed again is killed.
If the target is in cover you roll one less dice. Simple. Using an officer to set up a crossfire and direct more firepower at a target greatly increases your chance of success, hence the name of the rules.
If you shoot at something and don’t get a result you will give the initiative to your opponent. If you are moving and take reactive fire that supresses or kills a squad your opponent has taken the initiative from you. In both cases your turn ends.
The key is deciding what order to do things in, prioritise and win. The emphasis is on making the correct choices and the game rewards those who retain a clear idea of their aims and objectives. You need to employ basic infantry tactics to be successful, movement without covering fire and failing to have an all round defence will see you losing the game very quickly.
Preparing my Crossfire stuff
I am a committed 28mm figure man. I
don’t like painting anything smaller and I rarely paint anything
bigger. I may have to move up to 40mm some day as my faculties fail me
but I will only do it when I have to. For a long time there didn’t seem
to be any 28mm WWII figures about, 20mm was king.
At almost the same time as I went out and bought my set of Crossfire rules Harlequin (later Black Tree Design) released a set of 28mm WWII figures. Not just any figures either, really nice figures. I bought a set of Germans and Americans immediately (There were no British and I’ve never been interested in the Russians). Strangely enough this mirrored my first purchase of WWII figures from Airfix thirty years before.
The basic ‘army’ in Crossfire is a Company made up of three Platoons. Each Platoon is split into three Squads. Officers, Platoon Commanders and Company Commanders, are added along with Company assets such as machine guns and mortars and in a very short time you have a viable force for the tabletop.
The smallest independent unit is the Squad. This is a single base of figures representing about ten men. I chose to have three figures to each Infantry Squad base and picked a 50mm square as my base size. I wanted to go for 60mm square as with my other element based games but this looked too big. Officers were based on 40mm squares; a single figure for a Platoon Commander and a pair of figures for a Company Commander. This larger size helps differentiate them from game markers. Markers for the game were put on smaller bases 30mm squares or 25mm circles.
Machine guns count as Squads so they are on a 50mm square base. Mortars rarely appear on the tabletop and are represented by their Forward Observer who is on a 40mm base. I like mortars so I painted them up and put them on 50mm squares.
A full company consists of:
Three Platoons, each of three bases of three figures and a single figure PC.
Company Commander (two figures), and attached machine gun (three figures and the gun). Forward Observer (one figure) and optional mortar (three figures and mortar).
37 - 41 Figures.
There are variations on this depending on nationality and type of troops etc. but the above is a typical starting force. If you go on and amass three Companies you will have a Battalion which will allow the use of more and bigger support material. You will need a big table though; in 28mm a Company can operate on a four foot frontage but is more comfortable with six foot. A Battalion would be cramped on a twelve foot table.
(I bought far more Crossfire figures than I could ever field and ended up selling off loads. You can save money by learning from my mistake.)
There are other things you will need before you start playing. You will need lots and lots of terrain features. Open ground is killing ground.
You will also need some markers, cardboard counters or beads will do of course but I prefer something less jarring to the eye. Here are the markers I use for Crossfire:
The barbed wire and smoke are on multiple Infantry bases as per the rules. The minefield sign affects a single terrain feature or the gap between two so no template is needed. I use the grave stones as ‘pinned’ and ‘suppressed’ markers, these are in addition to the casualty figures that are used as well. One marker is ‘pinned’, two is ‘suppressed’. I use the little bushes as ‘prone’ markers because ‘prone’ indicates that a Squad has found cover in the open. An actual prone figure is too similar to a casualty marker for me. The ammo boxes are a bit sci-fi but will do for me, they represent ‘no fire’ meaning a squad can no longer shoot for a while. I used to use the little rocks (sort of representing a blockage) but these are now objective markers and hidden squad markers. Most of these markers can be left out on the table without upsetting the ‘look’ and are therefore easy for everybody to grab as needed.
I found that getting hold of sandbags for 28mm figures was almost an impossibility. These days it is much easier to find them. I settled on using some mealie bags from Hovels which I think work ok.
At almost the same time as I went out and bought my set of Crossfire rules Harlequin (later Black Tree Design) released a set of 28mm WWII figures. Not just any figures either, really nice figures. I bought a set of Germans and Americans immediately (There were no British and I’ve never been interested in the Russians). Strangely enough this mirrored my first purchase of WWII figures from Airfix thirty years before.
The basic ‘army’ in Crossfire is a Company made up of three Platoons. Each Platoon is split into three Squads. Officers, Platoon Commanders and Company Commanders, are added along with Company assets such as machine guns and mortars and in a very short time you have a viable force for the tabletop.
The smallest independent unit is the Squad. This is a single base of figures representing about ten men. I chose to have three figures to each Infantry Squad base and picked a 50mm square as my base size. I wanted to go for 60mm square as with my other element based games but this looked too big. Officers were based on 40mm squares; a single figure for a Platoon Commander and a pair of figures for a Company Commander. This larger size helps differentiate them from game markers. Markers for the game were put on smaller bases 30mm squares or 25mm circles.
Machine guns count as Squads so they are on a 50mm square base. Mortars rarely appear on the tabletop and are represented by their Forward Observer who is on a 40mm base. I like mortars so I painted them up and put them on 50mm squares.
A full company consists of:
Three Platoons, each of three bases of three figures and a single figure PC.
Company Commander (two figures), and attached machine gun (three figures and the gun). Forward Observer (one figure) and optional mortar (three figures and mortar).
37 - 41 Figures.
There are variations on this depending on nationality and type of troops etc. but the above is a typical starting force. If you go on and amass three Companies you will have a Battalion which will allow the use of more and bigger support material. You will need a big table though; in 28mm a Company can operate on a four foot frontage but is more comfortable with six foot. A Battalion would be cramped on a twelve foot table.
(I bought far more Crossfire figures than I could ever field and ended up selling off loads. You can save money by learning from my mistake.)
There are other things you will need before you start playing. You will need lots and lots of terrain features. Open ground is killing ground.
You will also need some markers, cardboard counters or beads will do of course but I prefer something less jarring to the eye. Here are the markers I use for Crossfire:
The barbed wire and smoke are on multiple Infantry bases as per the rules. The minefield sign affects a single terrain feature or the gap between two so no template is needed. I use the grave stones as ‘pinned’ and ‘suppressed’ markers, these are in addition to the casualty figures that are used as well. One marker is ‘pinned’, two is ‘suppressed’. I use the little bushes as ‘prone’ markers because ‘prone’ indicates that a Squad has found cover in the open. An actual prone figure is too similar to a casualty marker for me. The ammo boxes are a bit sci-fi but will do for me, they represent ‘no fire’ meaning a squad can no longer shoot for a while. I used to use the little rocks (sort of representing a blockage) but these are now objective markers and hidden squad markers. Most of these markers can be left out on the table without upsetting the ‘look’ and are therefore easy for everybody to grab as needed.
I found that getting hold of sandbags for 28mm figures was almost an impossibility. These days it is much easier to find them. I settled on using some mealie bags from Hovels which I think work ok.
Painting my figures.
I play Crossfire because of the type
of game it gives. It emphasises people over hardware and its WWII
setting is really only incidental. I am not interested in cammo
patterns of the SS, nor do I care if the Tiger tank was god of the
battlefield. I am happy with a level of abstractness that separates my
games from the reality they are representing. I am recreating the games
of my childhood for me to enjoy. Crossfire’s ‘anywhen’ feel helps me do
this.
Consequently, my painting schemes reflect the ‘alternative’ WWII that I was brought up with. My Germans are grey. Not ‘fieldgrau’ but Airfix grey, I would have liked them to have all been armed with schmeisers too but alas…. My Americans are green, regardless of which articles of their varied uniform they are actually wearing, and my Tommies are in khaki.
Having both American and British Infantry is a redundancy so my British are Commandoes, all wearing ‘caps comforter’ as they did for Airfix and through countless daring raids in the war comics.
It’s deliberately not meant to look realistic. This will bother some people I know but these are my figures for my enjoyment and you can take them or leave them as you please. It really isn’t necessary to write me ranting e-mails about it (you know who you are you sad bastards).
Other things:
I like things to be clear on the tabletop so I have adopted some other idiosyncrasies with my basing.
Engineers are differentiated in the rules by their abilities; they can remove wire etc. I have based my engineers in twos instead of threes so they can be differentiated during play quickly. They are all armed with anti tank weapons or similar and are the only troops with anti tank capabilities in my games. The rules allow you to pay extra points and designate Infantry stands as having bazookas or whatever. This involves pointless record keeping so in my games you pay your points and a Squad of ‘engineers’ with bazookas are added to your force.
With the exception of the ‘engineers’ the number of figures on a base relates to the number of shooting dice they throw. Infantry throw three and have three figures to a base. Machine guns throw four and have four figures on the base (three crew and the gun). There are also submachine gun Squads which throw four dice at close range so I base them in fours also.
Vehicles are not common on a Crossfire table and since I am a bit rubbish at painting them I opted for die cast instead. The limited range of options is off set by the fact that they are usable straight from the box. I settled on 1:50 for my scale as it looks ok to me. Most of my vehicles are from Corgi which come fully painted and weathered. I have a few from other manufacturers which are not as good but perfectly adequate for my needs.
Consequently, my painting schemes reflect the ‘alternative’ WWII that I was brought up with. My Germans are grey. Not ‘fieldgrau’ but Airfix grey, I would have liked them to have all been armed with schmeisers too but alas…. My Americans are green, regardless of which articles of their varied uniform they are actually wearing, and my Tommies are in khaki.
Having both American and British Infantry is a redundancy so my British are Commandoes, all wearing ‘caps comforter’ as they did for Airfix and through countless daring raids in the war comics.
It’s deliberately not meant to look realistic. This will bother some people I know but these are my figures for my enjoyment and you can take them or leave them as you please. It really isn’t necessary to write me ranting e-mails about it (you know who you are you sad bastards).
Other things:
I like things to be clear on the tabletop so I have adopted some other idiosyncrasies with my basing.
Engineers are differentiated in the rules by their abilities; they can remove wire etc. I have based my engineers in twos instead of threes so they can be differentiated during play quickly. They are all armed with anti tank weapons or similar and are the only troops with anti tank capabilities in my games. The rules allow you to pay extra points and designate Infantry stands as having bazookas or whatever. This involves pointless record keeping so in my games you pay your points and a Squad of ‘engineers’ with bazookas are added to your force.
With the exception of the ‘engineers’ the number of figures on a base relates to the number of shooting dice they throw. Infantry throw three and have three figures to a base. Machine guns throw four and have four figures on the base (three crew and the gun). There are also submachine gun Squads which throw four dice at close range so I base them in fours also.
Vehicles are not common on a Crossfire table and since I am a bit rubbish at painting them I opted for die cast instead. The limited range of options is off set by the fact that they are usable straight from the box. I settled on 1:50 for my scale as it looks ok to me. Most of my vehicles are from Corgi which come fully painted and weathered. I have a few from other manufacturers which are not as good but perfectly adequate for my needs.
Rules
I have changed two rules in Crossfire, both regarding armoured vehicles.
Firstly I allow tanks etc. to have unlimited actions the same as Infantry. This doesn’t unbalance the game and keeps to the feel of Crossfire far better than the existing ‘one action’ rule. If you don’t believe me, try it.
Secondly I don’t allow armoured vehicles to initiate close combat. I discovered the Panzer grenadier super halftrack gambit one day which allowed me to destroy my opponent’s entire American force in a single move with only one halftrack.
If you want to know how it works, load a half track with your best platoon and PC, add in a CC and engage your opponent’s infantry, preferably coming in from the flank. He shouldn’t even get to roll a dice as you will out-factor him by too much.
This is gamesmanship and has no place on my table.
Firstly I allow tanks etc. to have unlimited actions the same as Infantry. This doesn’t unbalance the game and keeps to the feel of Crossfire far better than the existing ‘one action’ rule. If you don’t believe me, try it.
Secondly I don’t allow armoured vehicles to initiate close combat. I discovered the Panzer grenadier super halftrack gambit one day which allowed me to destroy my opponent’s entire American force in a single move with only one halftrack.
If you want to know how it works, load a half track with your best platoon and PC, add in a CC and engage your opponent’s infantry, preferably coming in from the flank. He shouldn’t even get to roll a dice as you will out-factor him by too much.
This is gamesmanship and has no place on my table.
