A quick & brutal game of Crossfire..

 

Crossfire is a particularly gruelling and unforgiving game, especially for the attacking force. I've introduced this game to a few of my mates and to be honest, it doesn't matter who is in the steering seat, the attackers always end up the worse for wear at the close of business. 

Today followed the usual script.

M. had the job of exiting the map here at the bottom of the picture. 

M. brought his German spotters, a section or two of infantry and even his Panzer IV up to try to soften me up, before attempting to smash through my position. 

We were playing 'Crossfire Missions V3' - a kind of scenario generator - that I had download and printed out from from Steve's Balagan site. This site is essentially the Go-To site for Crossfire. It's got so much great content.

Now I'm a massive fan of CF, I liken it to a punk-rock war-game, but it's tough mistress as they say.

The rules-set is stripped raw of fiddlyness, with no frills, but the fan-culture around the game encourages a DIY ethos that I really admire & love. CF doesn't require rulers or ranges, has very few charts....it's essentially an infantry game, but you can add or house rule almost anything. 

In our games, it's common to have ground attack aircraft roaming around, walloping troops with HE or strafing them with lead.

It's a brutal game of tactics. Troops that cross line of sight will get pinned, suppressed and die. There's no gaminess or power-gaming list building that can save you. You have to orchestrate things carefully and remain patient.

You will have to use artillery & ranged fire to suppress the enemy. You will need to use smoke & covered approaches to enable your troops to cross fire lanes. If you don't, your troops will die. There's no point in taking the risk of amassing troops into close assaults or barging headlong across fire lanes unless you can afford to lose troops, and even then, you will lose the Player Initiative, and that is a crucial aspect of the game.

Crossfire is the most simple of systems, but I find it to be *tactically* the most unforgiving of any war-game I have played. 

If you play timed scenarios (rolling up to 70 or 100, as was in this case), you will need to use concentrating fire to suppress and close assault weak defensive points. Exploiting weaker areas is crucial, as is maintaining the Player Initiative. 

Here, M used his Infantry gun and luckily managed to knock out one of my T34s in our game this arvo. Unfortunately he didn't manage to get much traction after that. Having used much of his 12 Stuka Fire Missions to try to soften me up, he lost a bit of patience and tried to ram his Panzer IV through some barbed wire and past two Soviet sections. 

The gamble could have paid dividends if successful.

In a close assault roll off, he rolled a 1...even with a 3 plus for buttoning up, I managed to knock his Panzer IV out. The game wound on for a few more turns after that, but having lost his 'table-queen' my mate's enthusiasm for the fight waned...

Later on, I returned the favour and rolled over one of his pinned Infantry sections with my surviving T 34.

It was a quick and brutal game, and to be perfectly honest, it wasn't particularly satisfying to watch my mate's frustration. But you get that every now and again I suppose.

We will try a game of Bolt Action next, I think, or perhaps some more Lion Rampant. A bit more gamey, a little less...well...brutal.

To finish on a more positive note, the game gave me the incentive to finish painting up my Pegasus 'Russian Farm House' set that I received for my birthday a few weeks ago. The box came with these two little houses, and I managed to slap them together and paint them up over a few hours yesterday afternoon.

 Nothing like a scheduled game to light a fire under me and get me motivated.