"Crossfire is Available Again!" Topic

Huzzah! For an eye-opening approach (no measuring, no fixed turns) Crossfire is a remarkable set of rules.

Great. Now how about reprinting Spearhead? That's become equally hard to find.

Guys, I've never played Crossfire, but have just ordered them and the scenario book from OMM. There's a ton of advice and supporting blogs for the system too, but I'm wondering how others might have adapted them to their existing basing standards? I see that FOW stands are pretty ideal for Crossfire, but I'm wondering if groupings of single-based figures can be readily used with Crossfire using some basing convention/mechanism/rules-playing agreement? I've just seen game pics of Crossfire being played with "skirmish" figures, so hoping my individually mounted 20mm minis can be adapted to play with Crossfire. Any thoughts, or useful links for my hopes here?

FlyX,
Short answer, Yes. You can use groupings of single-based figures. I stick 2 figs to a stand, use 3 or 4 stands and that make's a squad (or a Company, we tend to view them as a squad, it really makes no difference, you roll the same amount of dice per stand 3 for rifle, 4 for a MG). I use glue dots on the bottom of the stands to stick my figs down to the stands, that way I can change the figs if I want and pick the stands up by the figs, I guess magnet stands would work if strong enough. LINK:
link
Hope this helps,
Peter

I managed to find a copy of both on evil bay a year or so ago. They are brilliant in my opinion really easy to get into but tricky to master. Also you know if you have it wrong if no one moves. You just need a tonne of scenery ;-)

Check out maximums gluteus blog for some great 2x2 scenarios

link

@ FlyXwire – War Panda just posted a video link the other day; he uses single-based figures for Crossfire.

TMP link

Help?…..your pics are downright INSPIRATIONAL!!!

Thanks Peter for your advice and the link.

I'd initially thought I might have needed a way of tracking different player squads for Bolt Action, so punch-cut some colored fun foam disks and applied magnet sheet to them for attaching these underneath my metal figure bases. I might get some more muted colored foam and make up enough of these for marking all the individual figure stands needed for Crossfire to make a company per side from my minis.

Would marking all the squad [figures] stands for each platoon on a side a common colored disk/marking be enough to differentiate them for game tracking purposes? I guess I'm only needed to separate the platoons (or player commands) from mixing, as only using 3 figs or so to represent a squad shouldn't be too hard to track game-wise(?)

EDIT: Just saw your post above Mr Canuck….thanks for the video link!

FlyX,
That's exactly what I did before, although with more muted, natural colors. Now I just paint the back lip of my stands those same muted colors. That way "X" soldier, say with a bazooka or panzerfaust can end up in any of my different "squads". CrossFire are my favorite WW2 rules ever. but FYI, this same system works for Bolt Action too. We have been playing BA lately & enjoy it for a change of pace.
Glad I be of help & thanks for the nice comments!
Peter

I think its great that the rules have been released again. I've tried just about every rule system out there and its definitely one of the best…arguably The best …my favourite at least

@FlyX Really love your minis…Apart from the video I made using individually based minis I have a little segment on my blog about it:

War Panda Link

@Ceterman Amazing table…just fantastic. I can't really see how the infantry are based in those photos though. Any close up ones?

WP, I really enjoyed your video – thanks to Mr Canuck, and to all those providing helpful links here!

Glad you liked it

WarPanda & anyone else…
Here are a couple (fuzzy) close ups of some stands that I took while I was still working on the H-Con game. I forgot, I identify my stands differently than I described before. I now just paint one white line (about an 1/8 of an inch wide) on 3 or 4 stands, two white lines on 3 or 4 stands, three white line on 3 or 4 stands and we call em, White one, White two, white three and so on. I do the same with Red paint, so squad Red 1, Red 2 blaa,blaa…
It's easier than looking at a lot of similar earth tone colors. The pics don't show this, cause I hadn't thought of it yet!
LINK:
link
Hope you can see em ok & hope it helps!
Peter
I forgot, I have grass stands & urban stands, (with 1,2,3 or 4 Red, White, Black & Gold lines on em. I play mostly Eastfront!) so any soldier can be popped of and put in any "squad" on a urban or rural stand.

Clever way of doing it for sure

thanks Ceterman

I'm fiddling around with CF for the first time. Tried out a 1944 Normandy platoon v platoon action. One attacking section pinned down by defenders. Normally would expect other attacking section to try and outflank the enemy position. However, because the defenders retained the initiative they could continue to slaughter the pinned section while the supporting section could not move but had to stand around and watch through a hedge as their comrades died. This seems a bit of a problem at the heart of the game mechanism to me. Am I misreading the rules?!

Jon,

I'll take a shot at this:

1) If your attacking section was only pinned the defender shouldn't have taken the initiative, only suppressions and kills seize the initiative.

2) If you accidentally said 'pin' but meant your attacking section was suppressed, you're only talking about two phases: 1) enemy opportunity fire to suppress your attacking section, thereby seizing the initiative. That same enemy element firing again, scoring either another suppression (which kills your already suppressed section) or a 'straight-up' kill.

Anything less (no result or pin) with the enemy firing and it should be back to your initiative, at which point you should be looking to drop some smoke in front of your suppressed element, or rally them and pull off a retreat move, or leave them there but flank with the supporting section.

In any case, the attacking section got stopped by opp fire then destroyed in two phases, so probably pretty quickly in 'real' time, so I don't think I'd view it as your supporting section just standing around watching things. They probably heard the initial blast of gunfire (which pinned the attacking section), and by the time they got back on their feet and sorted themselves out, the enemy had already caused enough casualties that the attacking section was no longer an effective fighting unit.

Just my 2 cents.

Oh, and where's the Panda? He's been awful scarce around here lately.

V/R,
Jack

Thanks Jack

I think I meant supression so your explanation makes sense.

Maybe the issue I have is with supression being a cause of losing the initiative. Units can surely be suppressed for some time while taking few casualties, while supporting units manoeuvre on the flanks. Trouble is that suppression itself seems very difficult to model in games.

Jon

Jon wrote:
Maybe the issue I have is with supression being a cause of losing the initiative. Units can surely be suppressed for some time while taking few casualties, while supporting units manoeuvre on the flanks.
----------------
Which is what we tend to find happens in Crossfire. Unless the defender gets lucky as in your example. generally initiative will go back to the attacker and let them bring in supports to rescue the suppressed squad.

The amount of times someone writes "have you tried Crossfire?" on TMP you'd think a re-release would have been done sooner. I now forsee every WW2 discussion on TMP to include "have you tried Crossfire?".