"Crossfire-style movement for medieval skirmish?" Topic

As you may or may not know, in the WWII skirmish game Crossfire a movement action is unlimited by distance as long as the miniature moves in a straigth line. Making a turn is another action. Your opponent can interrupt your movement at any point to shoot or assault you. Do you think this might work for medieval skirmish, or if you don't, why not?

I have some doubts myself, as Crossfire is made for a shooting game on a table cluttered with terrain, whereas lots of medieval combat happens out in the open, and is mostly close combat. Still, I find the idea of event rather than time-based turns attractive.

I think it would work for a fantasy setting where you may have spells and other ranged combat mixed in. There was a free WW2 skirmish game that we used to play years ago called Red Poppy White Feather. It was based on the crossfire rules but heavily modified for skirmish play. I always thought it would work well for fantasy but never did anything more than some half hearted tinkering.

It seems like a funny fit to me at first glance. Part of what's essential to medieval is the differing movement rates and modes (mounted vs. heavy foot vs. light foot), and it sounds like you intend to lose those differences.

What's the virtue to doing this?

JJW-T.C.H.

[Do you think this might work for medieval skirmish, or if you don't, why not?]

Maybe. Reactive firing would be different, since bows, crossbows, javelins, handguns, etc. all had different ranges and rates of fire. If I recall correctly, Crossfire essentially has an unlimited range, everything is line of sight.

You would also have to differentiate between movement rates, at least as between mounted and dismounted movement.

I don't see it working. Crossfire works on shooting with unlimited range, while medievals would have a fair amount of melee. It focuses your atention on one thing at a time, which isn't so bad, but on a broad front melee I see the system breaking down.

I don't know Crossfire but from your description, melee/charges would be too easy to execute. Archers wouldn't have a chance against heavy infantry.
Cavalry would be difficult to differentiate from infantry.
Just my 2 cents
Andrea

golemgames.com

Also note that a lot of medieval troop types have no missile capability whatsoever - thus, under Crossfire, they are unable to stop enemy movement.

No, they'd have to charge. It's not the shooting bit with the unlimited ranges that interests me, as this clearly won't work, but the idea of event-based turns where you make abstraction of movements that would succeed anyway & concentrate on moves that can fail or be interrupted. It feels less artificial to me than the "1 turn = X seconds or minutes", which can make things too predictable for a skirmish game where a small number of combatants (less than 50-60) fight over a limited area. I'm looking for something where time isn't slowed down to the point that your opponents movement becomes completely predictable. To make sure charging isn't too easy & to prevent "teleports" across the battlefield to some extent, I thought of combining this sort of movement with reaction & charge tests, and guidelines specifying you can't move unhindered too closely past enemy units .

BTW, if a turn no longer represents a definite amount of time, then different speeds for mounted & foot become irrelevant, don't they?

"BTW, if a turn no longer represents a definite amount of time, then different speeds for mounted & foot become irrelevant, don't they?"

Yes, but you'd expect the horse to get around faster.

Perhaps cavalry is immune in to interception by infantry in open terrain?

That would make sense.

Hi

I don't see Crossfire working, but you might try adapting Bloodbowl. This would give you the fun of your turns ending if something went wrong without the endless movement.

I am currently toying with a version of BB for massed battles and it looks like it could be good...

John

"BTW, if a turn no longer represents a definite amount of time, then different speeds for mounted & foot become irrelevant, don't they?"

If I try a flanking move with foot, while my enemy trys to flank with light cav, his effort should hit my line before mine hits his. If you want to remove that, I ask again: What's the advantage?

JJW-T.C.H.

But Crossfire movement is from terrain piece to terrain piece, not simply a straight line. ie. If there are 6 or 7 clumps of terrain down the edge of the table it isn't one action to go the full length, but rather 6 or 7 actions.

That is how I have always understood the rules to work.

So for a medieval game you could clutter the tables with fields, hillocks, copses, etc. Even if you want a big open ground you could subdivide it with patches of different coloured grass and the like, so it was not simply one action to cross.

I've used "area movement" concepts on the table before - as with boardgames - it takes a bit of fudging before you get it right.

Longbows would probably have a high ROF, so be similar to HMGs in the normal Crossfire, perhaps?

You could have other REACTIONS than just ranged fire. Your cavalry might be able to move some distance if your troops perform an action in LOS of the cavalry. Pikemen may be able to brace for a charge if you perform an action within a certain distance from them etc.. It doesn't need to focus on just ranged fire.

Yes, but it doesn't really matter how many actions a move is - you can do as many actions as you like until you fail one.

The only way to fail a movement action is to be stopped by enemy reaction fire.

The net effect of this is that moving "behind the lines" is completely free.

Now for this particular application: You must invent a new way to interrupt movement actions. Everyone does not have a missile weapon in a medieval setting.

Basically, it would be counter-charge, but you can't have that with unlimited range (without looking really silly). So, you need measuring, which goes against one of the basic principles of Crossfire.

Hmmm, I don't know why you can't have countermovements over theoretically unlimited distances. If the principle of unlimited movement doesn't look silly in Crossfire, it won't look silly here. I mean, it's also for a skirmish game with lots of infantry. And the distances covered are not that huge, certainly not once the game is under way. My guess is you'll have some long distance moves at the start, as well as reshuffling behind the lines. Once the first charges are over, everyone will be a lot closer together.
And you can restrict movement by working with terrainfeatures, by using reaction/disciplne tests triggered by moving into proximity zones, giving advantages to staying close to your leaders etc. The key point is to make sure actions can & do fail, and to make sure there are good reasons for not zapping indiscriminately across the tabletop. It won't do away with measurments, as shooting ranges definitely have to be limited. But that's no problem, I'm don't need to stay true to all Crossfire principles, just borrow what I like & think useful.

With respect to the difference between mounted & unmounted troops, cavalry can get certain advantages to simulate their speed, like infantry being unable to intercept them in open terrain, or letting the cavalry player decide the meeting point in a countercharge.

I was toying with some rules for chaotic melees (for some larger Samurai games, actually, but European warfare has its similarities). Basically my idea was that "formed units" would have the luxury of manoeuvring around the battlefield, but once they made it into combat it would be "every man for himself" and movements would then be limited to each man charging the nearest enemy every turn until the enemy were wiped out, at which point you could reform your unit.

This way you can have individuals fighting, pushing back their opponents, and using unique weapons and equipment... but all basically "reaction driven" so that resolving many individual movements is very simple... but then also have units or groups (knights and their retainers, etc) that have the freedom to move "as you see fit" and try and react to the tides of battle rather than just being swept up in them. This makes the concept of a reserve much more meaningful.

Another thing to think about is that in medieval battles combatants tired quickly due to the sometimes large distances covered, long duration of the fighting, and heavy armour worn by many. This could lead to a Warmaster-style system where each consecutive action leads to greater and greater chance of 'failure' - no movement, and you lose the initiative. So even if you move out of LOS of the enemy you risk "doing too much" and ending your turn.

Having made that comparison... apart from the measured distances, etc, isn't Warmaster already sort of what you're talking about? In the same way you "take your turn until you stuff something up". Just add rules for reaction fire and "failed melees" and you'd be done. I always liked the idea of a larger-scale WM game. Mmm...spectacle.

"So, you need measuring, which goes against one of the basic principles of Crossfire."

Not quite. What replaces measurement in Crossfire is the arrangement of features. Rotor is on the right track, I think, when he talks about using all sorts of different terrain types to break up movement.

It's very much like what I've done when I play Crossfire in the desert - lots of patches of "semi-rough" ground, ie, features that simply are a different colour from the rest of the table. Then again, in desert games, I also use house rules for range measurement to make up for the often long unbroken lines of sight that were typical in many places in the West.

I have nothing really to offer, except I need to look into event driven gaming!!! I never knew this existed, I am really enjoying this thread... sounds cool...

My thought was infantry "tiring" but I see that is already covered, can I ask if the idea is to not measure how are reaction points for charges/counter charging worked out,

I'm also thinking a deterrent to "infinite-infantry movement" would be a very easy counter charge by cavalry... I believe a cavalry charge was kind of bad for an unformed infantry unit's health...

I think I need to go look at Warmaster and crossfire now! :)

Cheers,

Kirby

I don't know Warmaster, but it seems worth checking out. The idea of "tiring" units is a good one too.

Well, time to sit down & work all the details & run test games!

Rotovator and all,
I've been working on something similar, if you're interested in discussing the concepts drop me a line:
claudio (at) baueda dot com

Cheers!

OK, so it's three years to the day since this thread died, but I've recently been thinking of ideas to use Crossfire for my medieval skirmish games and I've just found this thread.

So what happened, did a final ruleset appear?

I guess not.

The only thing to think about though is what types of actions might cause a loss of initiative. In CF it isn't just enemy fire, but failures on the part of the active player (to e.g. rally).

You could break up movement by using terrain, but maybe also make pivots subject to a dice roll, failure loses the initiative. Reactions could either be missile fire OR some sort of move reaction (including a counter charge). Some players use move reactions in CF anyway.

The potential for unlimited flanking moves are there, just as they are in CF, which is why you have to be really, really careful about your deployment and flanks. Similarly an unsupported group is going to be (very) vulnerable to counter charges.

I'd envisage counter charges being a simple move action straight ahead either by a single element or a group, just like a fire reaction. Its success/failure is determined by the outcome of the melee combat which ensues.

Job done.

I've discovered the Three Musketeer crossfire rules on the Crossfire Yahoo site. The way they use of determining loss of initiative is after the first action one D6 is rolled if the rsult is a 1 then initiative is lost, after the second action roll 2D6 and so on. I like that idea and will pinch it as well as that of reactive counter-charges and obviously shooting.

Let's see what I can come up with.