"Why Do You Like Crossfire?" Topic

What are your top five reasons for favoring this ruleset?

No measuring, quick action, tactical decision-making. Good for company-level battles without messing with things as: "PVT Jones is failed to take the pin out of his grenade." Leaders have their influence, but not too much. You worry about squads, platoons and special weapons as real platoon leaders/sergeants and company commanders do. Elegant, seamless, and very playable. Cheers!

It's a great two person game. I agree with everything Legionarius says. Proper use of terrain really matters in this game.

In addition to what has already been said, there is also the element of initiative going back and forth, and support weapons are handled well

Never played it.

Needs tweaking to suit larger, multiplayer games.
Terrain needs careful placement and definition – no bigger or longer than a hand span.
1)Tabletop rarely looks like an OOB- "packed to the rafters" flank to flank.
2) There was a time our group did not play WW2, even though we had an extensive collection.
Along came "Crossfire" and now we play WW2.
The fact that we can get those figures on the table, indicates to us that it suits our needs.
3) The game gives you decisions to make each turn, that have consequences- a breakthrough,
4) The possibility of exploiting a blind spot, outflanking and rolling up a defensive position. So much so the boys made a special rule – limiting my ability to find, exploit and end the evenings entertainment.
5) All this with minimal charts.

Thanks Arty.

I used to play this with someone who swore that "Basing doesn't matter". His troops were on FOW bases, mine were on 30mm frontage. When my 4 bases contacted his 3 he said I should "spread mine out" to match his. The more someone says basing doesn't matter, the more it does.

down side is that it really is a two player game. doesn't work for more

Only way we could make it work for multiple players per side was to artificially divide the battlefield into sectors using walls or hedges. Then each pair of players had to stay within their own sector and there was no fire across the artificial barriers into another sector. Needless to say, we don't play 'Crossfire' any longer because of that artificiality.

Jim

Every OOB you need is in the book. No fluff telling me all about WWII. Simple combat mechanics.

It is a great game, it just feels right for WW2 tactical combat and mirrors far more what happens in accounts of company level warfare than many rules. It also mirrors my experiences of playing soldiers in the woods, esp those 'where did they come from' moments. The initiative driven activation means you need to worry about flanks, interlocking arcs of fire, reserves etc – all without hidden movement and an umpire.

As noted above, it is hard to make it work for multi player (not that hard actually), and not good for players how don't like successive unit activation or the degree of continuous concentration required.

- Small (company sized) army. Fast game. Best for my DBA itch in WW2.
- (Like every Arty Conliffe game) If you lose, you lose by your mistakes.
- Really challaenges you to analyze the terrain.
- Playable with every models. I use 15mm, FOW based.
- Flexible rule engine for house rules and scenarios.

Because it works!

……….. any use for solo play ?

Simple, don't really need rule book after a few plays, cheap to get into as its mostly infantry on squad bases, normally a company, if not less, fairly realistic platoon leader command level and tactics. Nice group of fans supporting it.

Negatives are few if any vehicles, very few scenarios already built out and available unless you know where to search on the web for, no game support from author, terrain difficult to lay out to make a good game, no real multi-player play.

Enjoyable set of rules, played a couple of games during lockdown. Boris said we could make a support group ~ so we made a wargames bubble. It was easy to setup and quick to play (in 6mm) and made you think about what you were doing in the game. The only downside is vehicles which do not seem to work as well as the infantry.

It's a masterclass in elegant game design, even if it has its weaknesses. It distils some of the key tactical challenges of company level command down to its essentials. It is unforgiving of poor tactical decisions, as combat should be.

Works best for infantry heavy combat in dense terrain (think Stalingrad and Normandy). These rules were a game changer for many, introducing friction, variable movement rates, and, a complete break with IGOUGO rules.

They stand the test of time and my only regret was we never saw a v.2. No matter, others picked up the baton and ran with it and we are so much the better for it.

I'll disagree. I have successfully run 6 player games with minor tweaks that do not, to us at least, feel artificial.

I agree that the vehicle rules are kind of an after thought. But it assumes you'll only ever have 1 or 2 vehicles on the table, so infantry is definitely the focus.

1. it works
2. it's different
3. it suits my collection
4. you can lay out a great table
5. it isn't too 'gamey'

That's breaking down an sensible paragraph on what is good about Crossfire into individual points … it is basically nice every now and again to play a WW2 tactical game that takes an entirely different approach but yet works, looks good and doesn't require lots of extra stuff (although you do need quite a lot of terain )

Phil

Never heard of it.

It is an excellent infantry game, but to have it work right you need a huge amount of terrain. The group that used to play with me never had a problem with multiplayer, we house ruled our group games and it worked fine. We also played with tanks in the games as well, although we kept the tank numbers in play small.
A truly well thought out and different sort of game, I wish more rules authors would think outside the box the way Crossfire does. Some of the players got shot so much they saw a machine gun nest in every bush, it pays to be aggressive but too much can get you seriously shot up.

I tried it once and didn't really like it.

Been a long time since I played it, but I really enjoyed the system. It worked well. We played Tarawa with it and for the Americans to have much hope, they had to play from tree clump to tree clump. We did play as a multi player game--I think three to a side and some players were busier than other.

Parted with my rules a while back. Mistake.