Crossfire - Battle Report

About three weeks ago, I got to visit friends over in Stockport, head to the North West Gaming Center and Element Games store and spend the afternoon rolling dice and pushing models about.

A RARE DAY OF GAMING!!!!!

As much as this blog is about Fantasy and Sci-Fi (mainly of the GW persuasion) I do like to dabble in historicals, and one of my friends is a real WW2 fanatic. He used to play Flames of War at tournaments regularly and has stacks of stuff sitting in his house.

I say "used to" because he fell out with the game during V3, but is slowly going back to it (away from Team Yankee) with the V4 rules.

We decided to use his 15mm stuff to lay on a test game of CROSSFIRE between ourselves, after watching a few youtube videos, mainly by a guy called Lindybiege.

Crossfire is an unusual game in that there are now tape measures involved and there is no set turn sequence. You pile as much terrain onto the board as possible (to still have a game amongst) and then you rely on line of sight...a lot.

Every weapon is constantly in range, and you can be shot at any point that you can be seen.

For your turn you choose an element of your force, and proceed to mark out its path with your opponent watching from where his units are stationed on the board, cue lots of crouching near the table to get an eye level view.

When you can see the enemy models you call out and can proceed to open fire upon them if you wish, at which point the turn initiative becomes yours and you resolve that firing sequence, then begin to do whatever you wish to do with your turn (move, fire, dig in, call in artillery, close assault, etc) You can do whatever you wish your troops to do until they are spotted by the enemy, at which point the initiative passes back to them.

Intrigued by this unique style of game, we headed to Normandy, sometime in July 1944 on the eastern flank of the Allied invasion:

The British Paratroopers:

This company consisted of:

• A Veteran Company Commander (known as Sean Connery from now on, the army was themed around "A Bridge to Far")
• A Veteran Forward Artillery Observer
• A Veteran Sniper Team
• Three Veteran Rifle Platoons.

The German Heer:

 This  reinforced company consisted of:

• A Veteran Company Commander
• A Regular Forward Artillery Observer
• Four Regular Rifle Platoons.
• A Regular MG42 team.
• Two MG42 Teams attached from Divisional Support.

Lot's more fire support for the Germans, however, being rated as "Regular" not "Veteran" means that they are harder to rally and get going again if they get bogged down or suppressed in combat.

The Village:

As we were playing using 15mm stuff, we limited the table size to 4'x4', the mission objective is to take and hold the townhouse next to the crossroads, the tall blue/black building.

The victory condition however, was to hold that building for five consecutive initiatives.
An initiative is anytime you have to make a test, to rally, shoot, move through difficult ground, etc, anytime to roll some dice and succeed you retain the initiative and continue, pass five tests in a row and you win.
Fail a test and initiative passes to the enemy...

Lots of building and LoS blocking terrain bases as you can see, leading to us to deploy rather conservatively on our board edges:

This photo is just after the first British moves on the left flank, I got a bit carried away and managed to get that platoon all the way up to the objective, and after having a check down the road discovered that the buildings doors were not in LoS of the German platoon covering the road, so took the objective and headed to the second floor to keep watch:

Unfortunately, I had neglected to check the LoS from the windows on the upper floor and immediately came under fire from the Germans on their left flank, handing the initiative to the Germans and suppressing my platoon, way out with no support available:

This created the situation whereby the German rifle platoon covering the road could move forwards, this platoon could not see them as there were no windows on that side of the building, and make it all the way to the side door.

This led to a bloody close assault, in which my Paratrooper platoon would be wiped out and the German's would take the objective:

They became pinned down as my plucky Brits (British troops are ALWAYS plucky) managed to take a stand with them as they died and the Initiative passed back to me.

Sean Connery, seeing the objective fall to the enemy rushed his troops forwards down the side of the road, then I tried to be sneaky and move my second platoon up as well, getting as far as the cemetery walls:

Unfortunately, when the platoon crossed into the cemetery, they were spotted by the German platoon in the objective building who promptly opened fire with their MG, pinning the squad and passing the initiative to the enemy who took immediate advantage of the Brits being bogged down and moved their entire force up stacking up behind all available buildings and calling in some 105 shells for good measure on Sean Connery's head pinning him and his platoon in place:

Cunningly the Germans had also placed a platoon across the road covering the cemetery, however they failed to spot the British paras moving into the walled enclosure until they moved up and opened fire upon their position, at which a furious firefight broke out down the narrow street:

Now it was a matter of time as both of us failed initiatives straight after each other, resting with the initiative in British hands, I decided to try to rally my stricken platoon in order for them to either move forwards and put some fire on the German platoon covering the road and get some supporting fire from the platoon in the cemetery, or move forwards and take one of the houses to their left.

After checking I had to roll ANYTHING but a '1' to rally them because they were veteran troopers:

Of course the Dice Gods laughed jovially at this turn of luck...Sean Connery, even with all his smooth talking Scottish-ness, failed to motivate the "Crack Troops" of the Parachute Regiments and they stayed hunkered down waiting to see what would happen, and initiative passed back to the Germans, who's wily commander then proceeded to pass five tests, badly cutting up the platoon in the cemetery (it doesn't matter if you are in cover if you are being forced to take save after save after save due to indiscriminate firepower coming your way...) and winning the battle!

So, thoughts on our first game of Crossfire:

I really enjoyed the game as it was completely different to most other things we have played.
The movement and firing rules were interesting, they took a couple of attempts to get right, but once you figure out that you can do whatever you want without the enemy seeing you, possibilities open up.

Likewise, opening fire on the enemy, whilst risky as you give your position away, if done correctly, and by more then one unit in conjunction (there are special rules for this co-ordinated strike) is deadly.

Close assault is simple but EXTREMELY deadly to both sides, my Paratroopers were obviously having an "off day".

I do look forward to giving this game another try, I don't think it will become a staple however, as we also tried Bolt Action, which is very much Beer and Pretzels WW2 and that was enjoyable to the point where we were both shouting about the FUBAR table when one of the German Tanks blew up his own reinforcements!

Until next time...


 - Lewis