Category: Crossfire

A year’s worth of gaming (Part 1)

Club member Stephen reviews the games he has played at Maidstone Wargames Society this year. This is part 1 of the article covering January to June.

This article is a review of all the different games I’ve played over 2023 just to see, and remind myself, of the variety of games I’ve done. At the beginning of the year I made two decisions – play more sci fi, and play more games that other people put on (my general attitude is ‘I paid for these models and took the time to paint them so I want to use them!’ which means I generally put on a game at most meetings). So this year I wanted to mix things up.

The first game of the year was at the club meeting on January 28th. This was a game of Sword & Spear and part of a campaign (which started in 2022) to re-fight the Wars of the Roses with Jeremey.

January – Sword and Spear – Mortimer’s Cross

I love playing Sword & Spear. I do. But I don’t seem to be any good at it. In all the games I’ve ever played of S&S I think I’ve only ever won twice. Surely it can’t be my superior tactics, that seems to be beyond reproach, right? This game was a re-fight of Mortimer’s Cross (you can find the full, and gloating, write-up here: Wars of the Roses – Battle of Mortimers Cross – Battle Report – Maidstone Wargames Society (brigademodels.co.uk)). As is traditional with S&S, I lost. But you know what, I couldn’t care less because the games are always a lot of fun with plenty of pre-game trash talk and goading, and each game has a story. Playing in good company always helps as well. I’d willingly keep on losing so long as I keep on enjoying it.

February brought another couple of games at the club.

First up was a new game to me – Charlie Don’t Surf by Two Fat Lardies. I find TFL games a bit marmite. I’ve played Chain of Command – loved it. I’ve played What A Tanker – didn’t like it. And this was the first time for CDS. And I loved that as well. The game and models are all Pete S’s, and he’s done a blinding job on them. They are 10mm Pendraken models (I think) and it has just the right look for Vietnam.

February – Charlie Don’t Surf

We’re used to seeing 20mm and 28mm Vietnam games which focus on platoon actions. But Vietnam was bigger than that – often brigade sized actions with the company as the manoeuvre unit. And 10mm captures that perfectly. I had command of the armoured platoon. We put Mark J (newly appointed club chairman) to prove his mettle in command so he took company HQ. The game was a victory for the US side!

The second game in February was planned to be a Barons’ War game with Andy. But in the week leading up I suggested to Andy we could do a ‘compare and contrast’ and have a game of both Lion Rampant and Barons’ War to see how the two handle the same period. You can read a summary of our findings here (Lion Rampant and Baron’s War – Maidstone Wargames Society (brigademodels.co.uk)).

February – Baron’s War and Lion Rampant

First club meeting in March was a Stargrave game. I said I wanted to play more sci fi in 2023 and this was the first sci fi of the year. I found the original scenario online and tweaked it to be what I wanted it to be. Stargrave is a great toolbox of a game – you can make it what you want it to be. This game had both an overland and underground part, which was new for us.

March – Stargrave – The Warp Sextant

I prefer running Stargrave as an umpire, like a RPG. You get a different kind of pleasure as umpire because it’s about providing challenges and running the NPCs/monsters and hopefully providing an enjoyable scenario. Well, for me anyway. In this game Eric’s crew had fought hard to get to the bunker where the Warp Sextant was hidden. But coming out he found Tony F’s crew waiting outside, guns pointed at the entrance. A brief exchange of fire and it was Tony who made off with the treasure. Poor Eric.

End of March it was another chance to lose at Sword & Spear – Second Battle of St Albans. In this campaign I have the Lancastrians which means the onus is on me to win in battles where the Lancastrians came out on top. Such as Second St Albans.

March – Sword and Spear – Second Battle of St Albans

Again, rather than go into details here, anyone wanting to know more about this game can read the battle report (Wars of the Roses – 2nd Battle of St Albans – Battle Report – Maidstone Wargames Society (brigademodels.co.uk)). Suffice to say, it was business as usual! Tony joined me again on the Lancastrian side. I was feeling good about this one, felt I was due a win. And the early part of the game was looking good – the local militia archers engaged the Yorkist artillery and eliminated them for no loss! Yup, first blood to Lancaster. And then it steadily went downhill. Never mind.

More sci fi in April! This time it was Pete M’s Space 1889 game. A different kind of sci fi – Victorian rather than futuristic. The stand out thing were Pete’s scratchbuilt aeronefs, and we spent a bit of time playing ‘guess what bits have been used for the models’. Truly outstanding.

We played two games. I was on the human side for both games, and both games were very close. And Jeremey got a leathering in both games with his colleagues leaving him to do all the work. Excellent game.

April – Space:1889 – Mars

The end of April was Salute and this coincided with a club meeting day. Naturally, it was going to be a quiet meeting with a fair few members at Salute. I ran an American Civil War game (battle of Cedar Mountain) using brigade Fire & Fury.

April – Fire & Fury – The Battle of Cedar Mountain

The Union army is in a difficult position for this battle – making an attack against a much larger Confederate army. John R took control of the Union troops and did a good job – but his artillery ran out of ammo early in the game and he never had the time or opportunity to replenish them. This left him conducting a fighting retreat, and he made a good job of it, slowing down the Confederates.

First game in May was another in our Wars of the Roses campaign – the battle of Towton. Like all the others…I lost. Now, I’m not just saying this, but the dice rolling on our side was pretty poor, compared to the other side rolling really well. No, no! Stop that! It’s true on this occasion. To read more about this game you can check out the blog post (Wars of the Roses – Battle of Towton – Battle Report – Maidstone Wargames Society (brigademodels.co.uk))

May – Sword & Spear – Towton

Next was another sci fi game – Full Thrust. Jeremey and Tony were running the game which meant only one thing: vector movement. My fluffy little head struggles with that and prefers the cinematic movement option.

May – Full Thrust

A mixed bag of results. The first game was two opposed fleets with an asteroid field cutting the table in two – Tony F and myself using some of Brigade’s German ships, and Jeremey and Tony G using some of Jeremey’s scratch built (out of false nails) ships. Tony and myself came out on top in that one. We then played a couple of one ship per player games (first was cruisers, second was destroyers) and the alien nail ships won those games.

Along came flaming June and I decided not to attend Broadside since I was trying to restrict spending and if you go to a show you have to buy something, eh? John Lambert and myself had a game of Crossfire. We played this quite a bit a few years ago but then it fell by the wayside. The models for this game were from my collection – WW2 eastern front.

June – Crossfire – WW2 Eastern Front

The scenario was a late war one – Russian advance through Poland with the Germans on the retreat. Naturally, we were re-learning the rules, but it steadily came back to us. MUST ensure we play more of this one.

June 24th was the club Open Day. My game was a Saga: Crusades games. We played two scenarios, I had Saracens and Andy had Milites Christi. Saracens carried the day and won both games. I love Saga. It’s just the right game for me.

June – SAGA Crusades – The Road to Damascus

You can read more about the Open Day here: Review of 2023 Open Day – Maidstone Wargames Society (brigademodels.co.uk)

That concludes part 1 of the review of 2023, part 2 will be published in a couple of weeks.

OPEN DAY 2022 – CROSSFIRE

John (well, one of our Johns, we’ve got a few) reports on the Spanish Civil War games he ran at our recent open day.

Crossfire is an innovative ruleset for World War 2 concentrating on infantry actions for Company level. There are no fixed game turns and no rulers, the player with initiative moves squads (bases) from terrain item to terrain item. As the squad moves, it can be subjected to reactive fire from the opponent and if suppressed the initiative is transferred to the opponent. Small arms range is anywhere on the playing area so doesn’t need to be measured.

The game is terrain intensive and true to form the pieces were ready at the 11th hour.

During lockdown a series of mini scenarios had been published on Stephen’s Bagalan website based on a 2ft square board, each scenario lasting about an hour and Open Day seemed an ideal opportunity to try out the rules. I’d last played Crossfire in 2005 and having painted some Peter Pig Spanish Civil War figures was keen to give the rules another go.

Each scenario begins with the same forces:

Defender
One platoon – three rifle squads, a platoon commander, a heavy machine gun, a small on-table mortar and a sniper. There is a forward observation officer for an off-table mortar and a minefield. The defender deploys his troops hidden.

Attacker
Two platoons – each of three rifle squads and a platoon commander, plus a heavy machine gun, an Engineer rifle squad, a small on-table mortar and a forward officer for an off-table infantry gun. The attacker deploys on table and starts with initiative.

During the day we managed to play three scenarios, so how would two relative beginners get on?

Scenario 1 The Woods
The attacker used 6 fire missions from the off table infantry gun to lay smoke screens which prevented the defender targeting a platoon which was used to attack the defender in the flank. The further use of smoke and close assault eliminated outnumbered squads. It proved to be a convincing win for the attacker though the defender was hampered by the placement of the minefield and some unfortunate dice rolls.

In the woods conclusion

Scenario 2 The Hill
This was a much closer game where the attacker got bogged down and made some poor tactical choices. The two woods closest to the hill were selected as jumping off points. In the rules there is a tactic called ‘recon by fire’ where the attacker fires at a terrain item hoping to flush out hidden defenders. Failure to employ this meant that the two attacking platoons got bogged down with pins and suppressions. The attacker hesitated to eliminate a revealed forward observer and paid the penalty when one of the platoon commanders was killed. The attacking platoons were recovered under smoke before the hill was finally taken. Again, better placement of the minefield would have proved costly for the attacker.

The hill conclusion

Scenario 3 The Town
This was over very quickly and immediately afterward we wondered whether the scenario was unbalanced.

For this scenario the attacker had checked out ‘recon by fire’ and used this tactic to great effect. The forward officer for the off table mortar was quickly located along with a supporting squad. Under cover of smoke the church where they were hidden was assaulted and they were eliminated. The defender’s on table mortar suppressed one squad but was itself eliminated when the initiative changed. Hidden squads and empty buildings were identified by ‘recon by fire’ then assaulted under cover of smoke. Short and brutal. In retrospect, the defender had deployed his forward observation officer in an exposed location and it’s early elimination made the game easier for the attacker. Perhaps the defender should have deployed the minefield in front of this building to slow the advance.

The town conclusion

Conclusions
The game has a good flow where the players have to think about tactical options as the game unfolds and by the end of the third game we had a good grasp of the infantry rules. It appeared to be easier for the attacker and it would be good to replay these scenarios with different ideas for defender deployment. The game proved interesting to other club members and I’m sure that further reinforcements from Peter Pig will appear in coming months.