Steven's Balagan

Design Goals – Revising Crossfire Anti-tank Rules 1

26 Jun 202225 Jun 2022 by Steven Thomas

Musing - Revising the Crossfire Anti-tank Rules - Corssfire - Banner

Paul Ward’s video Introduction to Crossfire 5: Indirect Fire and Tanks got me thinking about a Gun versus Arm Matrix in Crossfire again. Lots of people have done this before as it offers a way to align the armour rules with infantry rules. In my earlier Gun versus Arm Matrix in Crossfire there are suggestions from Robert Tesfro, Si Booknek, Steve Phenow, and of course Paul Ward and myself. Plus I know that John Moher has dabbled here as well. I’m sure others have.

The trouble with all these suggestions is they make tanks impotent compared to HMG. I want to address that problem and a few other things at the same time. That is a big job and warrants a few blog posts. So here is part 1 – the design goals

Download Twilight of the Britons – Fast play rules for the English Invasion of Britain

18 Jun 2022 by Steven Thomas

For a long time I’ve been looking for a set of wargaming rules for the Arthurian age i.e. the Dark Age in Britain. Having tried lots of commercial rules, Vincent Tsao and I have written our own. Called Twilight of the Britons – Fast play rules for the English Invasion of Britain it is a variant of Twilight of the Sun-King (2001 version) . It covers the warfare in Britain from Roman departure (410 AD) until the English installed a Briton of Strathclyde as King of Scotland (1054 AD). The six page booklet contains only two pages of rules and four pages of army lists.

Kiwis vs FJ in Italy – A Crossfire Battle Report 2

11 Jun 2022 by Steven Thomas

Italy-202 Battlefield German view - Banner

Bruce Stewart (aka Gunnery Sargent Rock) and his mate Clynt had a go at my Kiwis vs FJ in Italy scenario. Crossfire in the Italian Campaign featuring New Zealanders – perfect. All words are Bruce’s.

Generic 30 Years War Army List for Tilly’s Very Bad Day

4 Jun 2022 by Steven Thomas

Generic 30 Years War – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Army List - Banner

The rules for Tilly’s Very Bad Day include a generic Army List for the Thirty Years War. I wanted to explain the army list a bit so copied it here. And having copied it, I couldn’t resist tweaking it. This list applies to all western and central European armies i.e. those of Spain, the German Catholics (Bavaria/Catholic League, Austria/Imperial), the German Protestants (Palatinate, Brandenburg, Bohemia, Saxony, etc), Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and France.

Crimean Khanate (Crimean Tatar) Army List for Tilly’s Very Bad Day

27 May 202227 May 2022 by Steven Thomas

Crimean Tatar – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Army List - Banner

This is the Crimean Khanate (Crimean Tatar) Army List for Tilly’s Very Bad Day.

Zaporozhian Cossack Army List for Tilly’s Very Bad Day

21 May 2022 by Steven Thomas

Zaporozhian Cossacks – A Tilly’s Very Bad Day Army List - Banner

This is the Zaporozhian Cossack Army List for Tilly’s Very Bad Day.

Hits Remaining or Hits Taken – Game Design Musing

14 May 2022 by Steven Thomas

Hits Remaining and Hits Taken - Game Design - Banner

In our recent game of Twilight of the Britons, we used markers for the hits taken. But after the game Chris suggested moving to hits remaining. This post explains that element of Game Design and when I’m tempted to use these two contrasting mechanisms.

Twilight of the Britons – A Battle Report 2

7 May 2022 by Steven Thomas

Chris and Adam played tested Twilight of the Britons – a version of Twilight of the Sun King for the early medieval period in Britain.

Summary: Much better game. The shield wall clash was realistic but took too long to resolve. Battles on the wings were interesting and had an impact in the

Cassinograd – A Crossfire Battle Report 3

30 Apr 2022 by Steven Thomas

Cassinograd-336 Germans in the Municipal Buildings - Banner

Jamie and I played a draft version of Cassinograd – A Crossfire Scenario based on Crossfiregrad. We played two games in a couple of hours. Jamie was the attacking Kiwis and I was the Fallshirmjaeger. This is the second game.

Summary: Great game. My larger regular force was much more resilient than the small veteran force I used in Game 2. Jamie captured the objective (the Post Office), but he literally did it as his clock counted down to zero. Very tense and exciting game.

Twilight of the Britons – A Battle Report 1

23 Apr 2022 by Steven Thomas

Britons-103 Army A - Warlord's Shieldwall - Banner

Vincent Tsao and I have been playing around with a version of Twilight of the Sun King for the early medieval period in Britain. I started with a rewrite of my original 2001 version of Twilight of the Sun King and incorporated ideas from Vincent’s Battle of Hastings variant. The result is called “Twilight of the Britons: Fast play rules for the English invasion of Britain”. I got Adam and Chris to give an early draft a go. So early I’d only written the rules that day, so isn’t wasn’t so good.

Summary: Too much dark age shield wall stodge. Not enough heroics. But a glimmer of hope for the rules.

Cassinograd – A Crossfire Battle Report 2

16 Apr 2022 by Steven Thomas

Cassinograd-211 Across the ruins of Cassino - Banner

Summary: Okay game, but could have been better. I had a small veteran force. The smaller forced lacked resilience, despite the higher morale, and Jamie took the objective (Municipal Buildings) relatively easily.

Blitzkrieg Commander – Example Soviet Order of Battle

9 Apr 2022 by Steven Thomas

BKC Example OOB Regimental Scale - Banner

Our recent experiments with ‘O’ Group have got me thinking about a similar set of rules that has been lurking on my shelves: Blitzkrieg Commander (BKC). I’ve got every edition of the rules (1 through 4), yet I have never played it because it was a bit too crunchy (concrete) for my tastes. But it is a credible alternative to ‘O’ Group, so I got it of the shelf and read through it.

I prefer scenarios over pick up battles so I’m trying to wrap my head around how to map official historical orders of battle to BKC OOBs. In this post I play around with a official Soviet historical order of battle for a infantry battalion and see what that looks like in both game scales of BKC. Not that I’m going to use an official OOB for an actual scenario, but this exercise will help me understand which bits of the historical OOB turn into BKC stands and which bits get ignored. And because BKC has two game scales – regimental where a base is a platoon and battalion scale where a base is a squad – I’m going to have to do this twice.

Cassinograd – A Crossfire Scenario based on Crossfiregrad

2 Apr 20222 Apr 2022 by Steven Thomas

Scenario - Cassinograd - Crossfire - Banner

Gunnery Sargent Rock (Bruce Stewart) got me thinking about Cassinograd. This is an adaptation of Doctor Phalanx’s Crossfiregrad scenario, transferred from Stalingrad to the Italian Campaign with 2 New Zealand Division (Kiwis) attacking Fallchirmjaeger in Cassino town. Crossfire of course. Bruce’s version was pretty much standard Crossfiregrad, but I’ve made some more changes to add flavour.

Cassinograd – A Crossfire Battle Report 1

26 Mar 202226 Mar 2022 by Steven Thomas

Gunnery Sargent Rock (Bruce Stewart) played a couple of games of Crossfiregrad by Doctor Phalanx. However, he moved it from Stalingrad to the Italian Campaign with the Germans attacking 2 New Zealand Division (Kiwis) in Cassino town, I guess representing a local counter attack. Except where noted, all words and photos are by Bruce.

Assault on Kristov – An ‘O’ Group Battle Report 3

19 Mar 202219 Mar 2022 by Steven Thomas

Adam and Chris had another go at the ‘O’ Group sample scenario transferred to the Eastern Front. As in our first play test and second play test, “Cristot” became “Kristov” and the Germans were attacking a Soviet defensive position. Adam was keen to have a go himself so took the role of the attacking Germans. Adam also provided rules knowledge, figures, most of the terrain, and narrative for the battle report. Chris was the defending Soviets. I took photos and add some extra thoughts at the end.