Bruce Stewart played through his Lockdown Crossfire – Kiwis in Italy – A Crossfire Scenario twice and shared some narrative and photos from each. Bruce games with 1/56 figures and 1/48 – 1/50 vehicles.
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Bruce Stewart, like many of us, has been trying to figure out how to wargame during the Covid-19 lockdown. Bruce’s idea involves video conferencing, a situation from the Band of Brothers, and New Zealand accents. You might recall that last year Bruce sent through a couple of battle reports for Kiwis in the Italian Campaign using Crossfire. Well, there is more of the same here. 
Chris is really keen that we do a Campaign. Every time we play Tilly’s Very Bad Day he mentions this. So here it is. At least here are the rules. Unexpectedly I’ve chosen the English Civil War as the setting for the campaign, but only because I’m following the lead of Peter of Grid based wargaming – but not always. Peter’s ECW campaign system uses a simple area based campaign map to drive tactical battles and weaves in a bit of flavour along the way. Exactly what I’m looking for, but I feel obliged to change some things, of course. 
You might remember that Peter of Grid based wargaming inspired my Terrain Cards. Terrain cards were actually part of Peter’s Campaign set in the English Civil War (see Grid Based Wargaming – ECW). There is quite a lot to this campaign – Peter wrote something like 45 posts on it and played 30 games. I love it. Tons of inspiration. And I appreciate the obsessive element that saw Peter completing this project – I think it took him 18 months. 
Roger Calderbank and I collaborated on a small scenario for the Battle of Lutter (27 Aug 1626) using Tilly’s Very Bad Day. Lutter was, historically, actually a very good day for Tilly as his Catholic League forces defeated the mostly Protestant / mostly Lutheran army of the Lower Saxon Circle, led by Christian IV of Denmark in his role as Circle Colonel. 
I’m not happy with bunkers in Crossfire. In normal Crossfire you just have to wait for the garrison to No Fire and then close assault. I think they should be harder to assault. Historically flame throwers, demolition charges and big guns were used to deal with bunkers. I’m inclined to introduce house rules to encourage this. So here is a possibility for bunker busting. 
My recent interest in Solo Crossfire got me thinking about the probabilities inherent in the Crossfire rules mechanisms. That means infantry direct fire / barrage / minefields, anti-tank direct fire, smoke, close combat, and rallying. Only read this post if you care about statistics of gaming mechanisms. 
This is both a uniform guide and a painting guide for the Portuguese Colonial War. It covers all of the Portuguese forces. It is an update of an earlier post, primarily adding a graphic on painting ‘french’ camouflage. 
I wrote this about five years ago because a couple of my projects, i.e. Albuera in the Peninsular and Sipe Sipe in South America, had stalled because I didn’t like any of the available horse and musket rules. Inspired by Roland’s WW1 experiment I wondered if I could make a horse and musket variant for Crossfire. These rules have now remained raw and unplayed for some time. I stopped work on them because I decided I had bent the rules so far that it is no longer Crossfire. But rather than having it lurk on my hard drive any longer, 
If you have already Downloaded Tilly’s Very Bad Day (PDF) you might want the Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) as well. This is for version 2. 
Tilly’s Very Bad Day is available free for Download (PDF). Some some people will want a paper copy. Here are three options: print and staple; print and bind; lulu print on demand. 
We played Big Base Triumph in the Punic Wars – liked the Triumph rules but thought some of the troop types sucked. To really challenge ourselves and test out that impression, we played another, bigger, game with Iberians on the table in force. So “Light foot” for both Scutarii and Caetrati and “Javelin Cavalry” for Roman, Numidian, Carthaginian, big shield Iberians, and small shield Iberians. I felt, somehow, I was about to rub salt in the wounds. Of course this is Punic Wars. Summary: Romans (Chris, Adam) beat Allied Carthaginian (Jamie) and Iberians (Steven) 
2020 is the year of the Rice Paddy – at least I’ve declared it the year of the Rice Paddy. So I thought I’d make a few. I need them for Burma Campaign, Portuguese Colonial War, First Indochina War, and Vietnam War. Mine are for 15mm wargaming figures, but the same principles apply for other scales. 
Chris and Adam played my Small Fleurus Scenario. This was, of course Tilly’s Very Bad Day, and was played before I published Version 2. Summary: Spanish won. Scenario was too challenging for inferior Protestant Paladins. But potential for a good game with tweaks.
We’ve been playing Tilly’s Very Bad Day for a few months now and I think it is time for some substantive changes – a version 2. This post describes the changes. |
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