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Category: Crossfire MusingI’ve collected together some interesting Crossfireideas from other people. I’ve reproduced them here mainly so I don’t have to go hunting for them again. Most rule variations are untried. Some items – Base Sizes for example – are there because people ask about them a lot, so in some ways this section is a FAQ, but not quite. See also my real FAQ. 
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. 
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, 
I’m lucky to have some regular opponents (Chris, Jamie, Adam) but some folk are not so privileged. Inspired by a conversation with Brett Simpson I thought I’d write some rules for playing solo Crossfire. I want a game, played solo, that feels a bit like Mac’s Crossfire Missions. As it happens Nikolas Lloyd already has a Scenario for Solo Play and there is tons of good stuff in there. Lloyd wrote a specific scenario but my goal is slightly different, wider. That means I can’t use Lloyd’s scenario directly but I can pull out some lessons from his offering. 
Tim swears and says “Where is my PC?” He had just tried to do a crossfire at an enemy stand and needed the PC to have line of sight of both the squads in the platoon and the target. His opponent had pointed out that the piece Tim thought was a PC was actually an FO. Tim had got the playing pieces confused. In fact, he’d probably done that about 20 minutes earlier, as his PC was back where the platoon had been at that point. An easy mistake to make as both a PC and an FO is a 
I’ve been musing about Japanese HMG under Crossfire. The official rules make them expensive rifle squads. Personally I challenge both the reduced firepower and increased close combat ability of these heavy machine guns. 
In World War II the Japanese issued three 5cm Mortars to every Rifle Platoon. Standard Crossfire makes the Knee Mortar rather useless. John Moher reinstates them as an effective piece of combat kit. And I do the same, but in a much simpler fashion. 
Brett Simpson has been busy building up terrain and troops for North Africa using Crossfire. He is also experimenting with my ideas on Crossfire in the Western Desert. Brett has been sharing photos with me as he went along so I thought I’d share them more widely. 
A couple of guys on the Crossfire Yahoo forum mentioned they have house rules for blocking LOS across two terrain features, when normally this would be unrestricted. Increasingly I think this is a good idea. 
A discussion on the Crossfire Yahoo Forum got me thinking about the protective cover offered by wall features in Crossfire. I think I had it wrong. The difference of interpretation relates to whether or not a wall provides protective cover in direct fire between two squads, neither of which is touching the wall. 
I have found myself looking at the Portuguese Colonial War again recently. Last night I was reading “The Chopper Boys: Helicopter Warfare in Africa” by Al J Venter again and thought I’d share something on Helicopter Landing Zone Requirements and Procedures. 
Dick Bryant tried to respond to my post on Custom Fire Mission (FM) Markers for Crossfire. He wanted to share a photo of his own customer FM markers but couldn’t do that in a comment. So, in lieu of a comment, I’ve posted his ideas here. 
I’ve been experimenting with How to Track Fire Missions (FM) in Crossfire for years. In my latest experiment I’ve made some custom FM markers. 
Standard Crossfire doesn’t restrict the stands on the side initiating the close combat. So more than one platoon can be involved. Somehow this always upsets me. I squirm every time new players ask “can I add in stands from other platoons to this close combat?” 
I am toying with a house rule that a stand can, in a single initiative, either conduct Retreat Moves or initiate offensive actions (Direct Fire, Close Combat) but not both. All part of fighting the 1000 Foot General. |
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