In the spirit of Steven’s Rules 1971 – Wargaming Rules for a Seven Year Old, Brett Simpson has shared his experience of introducing his six year old daughter to wargaming. Apparently Brett took a beating.
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Category: World War II
Stephen Phenow has volunteered to run a world wide campaign for Crossfire set in Stalingrad. Steve announced it on the Crossfire-WWII Yahoo Group but the action will take place on Stalingrad A World Wide Web Miniatures Campaign Facebook Group. 
I seem to be collecting potential objectives for Crossfire in the form of wrecked vehicles. Last time it was a wrecked Portuguese staff car. Before that was a crashed Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (stork). This time the objective is a destroyed T-34/76. 
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 
Sometimes I feel that I post my stuff into a silent void. So it is great when people respond and particularly to discover that people actually play my scenarios. I’m always keen to get feedback about my scenarios, whether good or bad, so I can tweak them. In this case Chuck Noland emailed and ended up sending me some great photos of his Crossfire games. I particularly like the black and white ones. 
A long time ago I got some 15mm Jarvis city barricades. Perfect for WW2, perhaps Stalingrad, or Spanish Civil War. I finally got around to painting them. There are a lot of different bits on these features but it was pretty straight forward. I’ve paint almost everything on here before … except the corrugated iron. That was new. 
Brett Simpson sent through another combined scenario and battle report from the Pacific. For Crossfire of course. Australians versus Japanese at Stoney Creek. Except where noted all words are Brett’s. 
If you didn’t know, Balagan means messy or chaotic. And lately my head has definitely been balagan. I’m trying to justify building up a Japanese force for Crossfire. I’m trying to find ways to fit the Japanese into my Official Focus of Spain, Portugal, New Zealand, and Israel. I’ve got to say, it ain’t easy. But with quite a lot of mental gymnastics I might manage it. 
John Moher’s post Modelling Japanese in Crossfire prompted me to think about the Crossfire order of battle for the Japanese. John highlights some ways where the official Crossfire order of battle is incorrect but he doesn’t write it out in full. So I set out to document a new Crossfire organisation for a Japanese Leg Infantry Battalion. Turns out it was more complicated than I anticipated. And I ended up diverging from John’s suggestions a bit. 
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. 
The Spanish wargaming company escenografia epsilon make Stalingrad’s famous Barmaley fountain in 15mm. I purchased a pre-painted version and it has featured in some of my Crossfire games set on the Eastern Front. 
This post is long overdue. Roland painted the last of the Fallschirmjaeger in June 2011 and I got them based soon afterwards. Tragically I haven’t used them in a game of Crossfire. I guess I don’t often create Crossfire scenarios for German paratroopers. Perhaps when I have some Kiwis to fight them in the Italian Campaign; I should bump the New Zealanders up in the priority list. Anyway, here are my Fallschirmjaeger. 
Brett Simpson play tested Mac’s Crossfire Missions v3 using his Pacific War kit. So this was a pick up game for Crossfire with Japanese facing Australians. Summary: fun and exciting game. Brett’s Australians won, making a successful Withdrawal in the face of a Japanese Breakthrough attempt. All words are Brett’s. 
Artillery is essential in Crossfire, so to support my Russian Rifle Battalion I have forward observers for a variety of calibers of weapon. In addition I’ve got the artillery pieces as heavy weapons stands. This post covers field guns, howitzers, infantry guns, heavy mortars, Katyushas, anti-tank guns, and anti-aircraft guns. The Soviets were keen on firing direct so having the models makes sense. Admittedly I haven’t used many except the anti-tank guns. |
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