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.
Introduction
After reading the battle report on Kiwis vs FJ in Italy I was keen to give the tank combat rules a test drive. A friend is visiting from Thailand so we got together last Saturday. We matched the battle even down to using the same objectives and the moving time clock.
Battle
Clynt deployed his FJ on a map.
And I blundered in with the kiwis.
Combat was quickly met as I approached the village, Clynt engaged with some piecemeal infantry fire backed up with some very effective mortar strikes (see pics 10 and 11)
I brought a Sherman up and tided up the MG (see pic 12)
The STUG was suppressed as it appeared to deal with the Sherman. Smoke was deployed enabling it to rally, it charged through the smoke and was promptly knocked out. (See 14,15)
I then tried to push the left German flank and even with the support of a Sherman still got bogged down. (16,17,18)
A charge by the FJ in the open saw them cut down. A PAK 40 revealed itself and sent some HE rounds into my centre, re – suppressing the infantry, I moved up my 25-pounder observer and took them out (19,20,21)
pic 22 shows my last ditch attempt to try and capture the house objective before the whistle blew, but no luck.
Thoughts reflections
Clynts a very old friend and has only played a couple of games of crossfire with me, I think 3 years ago. While I do coach him a lot in his decisions when playing he had a great deployment and was able to participate and enjoy the game. When I am introducing new gamers to crossfire, I will use just this kind of scenario and get them to play the defenders. Clynt said I pretty much walked into almost all his defenders, and the third of my army that had sat and watched could well have just walked through the German right flank. The moving time clock really shows up my ponderous manoeuvring and I really got myself bogged down in a couple of firefights. Even with the Sherman liberally distributing HE in support. Lots of lessons for me to learn, but a fun and interesting game taking 2.5 hours with a clear result.
Tank Rules
[Steven: in my Kiwis vs FJ in Italy game, Jamie and I play tested some draft armour rules. Back to Bruce …]
I’m very much liking them, reading through charts is a bit time consuming and definitely slows the game down, so this current system of Matakishi’s has lots of merit. I do wonder if a dice could be removed for first shot at a new target, I mooted this with Steve pre game.
I cant seem to cut and paste the article to the Face book crossfire page
Great game; beautiful table, but most importantly therapeutic time spent with a dear friend. Bruce is a kind coach & explains the mechanics of the game thoroughly & with insight. Thanks mate!
Cheers mate it was a fun afternoon , looking forward to a rematch
Nice report! And what looks to have been a really neat scenario. But (always looking for an angle), the scale is what really got my attention. I’m strictly a 15mm fellow (OK – I admit to dabbling in 3s…) but the troops are 28s, aren’t they? Or at least 20s (my eyes can no longer tell). My the local gaming crowd are all about Bolt Action in 28mm and this scenario – and pictures – make clear Crossfire WILL work, and happily, in 28mm. Hmm. Need to think, then recruit… 😉 Thanks!
I’m pretty sure Bruce’s kit is 20mm.
For 28mm check out Paul Ward’s Matakishi’s Tea House – Crossfire”. I once had to privilege to visit Paul and play with his 28mm toys. Lovely stuff and definitely do-able. But everything has to be scaled up to match the figures. And that is why I stick to 15mm.
Cheers bill, My stuffs 28mm , my ailing eyesight made me move up to 28mm. I have had games with the odd bolt action player. we just blue tack their toys to some spare bases I have.
Bruce, How big are your bases for your 28mm figures? And what is the foot print of the houses?
Hi Steve
The infantry bases are 40mm by 40mm , and the NCO and OP 20mm by 40mm .
The intact italian buildings are by italeri (1/72 scale) and the ruins (mostly 1/72) are in the main cobbled together my me and have a foot print a little larger than 2 rifle teams and a nco and op which is the crossfire load limit .
Steven,
I agree completely – I don’t have unlimited space and I DO have piles o’ 15mm scenery and troops so I’m not changing.
I did go to Paul’s website – nice stuff!
But you work with the tools you have, and several of the fellows in the group went big into 28mm Bolt Action. One said he had too much invested in 28mm to abandon Bolt Action. I don’t want him to abandon his troops (a terrible thing to do!) but I AM working on separating his preferred scale from which rules* he plays… 😉
– Bill
* BTW – This isn’t a slight on Bolt Action (I’m NOT a fan but everybody else in the group is); but CF is a very different sort of game, and much more the sort I prefer…