In Crossfire all tanks have the same point cost even though they have different characteristics. Similarly for armoured personnel carriers (APC) and anti-tank guns (ATG). The idea is you pay the standard points cost and then roll dice to see what type of tank/gun you get for your points. It is a bit like a lottery … buy your ticket and see what you win.
The lottery system has a certain appeal, but being brought up in the Ancients world of WRG I was inclined to extend the points system to cover specific vehicles and guns for those players who like to pick exactly what they’re going to get in their force. I used a calculation based on the Crossfire characteristics of the tank/gun (ACC, HE, etc).
The points costs are shown in my Balagan Data Sheets for Crossfire.
Calculation
I used the following factors to derive the points in the Balagan Data Sheets for Crossfire. The top half of the table has constants and the bottom half multipliers.
| Weapon | Weapon Constant | Arm Front | Arm Rear | ACC | PEN | MG | HE | EFF | Smoke | HD | Speed | CC | Passenger |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constants | |||||||||||||
| AFV+Gun | -3.00 | 3.00 | -1.00 | ||||||||||
| AFV+MG | -3.00 | -1.00 | |||||||||||
| Gun | 0.00 | 3.00 | |||||||||||
| IAT | 0.50 | 3.00 | |||||||||||
| Indirect | -1.00 | ||||||||||||
| Multiplier | |||||||||||||
| AFV+Gun | 1.25 | 1.50 | 0.50 | 1.00 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 0.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | ||||
| AFV+MG | 1.25 | 1.00 | 0.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | ||||||||
| Gun | 0.75 | 0.75 | 0.75 | ||||||||||
| IAT | 0.35 | ||||||||||||
| Indirect | 1.00 | 1.00 |
You’ll notice that only AFV+Gun (i.e. tanks) use ACC in their calculation. This is because under my ACC regime only tanks have a variable ACC – it can be 0 or -1. Guns are always +1 and IAT are always -1, so this is factored into the Weapon Constant.
ARM Rear is ignored because I assume this increases in proportion to ARM Front. Ditto fo EFF and HE.
I give vehicles a Speed, which limits the number of move actions, but not fire actions.
CC is close combat modifier, and factors in the presence/absence of a turret and whether the vehicle is open topped.
All vehicles can carry one passenger; some, i.e. APCs, can carry more. .
Guns Examples
The factors for a Gun are highlighted in red in the table above. Using these factors the calculation for a Gun is:
+ 0.00
+ 0.75 * (3 + PEN)
+ 0.75 * HE
+ 0.75 * Smoke
The final value is rounded to the nearest half integer.
So for a 3.7cm PaK 35/36 ATG (ACC = +1, PEN = -3, HE = 0; EFF = 0; Smoke = 0) the cost is 1.0 points, i.e. not very much. But then again with no HE, no Smoke, and a pathetic PEN, this is probably fair.
In contrast a 7.5cm le IG (ACC = +1, PEN = -2, HE = 4; EFF = 2; Smoke = 3) has a cost of 6.0 points. Also seems reasonable for gun with much better HE, some smoke and even a better PEN than the 3.7 cm.
As a final example, the 8.8cm Pak 43 ATG (ACC = +1, PEN = +3; HE = 5; EFF = 2; Smoke = 0) has a
cost of 8.5 points, i.e. nearly three times the cost of a ATG in standard Crossfire, but it
is much more effective than the 6.0 point IG.
Tank (i.e. AFV+Gun and AFV+MG) Examples
Tanks either have a main gun (AFV+Gun) or they don’t (AFV+MG). APCs are also lumped into AFV+MG.
| The calculation for AFV+Gun is: | The calculation for AFV+MG is: |
|---|---|
|
-3.00 |
-3.00 |
So for example, a Pz I with just machine guns is 6.5 points. A half track is 8 points as it can also carry passengers. A Pz III G is 9 points, a Pz IV G is 14, a Panther 17, a Tiger I is 16 and a Tiger II 20.5.