Category: Eastern Front
During World War II the Axis powers tried and failed to defeat the Soviet Union. The Germans called this theatre the “Eastern Front Campaign” or “Russian Front Campaign” but to the Soviet citizens it was the “Great Patriotic War”. The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. Fighting in this theatre was characterised by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life variously due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. Fighting lasted from the Axis invasion of the USSR (22 June 1941) to until the Soviet capture of Berlin (9 May 1945).
I use the Crossfire special rules from Hit the Dirt (HTD) a lot, but I’m conscious I haven’t played many of the scenarios. Recently I decided to rectify that, so when Chris and Adam came over last week I suggested they play Breakout at the Hinge, one of the HTD scenarios. This scenario is very unusual because it features a German breakout in 1941, at the height of Operational Barbarossa, when the perception is that it was the Soviets who were always the ones encircled.
Summary: Good game. Lots of terrain. Very asymmetric making it a serious challenge for both
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One of the conclusions from my last game of the Missing General – An Engle Matrix Game was, for clarities sake, to combine the battle rules and World War Two mods into a single document. So here you go.
The original battle resolution rules were devised by Arthur Harman but have been revised by me (Steven Thomas).
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My Confessions of a Megalomaniac were my 2019 aspirations. How did I do?
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Chuck Noland play my Crossfire scenario for Eye of the Tiger. Chuck has played some of my scenarios before and I’m always grateful when folk send reports through. All words are Chucks.
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Day 2 of the 2019 World Wide Stalingrad Campaign for Crossfire is upon us. This is, more or less, the Crossfire material that Stephen Phenow sent the Finchley Wargaming Club. I have changed the format and put it into my normal template. And I’ve added a few bits that seemed missing. Where possible I’ve used Steve P’s words.
The Germans have replaced their depleted battalion with a fresh one and given them more combat engineers and more heavy artillery. The Moving Clock (Timeslip) is now under German control. The Soviets had their infantry refresh but lost support elements e.g.
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Chris Harrod, Jamie Wish, Adam Landa and I played Day 1 of the 2019 World Wide Stalingrad Campaign based on Steve Phenow’s Briefing. Crossfire of course.
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This is, more or less, the Crossfire material that Stephen Phenow sent the Finchley Wargaming Club for Day 1 of the 2019 World Wide Stalingrad Campaign for Crossfire. I have changed the format and put it into my normal template. And I’ve added a few bits that seemed missing. Where possible I’ve used Steve P’s words.
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I’ve already posted on How many figures will I need to start playing Crossfire?. The answer is about 40 figures per side, about 80 total. But following a comment by Andrés F., after my Play Test of Mac’s Crossfire Missions v3, I thought it would be interesting to calculate how many figures are necessary to play Macs Missions on the Eastern Front. We’re talking pick up games for Crossfire here. If you want to be able to play all main force options and all the reinforcements, the answer is, quite a lot of figures.
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Andrew Fisher and a couple of friends played my Crossfire at Position Four: The Village P Scenario. In the absence of Russian figures they had to substitute Polish and moved the date back to 1939. And that meant replacing the StuGs with Panzer Is and IIs – totally appropriate for the Polish Campaign. Andrew kindly sent through an account of the battle. Judging from the battle report it seemed to be a good game. All words are Andrew’s.
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Continuing my Megalomaniac tendencies, this is my reflection on 2018 and how I did against my world conquering goals. Check out my 2018 Confessions of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian for my overly ambitious aspirations.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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