Crossfire


"Wally Simon takes a look at CROSSFIRE - A squad level WWII game by Arty Conliffe"
an interesting article, published on page 20 of Wargames Illustrated 123 (December 1997), about Crossfire with a rules review and a couple of battle reports (posted here without permission).

Last update November 30, 1999

This is the front cover of my last gaming interest... Crossfire, World War 2 company/battalion level rules written by Arty Conliffe.

This rules are fast, fun and innovative... you play without rulers, ranges and fixed turn!!
For a brief description click here for a review, from the official Crossfire website.

In my opinion, Crossfire is the ideal ruleset for the lowcost 1/72 plastic wargamer because:

  • it is mainly an infantry game, so you need few and very common to find vehicles ;


  • a small game involves a company, the biggest game involves a battalion;


  • a company is, usually, formed by 10 bases plus officiers (each base is a rifle squad):
      a company commander base (2 figures);
      three platoons, each platoon is formed by:
      a platoon commander base (1 figure) and 3 rifle squad bases (3 figures per base).

    • So you need 32 soldiers to field a company, plus some support weapons bases; usually you need 1 or 2 heavy machine guns and 1 or two mortars (better you need the artillery observers, not phisically the mortars !).

    Check what is into a Esci/Revell 1/72 infantry box...et voila' you can field a company per box !!!
    btw... I bought a lot of infantry boxes in the last months (bargain purchases!!!) and I'll scan and upload exact contents of each box in the low cost wargaming section. Stay tuned !!!

    Crossfire stuff on the Web

    Surfing the Net I found very little support on Crossfire; it seems net gamers are not interested in supporting this game with a web page. I can't find scenarios at all but some sites with questions and answers, photos and house rules.

    By the way the official Crossfire website is mantained by John Kovalic and John Moher.

    There is also a mailing list devoted to Crossfire and Spearhead (division level rules also written by Arty Conliffe); you can join the list going to: http://onelist.com/subscribe/spearhead

    Don Cyr's homepage has a lot of wargaming stuff and the Crossfire Q&A.
    The Full Retreat Gaming Club uploaded their house rules.
    I discovered also a 6 pages Crossfire variant covering Vietnam war, and some Arnhem Crossfire game's photo.

    On the Crossfire mailing list I found a link to a beautiful battle report about a battalion level game: Nicopol 1943, German vs Soviets). Homepage, scenario and photos by Tim Marshall. Very good !!!  The site contains his revised ruleset too: new house rules about tanks, artillery and aircrafts to spice up Crossfire games.

    I read his rules and I like most of his statements but I find the whole rules too detailed for my purposes. I'm currently writing and testing some house rules about tank platoon movement and some terrain effect variations.

    Another fellow listmember, Nikolas Lloyd, has uploaded his pages to the Net. There is an interesting and growing Crossfire section in his website, Lloydian Aspect.

    The first house rule we introduced is the tank's movement + rotation in the same Initiative turn. It seems to work; as soon as my house rules will be stable enough I'll upload it to the list and into my site. Stay tuned !!

    Another battle report with a lot of photos is the St Mere Eglise scenario report by Dean Veneziano, active list member.

    I assembled a Crossfire Usenet page with some messages taken from the newsgroup rec.games.miniatures.historical.
    I hope this Usenet page can help you to better understand what is Crossfire .... !!!

    If you know other sites, please write me.

    Browsing Usenet I found this message: "... as far as websites go, John Moher, who put together the CF part of the Crossfire/Spearhead web page, has just mentioned on the CF/SH mailing list that he is re-doing the Crossfire part of it and is searching for material. He'd appreciate anyone who can send him material."