Third Crossfire game, bring up the armor!

I organized my third Crossfire game earlier this week. We played a small engagement inspired by Ponyri, a village that was part of the much larger Battle of Kursk in 1943. Against the backdrop of the days-long assault, a German infantry company, supported by tanks, attempted to probe Soviet positions outside Ponyri—mindful that reinforcements from the larger battle could arrive at any time. We used my 10mm WWII miniatures, plus vehicles from my World Tank Museum collection. Pardon the fuzzy phone camera image; I've consistently forgotten to bring my actual camera.

Four players showed up, so I set them up as two teams and sat back to interpret rules and referee the game as best I could. Luckily Nico, a buddy from our Savage Worlds rpg, was there, and he digested a lot of rules prior to the game. This proved immensely helpful as we began the game.

Unfortunately, the scenario was quite one-sided and ended with a bloodbath for the Germans. The Germans had two rifle platoons, two on-board mortar squads with spotters, two Panzer IIIs and two Panzer IVs. This was arrayed against two Soviet rifle platoons supported by three 45mm antitank guns, all hidden in the village. Two KV-1s were available as reinforcements after five turns.

Much of the tactical imbalance—code for "Soviet butt-kicking"—in this game was due to a less-than-thorough understanding of how the armor rules worked, and how armor differed from infantry in terms of on-board effectiveness. Chalk that up to my own inexperience with the rules.

Basically, the two German platoons advanced from the woods to the outskirts of the village and quickly ran into two dug-in Soviet platoons. They slugged it out for a couple initiatives, but several stunning die rolls virtually destroyed the German infantry before the armor could make it to the show. Likewise the on-board mortar units didn't come into play until it almost didn't matter.

In retrospect, both German players agreed that they should have moved up their tanks first and used armor and indirect fire from the mortars to recon the suspected Soviet positions. It would have taken more time, but it would have been a lot less risky and would have allowed the infantry to move in once the Soviet squads had been identified. Plus the armor action might have prompted the Soviet players to reveal their 45mm anti-tank guns in order to re-deploy them.

I had come up with this scenario on my own, but I later found that Steve Thomas had previously detailed and played a much larger scenario based on the same skirmish. I was pretty pleased to see that our two setups, despite being written for very different sized games, had a lot of key features in common.

Second Crossfire game, more 10mm WWII musings

I hosted another Crossfire game last week, this one at Chicagoland Games, the new game store that opened up just four blocks from my apartment in Chicago.

I had 3 players show up for the game, plus another who arrived after we started and provided tactical advice during the game. Since we had a lot of players, we decided to re-play my original scenario from last week (a Soviet raid against Germans protecting a StuG III in a small village) as a 2-on-2 team game.

I'd never really tried Crossfire with multiple players, and the structure of the game makes such setups kind of tough to execute—but we only played one company per side, which is still pretty small for Crossfire standards. Basically the two players on each side split control of their forces, with most players getting a platoon or two of troops to command, along with a vehicle or anti-tank gun.

We also stuffed a lot more terrain on the table, but I still felt like we could have used more. The Soviets advanced through the woods and farmland to find and disable the StuG III, which was being defended by Germans in the burnt-out ruins of a small village. The victory conditions allowed the Soviets to win if they had two infantry squads in base-to-base contact with the StuG III at the end of any initiative; the Germans, however, could win if they killed off 6 or more Soviet infantry squads.

It was a very well-balanced game, with the Germans having slightly fewer infantry troops, but more versatile support weapons (in the form of a PaK-40 antitank gun and the aforementioned StuG III assault gun). The Soviets had about a third more infantry units, and they had a single T-34/76 that arrived after Initiative 5.

The performance of vehicles in this game ran the gamut from great to terrible. The Soviets were a bit too aggressive with their T-34/76—plus we had never tried the vehicle shooting rules—and it was knocked out early by the PaK-40. The StuG III, on the other hand, managed to destroy several Russian squads during the advance—including the last action of the game, which killed a squad in the open and annihilated two adjacent squads (via the "Kill Potential" blast rule) in a single shot.

That action won the game for the Germans, as that represented their 6th enemy squad kill. It couldn't have come at a better time: the Soviets were grinding their way through the Germans' flank, chewing up squads in close combat and threatening the enemy's best-defended position. Another few turns and the game could have gone either way.

Anyway, this was another resounding success for the Crossfire rules. For our next scenario, I'm going to try out a battle that involves a lot more vehicles—maybe something with Panzergrenadiers?

Full-Spectrum Gaming: 10mm WWII

In addition to roleplaying games, I'm also a big wargaming enthusiast. And while I've mainly enjoyed fantasy titles like Warmachine and Warhammer 40k, I also hold a special place in my heart for WWII wargaming.

For a long time, I was quite intimidated by all the different options available in WWII tabletop gaming. There are a ton of different scales, each providing subtly different gaming experiences. Do I want to play at the squad level or at the company level? Am I more interested with painting and modeling, or actually playing?

Ultimately I chose 10mm as my scale of choice, although there's no guarantee that I'll ever actually find a game group in Chicago that uses this scale. I prepared a brief treatise of sorts listing the key reasons why I chose this particular scale for my WWII gaming.

• 10mm is quick and easy to paint. I'm handy with a paintbrush, but I'm also not interested in slaving away for hours to ensure that my German infantry backpacks are painted an appropriately historic color. Playing the game is more important. At the 10mm scale, each figure is about as big as my fingernail—so I can slap 4 or 5 colors onto each group of soldiers, hit 'em with some highlights and a drybrush, and be done in short order.
  
  
• I got a great deal on my initial load of 10mm figures. For $50, I have a full company of German and Soviet infantry, along with support weapons like machine guns, mortars and even of couple larger artillery pieces. That means I'll be able to field both sides of an engagement—perfect for helping new players who might be interested in WWII gaming. It should all be painted in just a couple weeks.
  
  
• I already have a ton of 1/144-scale plastic tanks that will work perfectly with 10mm infantry. This is going to save me a lot of money in the long run, as pewter tanks from game companies are both costly and take a while to paint. As it is, my 1/144-scale tank collection (comprising pieces from the World Tank Museum line and New Millenium Toys) will likely be all I'll ever need in terms of armor—and it's all pre-painted, some to a very decent degree.
  
  
• There are several "scale-neutral" rulesets out there that can easily be adapted to the 10mm scale. I'm thinking specifically of Blitzkrieg Commander, which feels like a "classic" command-and-control wargame, as well as Crossfire, which presents an entirely new way of playing tabletop wargaming. I hope to play both using my 10mm armies.

I'll try to take some decent photos of the infantry stands I have completed and post them tomorrow.