CrossFire

CrossFire is one of those 'inspirational' games that once you 'get it' I think you never really look to go back. The fact that as a games system it makes you generally make the same decisions and actions that you would in real life, rather than what is perceived the most effective rules choice, makes it an intuitive natural system that rewards realistic behaviour, and as such becomes increasingly involving. Both Kieran and I are madly keen devotees of CrossFire and we are expanding it's reach from just WW2 to play everything from the SCW (Spanish Civil War) to the Modern era, and possibly even WWI and more.

I have developed my own set of house rules to expand and better integrate Vehicles, Anti-Tank Fire, Snipers, and a few other things than the current way they are handled in CF (CrossFire) and you'll find those available here to download for free soon if you are interested (we are currently up to about version 5.3). Also below are lots more links relating to reports and photos of our CrossFire games and more.

Apart from Wargaming.info there is an excellent discussion of time in CrossFire and a FAQ page at Steven Thomas's balagan, and advice for new players, several scenarios, and errata for Hit the Dirt at Nikolas Lloyd's aspects. You'll also find some great ideas for Meeting Engagements, Artillery Fire Plans, Universal Carriers and lots of inspirational photos at Tim Marshal's Toys and there's some really wonderful inspiration in the painting and models of Paul Ward at Matakishi's Tea House (including 'Dad's Army for CrossFire' and a set of rules for Commando Raids in CrossFire). And don't forget the Official CrossFire Website.

Arty Conliffe announces CrossFire II

07 April 2009 - Arty has taken the opportunity, with the success of World CrossFire Day, to announce that he is working on CrossFire II. It is not intended to rewrite the rules, but primarily to address mainly the Vehicle & AT Fire process (basically vehicles will all be represented at 1:1 rather than the current abstract scale; and the Armour & AT Fire system will be over-hauled). An additional new facet will be added to the rules, Company Boundaries, so as in real life units must stay within their designated area of the battlefield. The announcement is available at the CrossFire Website and you can read the news at TMP. What's more the old rules will still be compatible with the new as the main part of the existing rules system will be unchanged so players with original versions shouldn't have any issue playing games with CrossFire II. All going well Arty hopes it might be possible to publish the new version as soon as the end of 2009.

World CrossFire Day

05 April 2009 - On the 04 April 2009 over 50 people in 7 Countries participated in an ambitious plan to play 19 games of CrossFire on the same day, that not only formed part of a campaign of related scenarios, but that were also linked and each game would have flow on effects to the forces and events in the subsequent games! It was a huge success and we believe its also the first time anything like it has ever been done with wargaming. Read more about WCFD and reports of the games and campaign on the World CrossFire Day 2009 Page.

Hit the Dirt CrossFire After Action Reports

Hit the Dirt is the official CrossFire Scenario book, and the following are photos and reports of some of our games playing scenarios from the book:

Reconnaissance Before Pontecorvo - Scenario 10 - Italy, 19 May 1944.
Scottish Corridor I - Scenario 12 - Normandy, 28 June 1944.
Scottish Corridor II - Scenario 12 again - Normandy, 28 June 1944.
Green Hell (Revisited) - Scenario 1 transferred to Normandy, Mid-July 1944.
Road Block on Highway 120 - sort of... - Scenario 7 transferred to Italy, Aug 1944.

Other CrossFire Scenarios & After Action Reports

Here are some more photos and reports of some of our other games and scenarios we have played - some of them are of our old very early games when we started with 15mm Figures before upgrading back to 1/76th (20mm):

Valuable Assets - Can the German's save their Tiger's while counter attacking the
    Soviet breakthrough - Russia, July 1943.
Higher Ground - Light U.S. forces press forward against the encircled Germans near
    Falaise after the St Lô breakout  - France, August 1944.
WCFD 2009 - Game 01 Report - Here's the report of our game that was part of World
    CrossFire Day 2009 - Somewhere near Normandy, France, Summer 1944.
Exercise Resurgence '93 - A Modern CrossFire game pitting Germans & Brits against
    each other in a NATO exercise - Germany, 1993.

CrossFire House Rules & Photo Galleries

Hopefully by May 2009 you'll be able to download our CF House Rules in PDF format. They are a work in progress and will be periodically updated. We have been using them for about 6 years now and are up to version 5.3 as we have tried various alternate  Vehicle & Anti-Tank Fire systems. They also include some alternative rules (or add on detail) for things such as Snipers and Artillery. These include an appendix of Weapons and Vehicle stats.

I'm also in the process of compiling our Modern period data (and some additional rules) for Vehicles & AT Fire for use with the above house rules - however this still needs considerable time to format and sort the information, so these probably won't be available until the beginning of 2010 unfortunately.

The galleries of our CrossFire forces are currently off-line also I'm afraid as I reformat them for the new layout and try to get some better images. However I will have them back online in the next few months, along with new material, so look for them late this year (2009).

More CrossFire Inspiration

You can find even more CrossFire inspiration by visiting the following websites:

Tim Marshal's CrossFire Page & Comprehensive House-Rules - Tim Marshal has some great and awesome ideas for tweaking CrossFire, and his site has several inspiration scenarios and game reports for CrossFire.
CrossFire Balagan & the Unofficial CrossFire FAQ Page - Steven Thomas has many musings on using CrossFire, including in other periods, and has also compiled a FAQ page for CrossFire.
Nikolas Lloyd's "Lloydian Aspects CrossFire Page" includes a fire-team variant for WW2 (i.e. 1 Stand is a Rifle or LMG team rather that a Section or Squad representing the two combined).
Matakishi's Tea House, a simple little site it claims, but with some fantastic CrossFire inspiration; including "Dad's Army" and the town of "Carentan" from Band of Brothers!
Hong Kong Society of Wargamers includes some accounts by Peter Hunt of CrossFire Games played in Hong Kong.
Official CrossFire Website hosted right here at Wargaming.info - find links to more CrossFire sites there.