As mentioned in by blog entry Time To Do ‘The Pacific’ with Crossfire I have been inspired by the release of “The Pacific” by HBO to finally build a Japanese force for Crossfire, to game the early Pacific Campaigns of 1942-44 and the Burma/Malaya Campaigns. As I have a sizeable force of 1/72nd scale Japanese coming, I thought I would give some thoughts to how Japanese Battalions & Regiments were organised historically, what peculiarities and special weapons they had, and how these are best represented in Crossfire (i.e. as defined by the rules or by an alternate method). As a result these are my current thoughts on representing Japanese forces and most especially the presence of their main support weapons at Battalion level, over and above HMGs…
Tag: FAQ
Time To Do ‘The Pacific’ with Crossfire
I’ve always had an interest in the Pacific Theatre, most especially the 14th Army in Burma & Malaya, and the early U.S. Marine operations such as in the Solomon’s (as the 3rd NZ Division was involved in additional actions in the chain after the main U.S. battle ended on Guadalcanal), the Gilbert (Tarawa) & Marshal Islands campaign, and perhaps ultimately the Mariana & Palau (Peleliu) Islands… After years and years (OK make that Decades) of procrastination I have finally bit the bullet and ordered the figures inspired by the release of “The Pacific” by HBO.
Using Crossfire for Modern Conflicts
The Modern period traditionally covers everything from the Korean War in 1950 through to the present day. The sheer number of conflicts is actually pretty staggering and as someone once said there is a war in progress somewhere round the globe every single day (a pretty sad fact really). In the past I have mainly been interested in the Arab-Israeli conflicts and the potential European confrontations generated by the Cold War – these interested resulted in my being a co-author of the Modern Spearhead (© 2000) rule set for modern Brigade to Corps level battles with micro-armour. However in recent years as I have moved away from gaming in smaller scales such as 1/285th micro-armour, and to some extent that Grand-Tactical type of game, I have revisited my interest in other modern conflicts. As a result I’m now slowly starting to game these at the Company & Battalion level in 1/76th (20mm) using Crossfire.
What is 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. Crossfire was written by Arty Conliffe partly in response to a challenge to design a set of rules with no fixed turns or measurements – Crossfire is the result. While other notable authors in the past (namely Jack Scruby and Paddy Griffith) pursued similar ideas (e.g. the variable bound for instance), Arty has been the first to take it to a natural conclusion into a fully playable commercial design. Crossfire also goes that extra step to provide the right amount of abstraction, something earlier authors struggled with as they were constrained with the self-imposed linear nature of their designs…