Category: Rulesets

Higher Ground

GI's reform after an attack.
GI's reform after an attack

Saint Lô & Falaise, France, August 1944 – Light US forces press forward against the encircled Germans…

Historical Situation

Mid-August 1944, central France, the German front is collapsing (although they haven’t realised it) and Hitler is insisting on an armoured thrust west from Trun to counter the U.S. advance. The U.S. XV Corps has already broken through into empty country beyond Saint Lô and General Bradley has now ordered the Corps to swing east to hook round behind the German armour and trap it – preventing a retreat north & east to the Seine river. American forces are pushing forward as far and as fast as they can to keep the Germans guessing, and secure vital objectives for the ongoing advance!

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Using Crossfire for Modern Conflicts

Liberation Miniatures Modern German with Sniper Rifle - figure from Kieran Mahony's collection
Liberation Miniatures Modern German with Sniper Rifle - figure from Kieran Mahony's collection

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.

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What is Crossfire?

Crossfire Rulebook Cover
Crossfire - The Rulebook.

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…

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Wargaming in the Ancient World

The Ancient period is one of major interests, although I got into it rather later in my gaming life than many other wargamers (Ancients gaming has traditionally been a staple of the NZ Wargaming Club scene, and traditionally the majority of club members in most clubs play it). As with some of my other interests I started in 15mm (with Minoans/Early Mycenaeans – my very first army, followed by Burgundian Orddonance; then Gauls; and finally Polybian and later also Marian Romans) but have since abandoned the ‘wee scale’ and am playing exclusively in 28mm. Continue reading “Wargaming in the Ancient World”

A Brief Outline of Japanese Tank Divisions in World War II

1st Armoured Division, WDA.
Formed July 1942.

  • 1st Mobile Infantry Regiment.
  • 1st Anti Tank Battalion.
  • 1st Tank Regiment.
  • 5th Tank Regiment.
  • 1st Armoured Recon Unit
  • 1st Mobile Artillery Regiment.
  • 1st Armoured Divisional Antiaircraft Defence Unit.
  • 1st Armoured Divisional Engineer Unit.
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To Win or Not To Win?

Or Why Ancients competitions are better for using win/draw/loss ranking systems.

Probably the 2nd loudest “discussion” at NatCon (held in Auckland, Easter 1997) was the ranking system used in the DBM competition. Some players had thought that ranking’s in the Swiss Chess draw would be determined by accumulated victory points, and were surprised to find that win/draw/loss was being used. Clearly the umpire and/or organisers stuffed up badly by not telling players exactly what variety of “Swiss Chess” was to be used, but why all the angst?? Isn’t one “Swiss Chess” system the same as any other? Not in this case!

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