Tag: 20mm

Ryan’s Basing & Painting Techniques

Ryan's Company Commander
Ryan's Company Commander

Ryan Davies is a member of the Crossfire Yahoo Group, and he recently put together a document detailing his techniques for painting and basing his 1/72nd scale figures – as a way to give something back to the wargaming internet community which he believes has helped him a lot over the years with his wargaming efforts. Ryan details how to cut bases from brass with a jewellers saw, his technique for labelling & indentifying his bases, and storing them.

Ryan then moves onto painting, especially soft plastic figures, covering how to paint, shade and seal them. He covers the merits of just brands of commonly available model paint, and the moves on to the actual techniques for basing the figures.

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MMS Classic Models – Listing by Nation

MMS Cromwell VIII F Model
MMS Cromwell VIII F Model

One of the really great Model Manufacturers around is MMS Classic Models – they produce some really high quality World War 2 vehicles and guns for 20mm scale (I believe they are nominally very accurate 1/76th scale on par with Milicast and Cromwell – but don’t quote me on that). Anyway on their site they list all their packs numerically rather than by Nation or any other logical order – this drives me mad!

So I’ve done my own listing sorted by Nation and then logically within each Nation by type of pack.

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Friend or Foe Figures

Friend or Foe Figures Romanian Mountain Trooper
Friend or Foe Figures Romanian Mountain Trooper

Recently I’ve been looking at the Friend or Foe (FoF) figure range from Shell Hole Scenics. However there is a marked lack of photos to compare the figures. Enquires on the web such as at the 20mm Miniatures Yahoo Group generally just resulted in limited feedback and several enquires back about what the figures looked like! I have picked some up indirectly and got the following photos of them for comparison. As it seems the manufacturer has very limited photos on their website (although Peter at Battlescape the Australian distributor does have some) I thought I’d put these images up for the benefit of anyone interested.

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Banzai – The Japanese are Coming!

Japanese Infantry Attack!
Japanese Infantry Attack!

I thought I’d throw up some preliminary photos of my 20mm Japanese troops – these are the bulk of a Battalion for Crossfire, along with some extra supports and an assortment of guns and tanks to represent most typical Japanese forces throughout the Pacific and Burma campaigns. The figures are mostly Eureka & Warmodelling (Fantassin), with a handful of Sgt. Major’s Miniatures chaps, a few SHQ Officers & NCOs (and a pair of 8cm Mortar Teams), and a couple of Combat Miniatures Officers and a few Scouts/Snipers (plus the Mounted Command Group).

The force represents a Japanese Battalion of 3 Rifle & 1 MG Company, with Regimental Support coming from a pair of 7cm Infantry Guns, and a single 7.5cm Mountain Gun, from the Regimental Gun Companies (visible in the background spray painted in grey primer).

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Group Fire and Crossfire – How To?

Panzer Mechanics observe the target of their recovery attempt in WCFD 2009
Panzer Mechanics observe the target of their recovery attempt in WCFD 2009

Conducting Group and Cross-Fires in Crossfire can sometimes be a bit of a ‘trap for young players’ for the beginner. As a result I’ve endeavoured to provide a simple little graphic tutorial that hopefully will illustrate the process fairly clearly and help explain some of the benefits…

There are several common mistakes (or perhaps misreading of the rule’s text is a better term) so this basic example will attempt to step through the main points. In our example a German Platoon has somehow managed to enter a small orchard (or olive grove) encountering a single British Squad within. Both the British Squad and the entire German Platoon are fully within the terrain feature – this means they both gain the advantage of Light Cover, and both sides have clear line of sight to each other despite the trees (as there is no intervening terrain feature or obstacle). A German Squad was previously PINNED and the British Squad has just finished phasing fire at the Germans, managing to PIN a second Squad before losing the initiative to the Germans; as Pins are not sufficient to retain the initiative (a Suppression or better being required). We take things up in our example as initiative has just passed to the German Player…

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Troop Scale in Crossfire

British Tommies in Normandy - AB Figures from my collection.
British Tommies in Normandy - AB Figures from my collection.

Something that Is not always generally recognised is that it is intended in CF that all (on table) vehicles and heavy weapons are modelled at a scale of 1:1 – i.e. 1 model of a tank, half-track, or gun is one real tank, half-track, or gun. While this seems logical to some, based on extrapolating the scale of Rifle Squads, HMGs, and Mortars to these, it is not always so to all players, however Arty has also stated this on a couple of occasions when asked… So in the interests of providing a clear guide from the author himself I have asked Arty again to reconfirm that this is what his original intent was, and we have had an ongoing discussion confirm & clarify this. As such the following is the key parts of a post and subsequent discussion on the Crossfire Yahoo Group, and Arty has also read and approved the main content prior to public posting so it can be considered as the closest to an official clarification there is likely to be on the subject.

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Operation CROSSFIRE: 11 September 2010

Crossfire 20mm Late-War Germans
Crossfire 20mm Late-War Germans

In April 2009 the Crossfire community conducted a global mini-campaign where games were played on the same day all around the world and linked together so the result of the games in each time zone affected what happened in the games in subsequent time zones. You can read all about World Crossfire Day 2009 here at Wargaming.info.

Now in 2010 its time for a different idea, again linking players from the Crossfire community located all around the world… This time its going to be a simultaneous game, played all over the world at the exact same time, and with Commanders in Chief located elsewhere in the world who will be receiving reports via email, and sending orders by the same, and who can transfer troops from one game to another (in real time), choose where to commit reserves, and so on…

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Close Combat in Buildings & Hard Points

Crossfire British Rifle Squads - AB Figures
Crossfire British Rifle Squads - AB Figures

Close Combat in Buildings and Building Structures can sometimes be a little perplexing for players new to Crossfire. This page attempts to outline the process in clear logical steps to help walk the new player though the mechanics. While it may appear complex at first it is in fact relatively simple and will become second nature after a few combats.

General Concepts

In Crossfire, an individual building is generally intended to represent a single small to medium size dwelling or similar. It might also occasionally represent a small complex of 2-3 small buildings (like a small Eastern-European farmhouse with attached barn). As a rough guide, the playing area occupied is roughly about the same as what 4-6 squads would occupy.

Occasionally there will be exceptionally large buildings (such as the tractor factory in Stalingrad, or a row of adjoining terraced houses) – these are known as building complexes, and are treated as multiple ‘buildings’ with some special considerations (see page 6, Section 4.4.1a of the rulebook).

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Combat Tanks Collection 1-7

Here are some photos of the models in the first few issues of the CTC Magazine. As I previously posted on the Auckland Wargaming Club Website the Combat Tanks Collection Magazine from the UK is now available here in NZ (having been available in Australia for sometime, and in a different format as the non-English Panzer Magazine in other countries)…

And you can subscribe on line or pick it up from most book stores. Each issue includes a 1/72nd Scale Die-Cast Model similar to those produced by Dragon Armor; Forces of Valor; and similar.

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I take a foray into Vac-U-Form Plastics

Amera Plastics Nissen Hut
Amera Plastics Nissen Hut

Some recent discussions on the Crossfire Yahoo Group brought up the old Bellona range of vac-u-form moulded plastic terrain. Many of you will remember these old classics from the days of Charles Grant, Donald Featherstone, and Terrence Wise, the terrain featuring extensively in their books, and later books by other authors such as “Operation Warboard”. For those like me, in countries like New Zealand, this was something you marvelled at in photos and wished you could get hold of… Bellona has long since gone out for production decades ago, although there was some suggestion the moulds had been purchased by someone in recent years to resume production – but to the best of my knowledge this is not the case. However the discussion led to Amera Plastic Mouldings, a company very much in the tradition of Bellona, and producing many very similar terrain pieces to the original Bellona range.

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Modelling Japanese in Crossfire

Imperial Japanese Army Battle FlagAs 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…

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Time To Do ‘The Pacific’ with Crossfire

Imperial Japanese Army Battle FlagI’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.

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