Crossfire (miniatures game)

Crossfire (commonly abbreviated as CF) is a tabletop miniatures wargame designed by Arty Conliffe and first published in 1996, later supplemented by "Hit the Dirt" containing a number of rules clarifications and scenarios. Crossfire was originally designed to allow for company-sized battles and World War II scenarios. It employs an innovative rules system eliminating the need for a ruler.

Game Mechanics

The game does neither need a ruler nor fixed game turns. Essentially, CF knows only two ranges, point blank (in close assaults) and everything else, the basic assumption being that everything on the map is within rifle range - in other words, everything that can be seen can be hit. As a consequence, CF works only properly on tables where lots of terrain is used in order to allow movement unseen by the opponent.

In order to overcome traditional turn-based systems CF operates with "initiatives". A player can order his troops in any way (movement, fire or rally actions) and in any order during his initiative, and keeps on doing so until one of his actions fails; then the initiative passes on to his opponent.

CF in its basic form is mainly concerned with infantry combat, leaving not much room for the employment for AFVs. Nevertheless using AFVs in scenarios has become very popular with wargamers; therefore a number of different unofficial "home rules" have been published on fan sites, allowing the inclusion of AFVs in battles.

Figure and Ground Scale

CF uses an abstract figure scale - a basic infantry stand (usually holding three figures) represents a squad of infantrymen while single heavy infantry weapons are represented by single models; it is also playable on a 1/1 figure scale, though only a minority of gamers seem to prefer this. The ground scale is a matter of discussion among CF wargamers; many see the ground scale at 1/300, though other ground scales up to 1/72 are in use as well.

External links

• Crossfire official website

Unofficial sites

• Wargaming.info New Zealand website with FAQ & Game Scenarios & Reports
• Tim's Toys Canadian website with AFV rules
• Matakishi's Tea House UK website with CF for Dad's Army, Band of Brothers, Commandos, Burma, etc
• IanH's wargaming pages CF wargaming at 1/300 scale
• Lloydian Aspects among other material notes on CF wargaming at 1/1 scale
• Balagan Crossfire FAQ, Rules Clarifications, & many Scenarios
• Vietnam Crossfire CF rules adaption for Vietnam era
• Operation Dumb Geese Modern CF wargaming