It being an Avrupan week, I decided to have a small game to jog my memory of the rules and tweak them as I always find something that needs improving. They are based on Crossfire, the WW2 rules by Arty Conliffe, which I know are very much not everyone's cup of tea, being very unusual in their approach - no ranges or move distances, multiple actions in sequence by single squads, losing and gaining initiative suddenly, lots of thinking about cover and fire support. It is also very much an infantry game, with vehicles/aircraft in secondary roles. However, I do like the ideas and concepts and they do provide interesting games to say the least! I have made some changes to suit my sci-fi/future wars project, but the broad approach remains the same.

Anyway, the small scenario. A section (three squads) is holding a position astride a main route with orders to hold up any hostile forces approaching. The latter, in this case, are two sections (each three squads), with a support squad attached (one with flamethrower, one with an extra LSW - Light Support Weapon), who have been ordered to clear the area of enemy troops.

My Avrupan units are companies made up of various numbers of sections each of varying numbers of squads. A basic infantry or support squad has three figures. My figures were originally based for skirmish rules requiring individual bases, but I have never rebased them for Crossfire-style rules, just keep them in base contact.

Game to play for one hour or victory to defence if they knock out four attacking squads, victory to latter if they knock out all the defenders.

Here are some photographs. I was playing in the evening under artificial light and the pictures came out rather differently from normal, but I thought it gave them a sort of arid world sort of aura!

The table, three feet by two feet. Main road crossing a gully, with another gully in the lower right corner. Various 'groves' of flora, a ruined accommodation building, rock walls and heaps, plus a sand hill. It is not as crowded a table as for WW2 |crossfire, but it is meant to be an arid world, so there are more open spaces, which makes using cover even more important!

The left section of the attackers, three squads moving up behind the rock walls.

The rock walls are made from that loose packing foam, stuck on bases, undercoated and then painted a sort of brick red, with sand squiggles. They give protection against direct fire.

The flamethrower squad moves up. Squads can move independently from one another as every member has radio/vidcam connections to each other and to their command (off-table in this case). The 'flora' are plastic aquarium models, painted and rebased (where required) to give a different world look to the tabletop. The ruined accommodation building in the background was made from an air-freshener container.

The right section of the attackers moved up the gully, in which they are hidden from any observers, gullies being deeper than head height.

The attackers have moved onto the table, no sign of the defenders. In fact, one of their squads is in the 'grove' between the sand hill and the road at the top, another is hiding in the gully just to the right of where the road crosses the upper gully, and the third squad is in the 'grove' to the top right which straddles the upper gully.

The left section get moving again, entering cover, while their LSW squad moves left behind the rock wall. The green counter shows the squad is inside the cover to which they are adjacent.

The right section's attached support squad (another LSW) moves into the 'grove'.

The left section's LSW squad did a recon by fire on the grove by the sand hill, which triggered a response from the defenders, who promptly pinned (blue counter) their attackers! I have shown the directions of fire with red and blue lines.

The defending squad in the upper gully decided to get in on the firefight - I decided this by a die roll, odds they would, evens they would not - while the rest of the attackers' left section went prone in cover (yellow counter).

The right section's support squad also joined in the shooting, while everybody else kept their heads down. However, nobody was hitting anyone!

The defenders' right hand squad (LSW) is now pinned.

The defenders' squad in the gully is still okay. Figures are 25mm by Denizen Miniatures, which are now owned by SpaceDenizens, who is gradually developing the range into 28mm. I have in the last year or so acquired some GZG figures as they are very similar in style.

The defenders' right hand squad is now suppressed (red counter). Pinned and supressed have to be rallied off; pinned stops movement and affects firing, but is not too bad, additional pins have no further effect, but suppressed stops all actions until rallied off and a further suppression will KO a unit.

The whole of the left section of attackers get in on the shooting now that the defenders are suppressed. However, they only managed more pins!

The right section gangs up on the defending squad in the gully, but their fellow squad in the grove opens up in support, pinning one of the attacking squads.

The squad in the gully is now suppressed, so things are going well for the attackers.

A group assault goes in on the 'grove' by the sand hill: two squads plus the flamethrower squad, with the SMART gun squad pouring in more fire on the defenders in the gully first. Crossfire normally allows only two squads in a group assault, but I allow up to four. However, it can be risky, as if they lose, all squads are KO'd, as in the original rules.

Not much hope for the defenders, being suppressed and caught prone, while the 'grove' does not give any protective cover, plus the attackers have the flamethrower as well as numbers. The defenders were overrun and KO'd.

Having cleared the 'grove' out, the left section of attackers promptly group charged the squad in the gully, while in the distance the right section managed to suppress the last defending squad.

The defenders about to be overrun.

The last defending squad suppressed in their 'grove'.

End of game. I decided that the last defending squad would surrender before being overrun, which meant victory for the attackers, as they had put all three defending squads out of action.

I enjoyed the game. It was a bit of a fillip to my interest in my Avrupan campaign.  It took a while for the attackers to gain fire superiority, but moving about in the open is deadly stuff in Crossfire, especially as the non-phasing player can use reactive fire against phasing player units that move and win the initiative if successful. Also, the attackers had no off-board artillery support to lay down smoke or HE, which always helps a lot in pinning or suppressing defenders and opening up movement. Looking back, the defenders in the gully should have stayed down and acted as an ambush or waited for a very clear target, such as the group charge against their fellow squad in the 'grove'. But playing solo means I have to make decisions by a die roll that a sensible (?) player might not do!