First games of Crossfire

I recently played my first games of Crossfire against my long-time wargaming comrade, Tim.  As newbies to the game, we experienced the initial double-checking the rules, but Crossfire didn't disappoint.  The system is very straightforward, & unlike some rule sets, very intuitive once you grasp the basic principles.  The total absence of measuring was a real eye-opener, & as enthusiastic Crossfire fans claim, it really does capture the feel of fire-&-manoeuvre, focusing on the tactics rather than intricate stats & movement allowances.  As such, there is a degree of abstraction, but I didn't feel that it detracted from the game (& I'm a bit of a fan of granular detail!).  The games flowed quickly, with a brisk passing back-&-forth of Initiative (other than a couple extended but largely ineffective fusillades).  I'm looking forward to playing many more games of Crossfire.

The scenario we played was 'Bridgehead' from the main rules.  In our case this was a platoon of IDF infantry moving into the outskirts of a town on the road to Beirut, during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.  An IDF airstrike had hit a PLO position in the centre of the area, & the infantry were moving in to mop-up any remaining opposition.  However, Syrian commandos had now taken-up position in the town, so the IDF would have a challenge on their hands.

In our first game, Tim played as the IDF, massing his entire platoon on my right flank, advancing over a ridge to assault a warehouse through the vineyard.  His forces on the ridge took a few casualties & were Pinned a lot as my entire platoon had LoS across the bombed-out central area, but his flanking squad made it to the vineyard, & rushed the warehouse, wiping out the hunter-killer team in there.  His force then began taking up positions in the warehouse & adjacent farm outbuilding, engaging my static Syrians from their flank, to which I couldn't respond effectively as my commandos became increasingly Pinned & Suppressed.  Tim soon took hold of 4 terrain features in my half of the board, but I managed to prevent his victory in the very last qualifying turn when my single fireteam of reinforcements showed-up, moving through the farmhouse into the outbuilding & taking-out the IDF fireteam in there.

Our second game saw me as the IDF, advancing from a different direction.  However, the rubble-strewn area at the centre of the table proved even more troublesome for me.  My entire right flank became quickly Suppressed & then wiped out (2 whole squads!) before they could even get in the ruins, as I'd been thinking of the ruin as blocking LoS (in hindsight this bombed but largely intact structure should've been classified as a building for rules purposes).  So I was quickly defeated without Tim suffering even a Pin.

The initial hold-ups that we had centred around mistakenly allowing an entire platoon to conduct a coordinated Crossfire on a target (as we're playing Crossfire 'modern', we needed to scale each unit down a level from the rules-as-written - where the rules say squad, this is a fireteam with my miniatures etc.), but this mistake was quickly resolved.  The only other issue we had was getting familiar with the terrain rules - mainly those for rough terrain, which unlike most other terrain features in Crossfire doesn't block Line of Sight.  Also, we weren't used to no cover bonus being given for fire passing over intervening terrain.  We quickly picked up these differences with other rules systems though.