Crisis Point 2025 - places still available

This year's Crisis Point gaming weekend takes place 12th and 13th April this year at The Old Band Room (aka Dungworth Village Hall), Dungworth, near Sheffield.  This year we have three games all taking place in the 1990s during our fictional Andreivian Civil War.

Battle in the Northern Hills

A multi-player Arc of Fire action that sees the Russian forces moving to destroy Andreivian-Armenian artillery pieces that have been shelling the Russian-occupied Tcherbevan International Airport. Run by Richard Crawley, this game builds on arguments made during a Matrix Game more than a decade ago!

A Hilltop Village

A Force on Force game run by Mark Kniveton. Troops loyal to the Andreivian Government (or at least one faction within it) are attempting to clear an hilltop village of Andreivian-Turk militia. UN Peacekeepers may have something to say about this! Mark's 20mm models are lovely and the game is sure to be visually impressive.

Landing at Mdinar

The 6mm fans among us (Richard Phillips, Andy Taylor and Neil McCusker) will be running a Cold War Commander scenario in which the Russians attempt to reinforce the assets previously landed from the Black Sea Fleet and establish a secure land corridor to supply the airborne troops holding the International Airport. 

If you'd be interested in joining us for what I'm sure will be a splendid weekend's gaming, please contact me by commenting below or by email to crawleystorrs<at>gmail<dot>com

Crisis Point - a first report

So Crisis Point came and went at the weekend and I think it's been a great success. We took over Dungworth Village Hall for the weekend and managed to entertain and feed fifteen participants for the weekend. 

I'd originally planned for three games with the deliberately vague theme of "Invasion" but we were unfortunate in losing one of the games due to family commitments and then, late in the planning process, losing its hastily arranged replacement due to illness.

Despite this we managed to comfortably accommodate the players we had and all of them seem to have enjoyed the experience. A nice side-effect of the cancellation of our original third game was that in the end all of us were playing in the same alternate-reality setting; a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in Summer 1948.

The first game set up was my Stary Boleslav. As regulars here will know, this involved two Soviet Forward Detachments (mixed brigades) advancing on the eponymous Czechoslovak city. The defenders had a single, somewhat disorganised, brigade to resist them across two axes of advance.

I'll put out a later post describing how my planning of the game worked out in detail but for now you need to know that on both axes of advance the Soviet forces found themselves up against a stiffening Czechoslovak defence along the line of the major river. In both cases the Soviets pushed forward with tank units leading and tried to bash through the built-up areas along the river.

In the south Jamie C and Matt Z ran into a few problems by advancing faster than they expected. Their lead Soviet units were so fast that they ran into their own pre-programmed artillery fire.

The southern table, looking toward Stary Boleslav

The first southern table with the town of
Albrechtice top right and Dobruske village
top left

Arthur W and Richard P as the Czechoslovaks fought hard and forced back some of the attacking units before a strike by Soviet Pe-2 dive-bombers took out the headquarters of the infantry battalion defending Albrechtice.

Pe-2 strike on Albrechtice

Both sides had had the option to purchase supporting forces before the game. Jamie and Matt invested some of their points in arranging for the presence of two spetsnaz units in the Czechoslovaks' rear area. One of these, deployed near the airfield, successfully called in a medium bomber strike by a flight of lend-lease B-25 Mitchells somehow kept flying after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

The bomber strike would have been ideally placed to delay the arrival of a Czechoslovak Army "tank" battalion (actually Hetzer self-propelled guns) but delays in getting the message through meant that the strike served only to crater the road near the Dobruske bridge.

The road to Albrechtice turned into a major traffic jam as the Soviets' second echelon passed the parked trucks of the motorised rifle battalion that had supported the initial tank attack on the town.

Infantry are hard to winkle out of towns but repeated artillery and air strikes and the close-range intentions of T-34s and Soviet infantry eventually whittled down the defenders of Albrechtice and Dobruske.

In the north Stuart A and Ned W pushed their Soviet units towards two river crossings; the railway bridge on the right and the medieval stone bridge in Blatno, which was ably defended by Tom Z. 

The northern table, looking west towards
Stary Boleslav. Blatno is the large 
built-up-area on the river.

The old bridge at Blatno with Czechoslovak defenders on the left

Beyond the river was an old castle into which Matt C deployed the only anti-aircraft guns in the game - a couple of troops of 88mm Flak-36s! Being dual-purpose weapons they were able to engage Soviet tanks. Unfortunately for Matt they spent most of the game ineffectually firing at extreme range at heavily armoured T-44s.

The castle - a Kibri Z-scale kit expertly
assembled by Richard P

Legend has it that Field Marshal Sir John French once said, "The machine-gun has no stopping power against the horse." I've been unable to confirm the accuracy of the quote but I can now confirm that if the machine-gun in question is mounted on a low-flying Czechoslovak Spitfire, French is incorrect.

Stuart's Cossack battalion had made good progress and was in the process of crossing the railway bridge when first a strafing attack from Spitfires and then a Czechoslovak artillery barrage stopped their advance.

By the time we reached two o'clock on Sunday (an hour before our planned finish time) it was apparent that a Soviet breakthrough was imminent on both tables. 

In the south the defenders were reduced to a few infantry cowering in the ruins of Albrechtice and some engineers strung out along the highway behind the town. Jamie and Matt Z had husbanded their heavy self-propelled gun regiment and an attached heavy tank regiment as a reserve. They were ideally placed to exploit the hard-won breakthrough.

In the north a similar situation applied. The T-44 company attached to the Cossacks had done much of the hard work capturing the railway bridge and artillery and airstrikes had suppressed the defenders of the castle. A T-34 tank battalion was ready to move into the enemy rear.

We assessed that if we played for the additional hour two things would happen. Firstly the Czechoslovak players would get to see their final forces destroyed or routed, and secondly the Soviet players would get about halfway to Stary Boleslav.

We therefore called the result a tactical Soviet victory but a marginal strategic victory to the Czechoslovakians. There wouldn't be any medals for the Soviet commanders but they'd probably avoided being sent to guard a chemical weapons facility in Uzbekistan!

I'll do another post shortly reviewing how the TacWWII rules worked for this event.

-oOo-

Meanwhile on the other table, Andy T and Neil M were running Czeska Skalice, another game in the same 1948 setting but using the Cold War Commander rules. 

I didn't get to see what was going on in detail but Rob C, Dex M, Phil G and Ron P seemed to be having a great time. For more details see referee Andy's report here.

Richard P also has some fine reports on the weekend: Part one - the set up and Part Two - the games. 

Crisis Point, 6th and 7th April 2024

This year's Crisis Point wargaming weekend has the theme "Invasion". It will take place at a new venue, Dungworth Village Hall in Dungworth, and will feature three games set during the Cold War period.

STARY BOLESLAV, 1948

Presented by Richard Crawley

4-8 players. TacWWII rules.

A game for 4 to 8 players set during a fictional Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1948. 

This game sees two Soviet command teams racing to be the first to reach the Czechoslovak city of Stary Boleslav. For the winner there’s the prospect of being awarded the Order of Suvorov (Second Class), while for the loser there’s the very real possibility of being appointed to command the security detachment of a chemical weapons research facility. In Kazakhstan!

Meanwhile the Czechoslovak command team will be tasked with defending two major highways converging on the city. But with what forces? The political situation is confused. Have pro-Soviet elements been successfully purged from the Czechoslovak Army? 

We’ll be using the TacWWII fast play grand tactical rules. They are easy to learn - no previous experience necessary and put players firmly in the seat of the brigade commander while still giving a decent impression what’s happening right down to platoon level.

ČESKE SKALICE, 1948

Presented by Andy Taylor and Neil McCusker

2-6 players. Cold War Commander 2.0 rules.

Another game set during the fictional Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Soviet forces have have crossed the Czechoslovak border from eastern Germany and Poland. One of the main axes of attack is Wroclaw - Hradec Kralove - Prague.  Czechoslovak army elements are defending at Česka Skalice on this route and something of a traffic jam has developed behind the Soviets’ Forward Detachment. The Forward Detachment is ordered to brush these defenders aside and push on towards Hradec Kralove.

Cold War Commander is another easy to learn set of rules, the new edition of which was recently published by Pendraken.

A SHOT IN THE DARK, FALKLAND ISLANDS, 1982

Presented by Mark Kniveton

3-5 players. Modified Chain of Command rules.

D Company, 2 PARA launches a night assault on Argentinian 12th Infantry Regiment positions near Military Air Base Condor at Goose Green on East Falkland (Isla Soledad).

This games uses a Falklands War adaptation of the hugely popular Chain of Command platoon level skirmish rules by Too Fat Lardies and 20mm scale miniatures.

The cost for the weekend is £15, which covers the cost of hiring the hall and lunch on each day. If you'd like to attend the event, please contact me by commenting below.

Crisis Point 2019 Report

As usual after Crisis Point, the last thing I want to do is sit down and blog about it at length.  But here's a brief over view of the games.  The weekend went very well; I'm really pleased with the number of people who came and the spirit in which the games were played.

On Saturday we had three games.  On table one we had my Menton 1940 Chain of Command game, of which more anon...

Table two was occupied by Jamie's game of Song of Drums and Shakos.  This was set in 1794 and saw two groups of revolutionary French up against a combined Austrian and Sardinian-Piedmontese force.

  

From what I could see, this seemed to go very well, with four players engrossed right up the the close of play.  

Finally on day one we had big table depicting part of Malta in 1942.  This used Will McNally's excellent terrain on which a fictional German invasion was played out using the Battlegroup rules.

On Sunday, I switched to running a game of To The Strongest! set during the Second Punic War.  

Jamie was keen to play in this game and as there were three other games to hoover up players, Jamie and I ended up playing this game with just the two of us.

  

Surprisingly, for such a fast-play set of rules we didn't quite reach a conclusion.  I think my Carthaginian left was going to collapse before my right wing captured Jamie's Roman camp.

The next game on Sunday was Kevin Tingle's Beirut Force on Force game.

Kevin's game was a masterpiece of low-cost city building, using cardboard and balsa wood instead of expensive resin castings.

Neil Mc and Andy T from the Cold War Commanders group brought a 6mm 1989 Soviet landing at Gallipoli game.  Again lots of cardboard construction was in evidence...

I didn't get to see much of this game in action but the idea of Soviet airborne troops landing at a half-constructed airport was a fun one.

Finally on Sunday, the Malta game continued, this time moving on from the initial airborne attack to a German seaborne invasion.

I'm very pleased with how Crisis Point went.  it was a pleasure to welcome attendees both old and new and in particular to see how the younger gamers (four this year) coped well with a whole weekend of intense table-top action.

Crisis Point 2018

This past weekend saw a company of stout yeoman gamers descend on Dungworth from all corners of the Kingdom to play in the annual Crisis Point gaming weekend.

We took possession of the school hall on Friday afternoon and it was a pleasure to welcome returnees Ian, Andy, and Richard P as well as new boy Mark J who had all come along to help with the set-up.

There were slightly fewer tables this year than on previous occasions.  We briefly considered raiding the old village hall for trestle tables but in the end we decided to make a virtue of necessity.  A smaller table would mean all forces getting into action earlier and give us a good chance of getting to a climactic battle on Sunday.

We managed to get the tables pretty well set up by a little before beer o'clock.  Sadly, however, I don't seem to have taken any successful shots of the whole table.

On Saturday morning the gang all turned up.  We had Rob and Russ returning for the first time in several years, Tom and local lad Gabriel with us for the first time, and regulars Arthur, Leo, Kevin, and Jamie back again from last year.

Tom definitely got into the spirit of the game -
his portrayal of Solomon Rubenstein, the Andreivian
Minister of War went far beyond silly hats.

Andreivian propaganda posters await the advancing Turks

Silly hats were de riguer for the defenders of Tcherbevan

The Black Sea was alive with ships

An Andreivian Mk V tanks advances across
friendly trenches to take on Johnny Turk

Whilst another passes the fort at the heart of the Dvimin Line

Meanwhile more Andreivian forces defend the rear against
Russ's advancing Bolsheviks

The Turkish Navy stands ready to lend a hand

The northeast corner of the table with the walled city
of Kedelkalak in the background - loverly work
by the Wet-Nurse of Andreivia, Richard Phillips.

The Andreivian Air Force takes to the sky!

White Russian Cossacks charge the rear of the Andreivian National Police
unit guarding the English Church in Tchervbevan. The capture and
subsequent slaughter of the policemen is set to become an Anti-Russian
rallying point for the Andreivians.  Remember the English Church!

The factory was the site of fierce fighting on Sunday

Everyone converged on the city

So who won in the end?  You know what?  I don't really care; it was a great weekend and we got some enjoyable gaming and good socialising under our belts.

Thank you all who attended.  I'm already making plans for next year!

Crisis Point 2017

I had hoped to blog continuously during Crisis Point using our new iPad but it turns out that Blogspot and the iPad browser are incompatible.  You need to download a specific app and I wasn't going to do that during the event.

However, I did manage to take a load of photographs and here are some of them:

Action started immediately on the Caucasus Front table
with Ian Shaw (left) valiantly defending the Andreivan
trenches against Andy Sangar and Kevin Tingle's Turks.

Setting up the Black Sea Coast table

Bloodbath at the National Museum - Will, Ron and Andy C
 played in Jamie's Pulp Alley game.
The Andreivian Police prevented the theft of an Andreivian
national treasure but did so without subtlety!

SMS Koblenz accidentally pushes aground an
Arab dhow.

A highlight of the afternoon of Day One was Jamie's
refusal to allow Woosterforce to pass down the road to
Tcherbevan until he had (a) checked their paperwork
and (b) spoken personally to Wooster himself. 

Turkish troops reach some of the frontline trenches;
their Andreivian defenders have fled!

Casualties mount up on the Andreivian baseline!

The Australian Light Horse dismount to defend the
Tuzkhur Valley...

... as unidentified Russians enter the area.

Leo's camel train comes under artillery fire killing
one of his pack camels

The Dhow is afloat again and makes off for the Dardanelles.
And look! There in the background is the missing German submarine SMS Haifisch
(one for the Rammstein fans there). 

By the end of Day One the Germans had landed a small force on the Black Sea coast.  it would have been a larger force but the Andreivian Air Force (in the form of a Fokker D.VII) arrived at the crucial moment and bombed SMS Koblenz.  The bomb struck and jammed the Koblenz's steering gear.  Unable to stop or steer out of the way, she ploughed through the string of towed barges taking the first wave (armed Kriegsmarine sailors) to the landing beaches.  The second barge was sunk. All aboard were lost!

However, the Germans did manage to tow off their stranded submarine and so completed one of their aims.

The Turks broke through a lightly-manned section of Andreivian trenches on the Caucasus Front and forced a general withdrawal.

In Eastern Andreivia, Woosterforce reached and occupied the town of Tuzkhur despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the Andreivian commander on the scene.

Two groups of Arab 'merchants' had completed some kind of deal but it was not yet clear what had been exchanged for what.

On day two there would be some adjustments.  There would be some fighting in the capital Tcherbevan as Russian Bolseviks tried to forcibly correct the doctrinal error of Andreivia's Left Social Revolutionary government.

We restructured the Black Sea Coast table to accommodate a fighting withdrawal by Ian's Andreivians and a hasty attack by Kevin's Turks.

Andy S and Arthur took charge of more Turks pursuing Woosterforce from the south.  The Eastern Andreivia table saw fierce fighting along the Tuzkhur Road.

The Bolsheviks advance past the grain warehouse in industrial Tcherbevan

A random event saw the ammunition carrier of the British MG team panic and flee.
That's him, top right above.  Doubtless he'll be shot at dawn. 

Woosterforce comes under artillery fire from the pursuing Turks. The also suffered mysterious gas attacks from an unknown attacker.

A gunnery duel between the Andreivian armoured train and SMS Koblenz
went on for much of the day.
In the end German troops took the train by close assault.

In all I was reasonably pleased with the event. We ended up with 11 players including myself whereas at a relatively late stage in the planning it had looked like we might have as many as 16. For this reason some of the events and forces I'd originally planned for, The Spanish university archaeologists for example, found themselves on the cutting room floor.

Arc of Fire stood up pretty well under the strain of handling larger-than-designed-for forces.  I was pleased with the variant card activation process.

I'll reveal more about the inner workings of the plot in future postings.