Talk:Rapid Fire!
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[edit] A Memory of the beginnings of Rapid Fire
It's been a long time since I played this game, although I was around in the early days of its development.
I don't think this article really understands the context of the game development. Peter Gilder is famous for his work with 25mm figures, particularly the Napoleonic period, and in those days ran the Wargames Holiday Centre, where huge wargames could be played with figures of this size, including the battles to break out of the Normandy beachead.
This involved a huge playing space, and I know that Colin Rumford and Dave Tuck, and many other members of the Grimsby club, enjoyed the visual appeal of this figure scale. I was unusual in using 1:300 scale figures in the club. As I've aged I've come to appreciate the advantages of the larger figures. The club's collection of scenery was a significant factor: it was built for the large scale.
Rapid Fire was an attempt to produce a WW2 game using that figure size which could be played on a wargames table of more usual size. And which could represent more than just a couple of platoons of infantry. It's common for Napoleonic infantry battalions of 600 to 1000 men to be represented by 30, or fewer. 25mm figures.
Rapid Fire allows the appeal of the large figures, both the pleasure in their creation and the visual aesthetic, to be combined with a combined-arms gaming problem. I think it does that quite well. But I don't think strict realism was the object.
And I have now stopped painting the camouflage uniforms on 1:300 figures.
Zhochaka 18:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
