My own views on this system have been based on the few games I have played and it seemed that in these games armour appeared King of the table and infantry seemed to be more of an afterthought than a main arm. The rules themselves, or should I say the mechanics of the rules, I always thought were my type of system, fun, simple to grasp and easy to play and it has always griped me why I found such a hugely popular rules set so annoying!
So, over the past few days I have been reading up on the rules again and after visiting various websites I decided to download the Rapid Fire for Rookies free play sheet and give them another go.
Although I'm still a way off being where I want to be as far as my figures / models and scenery collection go I was still able to muster enough goodies to put on a small game to try the rules out once more. Here's a few pics I took at the beginning of the game .........
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| Both sides advance onto the table |
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| The Churchill and Panzer trade shots at long range with no effect! |
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| The Panzer III takes up position supporting a HMG crew in the centre of the line. |
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| The Churchill and the HQ start their advance. |
I haven't done a blow by blow account of the game but my verdict? ............. I loved it.
So, in answer to the charges of not giving a rule set a proper chance, and being too quick to judge? ........ Guilty on both counts. The free version of the rules I used are of course a slimmed down version of the full set but after this enjoyable game I'm very keen to expand my forces and my knowledge of the Rapid Fire rules. I'm looking forward to more RF games very soon!
Rapid Fire For Rookies is available from the Valiants website HERE (Bottom of the page)
Rapid Fire For Rookies is available from the Valiants website HERE (Bottom of the page)
These aren't on their site anymore. Do you have an e-copy you could share?
ReplyDeleteItineranthobbyist at gmail dot com
Email sent and link added to the posting.
ReplyDeleteI had the original rules for years and even helped edit the second edition (and got credit for it) but I could not get my head around the indiscipline of the design -- level bombing, battalions of infantry, naval combat AND guys throwing grenades!!! It seemed crazy and for years I did not play it. Finally some of the guys in my group decided they wanted a go and I have a huge WWII collection and so off we went. We loved it. It was easy and sometimes funny but it seemed to satisfy everything one wanted in a WWII game. This is largely BECAUSE of the bizarre mixing of representational scale. The full game certainly needs some clarifications. I developed a clarification and errata sheet which is on the RF site that Colin approved. I also did a sequence of play sheet that summarizes most of the key rules -- also on the site. Have fun.
ReplyDeleteChris Leach
I am completely new to war gaming - I haven't even had my first game yet! But after a lot of research I downloaded the RF! rules to learn, so I found your post interesting.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to more posts giving your thoughts on the game play with these rules.
Cheers Kitnoob. Glad to be of help!
DeleteI used to play *whispers...Flames of war....but then my friend showed me these rules and I've never looked back. The success of these rules in my opinion is not based solely on the mechanics, when playing it it feels like i am playing a WW2 battle. (or AVBCW as I modified them for that too) whereas flames of war felt like playing a system. plus the freedom of choice when it comes to army structure is much better than that of other games. Best WW2 game I feel
ReplyDelete