How many of you out there have completely given up hope on Rob Markham, thinking him incapable of ever producing a coherent, well-designed game? Let’s see a show of hands now … don’t be shy … yes, well, I thought so. Count me in, because, after a string of disasters such as Give Me Liberty, Alma, and Ironsides, I figured the sun had set on Mr. Markham’s creative muse. So, imagine my surprise when I opened up Shenandoah: Valley of Fire, a nice little Rob Markham game from Just Plain Wargames (and Pacific Rim Publishing). TSS it ain’t, but it does show all the elements of a quality game: a creative system, solid development, and thorough playtesting … items that Markham’s main pipeline, 3W, seems to abjure. Valley covers the 1862 and the 1864 ACW campaigns therein, with Stonewall Jackson skipping nimbly past his cumbersome pursuers, and then Phil Sheridan turning the Valley into what looked like the bottom of a charcoal grill. It offers the opportunity for some deft maneuver/pursuit, along with some good, old-fashioned, toe-to-toe slugfesting. JPW’s plain brown wrapper approach to publishing doesn’t mean it short-changes you graphically. There’s nothing eye-popping herein, but the counters look nice (5 years ago we would have fallen all over ourselves for counters like these), and the map has an interesting, period feel. True, it’s a tad reddish brown (like 95% tad), the bridges look like vague strips of white gauze, and every town and village looks like the same New England Mill Factory. Perhaps if they gave cartographer Tom Hannah more than two colors to work with he’d produce some interesting gameboards. Then again, for under $20, you weren’t expecting Michelangelo, were you? System creativity has always been one of Rob’s strong suits (even when that suit was more like a 3W straightjacket), and Valley has it’s share of goodies. Units are divisions, hexes are two miles across, and turns are two days … all of which lead t0 a full-sized map with only 10-20 counters on it, so there’s plenty of room for maneuver. The method for determining movement is rather ingenious: Supreme Commanders roll on a chart to determine the number of Command Points received that turn. Every subordinate unit’s leader has a Command rating, against which the Command Points are compared to determine how far that unit may move, with a solid foundation in the use of percentiles throw in. For example, a leader with a Command Rating of ‘4’ (the usual Union lard-butt) who gets, say, 2 Command Points, may move his unit 50% of the base Movement rate. (2 of 4 = 50%, etc., etc.) The need to “broadcast’ CP’s to distant leaders may further reduce their availability. Combat follows a similar, percentile-oriented pattern. Combat leaders decide what kind of battle they wish to fight - Probe, Assault, Withdraw, Stand, or Pitched - and then roll on the Commitment Table to see what percentage of their unit(s) they can commit. That’s all fine, but, from there on in, it’s a Descent into Markham Hell. Battles are fought in standard Rob-style: Rounds. So, line ‘em up and start those wrist exercises. Pitched battles continue until one side demoralizes or retreats, so there is always the possibility that Armageddon will soon be at hand: one army totally destroyed, the other left with three dazed survivors. As if that weren’t bad enough, all of that higher mathematics for computing percentages and movement rates made my teeth ache. Forget the percentage chart included; keep a calculator handy. The game is still remarkably fluid, mostly do to Leaders being capable (in varying degrees) to react to enemy movement, plus the fact that only cavalry have ZOC’s. Then again, these aren’t exactly huge armies, and this, combined with lots of space on the map, means that the game’s emphasis is on maneuver, with generals chasing each other up and down the Valley trying to pin the elusive opponent in a Pitched Battle. The six scenarios cover all the major operations in the Valley, although there is, unfortunately, no attempt to link them into a campaign game. And while the game’s systems portray the war in the Valley accurately, they do so too well. In 1862, Jackson, whose game-like abilities to appear and disappear rival those of the Scarlet Pimpernel, is going to have little trouble avoiding the grab-bag of befuddled buffoons Lincoln assigned to the task of catching him. Flip the page to 1864, and we find a similarly nifty Phil Sheridan laying waste practically at will. Aside from the strictures of history, something one cannot totally avoid, this potential drawback arises from the too-great abilities of certain commanders (viz., Jackson and Sheridan) plus some narrowly defined, geographically oriented victory conditions. This is not to say that Valley isn’t fun; it is, with lots of opportunities for maneuver, pursuit, feints, attack and counter-attack. It’s just that, while the trip may be enjoyable, the end result is that getting there was ALL the fun. CAPSULE COMMENTS: Graphic Presentation: Solid, if not spectacular. Playability: Pretty good. Accessible, with minimal rules confusion. Replayability: High for scenario numbers, but, for most of these, the outcome is virtually pre-ordained. Wristage: A week of flex training would help. Creativity: Some nice mechanics here. Usual interesting Markham systems, overshadowed by insistence on Combat-by-Rounds. Historicity: Good Comparisons: The long out-of-print Shenandoah, from Battleline, would be quite dated now. Other ACW campaign games treat this only at “Sideshow” level. Overall: Nice work by Rob and JPW, but mostly for historians as there’s too little competitive juices flowing here. from JUST PLAIN WARGAMES 22” x 34” map, 200 counters, Scenario and Holding Box Cards; enveloped. JPW/PacRim, POB 23651, Oakland CA 94623. c.$15 Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 15 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com