When my old buddy and wargaming guru Jonathan Keepers, the Oklahoma cowboy, offered to be the other end of my PBM Civil War campaign, I eagerly took him up on the offer. We'd been exchanging gaming ideas for some time and he has referred to me as the "wargamer in exile" because of my distance from any other known wargamers. Jonathan's generous offer gave me a chance to try out the "Shenadoah" campaign system I'd been itching to put to work ever since looking at the map.

I thought the map had possibilities, though the accompanying campaign system was too complicated for PBM. So, we set out to simplify things. The campaign has been running for almost a year real time and requires a fair amount of letter exchanges. Nevertheless, we've been able to generate several battles and give each other something to think about in studying the campaign map. This is my first such PBM effort but, from my perspective, it's been a successful endeavour.

One of the reasons this is so, I believe, is that we developed a system to resolve skirmishes. That way even though the map features some 20 brigades and additional other units, every small encounter need not be gamed out. In simplifying the campaign rules, we did away with the scouting forces that are a significant feature of the original "Shenandoah" rules.

In fact, we have done away with virtually all of the "Shenandoah" rules We use the map, a simple movement system and our skirmish charts and that's about it. When we set up the campaign, we organised our forces as we wished, then moved them as unidentified counters. That way, until we made contact, neither of us knew what forces the other side was manoeuvring.

That led to some heavy skirmishing by cavalry forces in the early turns, as contacts were made for the main purpose of identifying which enemy units were what. But throwing a regiment or brigade of cavalry (either way, just a few stands) against a division of infantry didn't promise much in the way of a battle. Yet, it seemed some price should be paid by the cavalry for gaining information about the enemy force. Out of that idea came the contact and casualty charts as shown below.

Go to the Charts

So now, whenever a contact between a much smaller force and a much larger force develops, we can go to the charts if we don't want to game out the result. Jonathan quickly dubbed the tables our "Quick Kill" charts and the name seems appropriate. Here's how they work. Upon contact, we each establish orders for our own units. These orders can be attack, hold position or fall back if attacked. Then compare each side's orders, on the Contact Chart. This chart will tell you which combat table to use, if any. On the contact chart, it doesn't matter which side is designated Side A or Side B. The matrix will give the proper result depending on each side's orders. Now, if there is to be a battle, determine the ratio in the size of forces, larger to smaller (1-1, 2-1, 3-1). In our case, this is a matter of comparing the number of stands on each side.

Finally, resolve the contact on the appropriate Combat Table and apply any force modifier. As an example, say I had a six-stand brigade of cavalry, in contact with an unspecified enemy unit. My orders are to fall back if attacked. Jonathan has given his force attack orders. Cross-referencing, the orders on the Contact Chart tells us to go to Combat Table 1. Once we go to actual combat we reveal the size and composition of our forces to each other. It turns out Jonathan's force is an infantry division totalling 18 stands.

We now roll up a number from 1 to 10 in some mutually agreeable way. (Jonathan and I use the last digit of a selected future day's Dow Jones Industrial Average volume, easily accessible in daily newspaper listings.) Once the die roll has been determined we make any adjustments based on force size ratio.

In this case, say we rolled a 6. That gives us each a loss of one stand. But I also am outnumbered by 3-1, so, according to the chart, I lose two additional stands. Final casualties are one stand for Jonathan, three for me halving my cavalry force. It's a big price to pay, but I now know the size and composition of his force. Ultimately, I must decide if such information is likely to be worth the cost.

Our charts make no allowance for larger force ratios than 3-1, so any time forces of 4-1, 5-1 etc. are engaged they stick with the modifier of 3-1. Otherwise, the smaller forces would likely be wiped out altogether. Not all contacts even lead to a skirmish. We might both have given our sides hold orders, resulting in both of us sitting there looking at each other.

In such a case, the Contact Chart specifies "No Battle". Then, there also would be no exchange of information about each other's force composition. Such information only is revealed when a fight develops and the Combat Tables are to be used. That's all there is to it. This is an extremely simple method to keep the campaign moving without too much stopping to game out cut-and-dry skirmishes.

As with everything else in this campaign, the key to keeping things manageable seems to have been utter simplicity. Even with that goal, there is, as I said earlier, a lot of letter writing just to make this system function. But, I think patience on both our sides is providing us with a workable, PBM campaign.

I'd enjoy hearing others' ideas on working out skirmish results in their PBM campaigns.