Two Shenandoah games are going full blast these days. In both, a smaller Confederate force started the game in possession of the southern half of the Valley map, and has been attacked by a larger Federal force advancing from the north. Neither player knows the location of the enemy until his own troops bump into them. Cavalry becomes very useful in this early scouting because it's able to move quickly and avoid a larger enemy force it might encounter. There are three or four routes of advance for the Union. And the outnumbered Confederates aren't restricted to a static defense, just reacting to Union moves. If the Confederate commander wishes, he can attack too. If he chooses his own route correctly or times his moves just right, he can even strike at the Union depot at Winchester. Loss of your depot means automatic defeat so that's a danger for the Union. Meanwhile, the Union commander has only 20 turns to capture the Rebel depot at Port Republic. The Confederate has to prevent this or capture Winchester to win the game. Both sides must take care to guard their depots. It comes down to each side planning its attack, defense or counterattack, while trying to anticipate what the enemy's going to do. That gets tricky when you have limited information about the enemy. It tends to make players cautious. That puts even more pressure on the Northern player, who must keep pushing hard for Port Republic. If he hesitates, he will lose, simply by not being aggressive enough. So, without giving away the current players' plans, both games have the Union player preparing a strike south while the Confederates are ... well, they aren't inactive. Can't be more precise than that right now because some of the players read the Lone Warrior too. Don't want to give away intelligence to one side or the other. That brings up one final point. The players can run intelligence operations against their opponents in these games. This can take the form of planting information, trying to get the enemy to make a wrong move. One of the players even has been generating a campaign newspaper to be passed along to his opponent with the understanding it was found by enemy cavalry. The information in the newspaper may or may not be true. The idea is to confuse. So far, no major engagements, but lots of maneuvering and skirmishing, even some personnel problems with difficult subordinates. All players are still feeling each other out - and laying their plans. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #124 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com