Day 20 of our Shenandoah campaign has ended, and with it the campaign itself. The campaign was a relatively bloodless until the final days, then a series of battles erupted. The commanders, Alex Garden for the Union, Tom Zdyb for the South, both followed straightforward plans of action. Tom went on the defensive and consolidated his outnumbered (though neither player knew this for certain) Rebels in the southwestern quarter of the map, planning to defend his depot at Port Republic in depth. Alex, however, put the bulk of his forces on the eastern side of the map and began a methodical advance straight toward Port Republic. In the early moves, Tom destroyed all the bridges over the rivers. That would have caused Alex more problems, but his march down the east side avoided the difficulty until he came close to Port Republic itself. There was skirmishing and the contact of minor forces on the western side of the map, but neither player ever developed a clear picture of the location or size of the enemy forces arrayed against him. The fog of war stayed intact while the players mostly missed contact with each other while pursuing their own plans of action. The climax of the campaign came in the neighborhood of Port Republic when a subordinate Union general discovered a usable ford near a destroyed bridge, came across and drove a defending Confederate brigade from the far bank. This opened the way to an attack on Port Republic itself by the rest of the Union main force which was close behind. I described the fighting around Port Republic on Day 19 in my last submission. This resulted in a clear win by the Rebels, who drove the Union troops from the field. It was obvious that Alex would make another attack on Day 20 and victory or defeat for both sides would be determined by that day's fighting. Tom tried to bring up reinforcements for the troops holding the depot, but had some bad luck with the dice, while other troops were too far away to arrive in time. In the morning, Alex launched an attack that was designed altogether differently from the head-on rush of the Rebel entrenchments he had tried the day before. He was able to flank the troops defending the town and appear in force in their rear. The Rebs tried to fall back from their fortified line to conform to the new threat, but were hammered by Union artillery and infantry fire. The Rebel forces dissolved, the Union troops advanced into Port Republic and thereby won the battle and campaign. It was a great ending to a suspense-filled campaign, and victory could have gone either way. We all felt a certain sense of sadness when the campaign finally ended. It stretched out over two actual years, and would not have succeeded without the determination, commitment and patience of Tom and Alex. We were able to keep the rules fairly simple and avoid bogging down in too much detail, which seems to be one of the kisses of death to a protracted campaign. Even at the level of detail we used though, I as gamemaster found myself scratching my head many times at the amount of interactive information I needed to keep up with, track and report back to the players each turn. Generally, we stuck to a schedule of one actual month between turns. That seemed to be comfortable for the players and myself. Both players said they enjoyed the campaign, and I certainly had a lot of fun with it. Tom and Alex both have expressed interest in trying another Shenandoah campaign under the new gamemaster, Dick Burns, who is listed under the PBM Game Service Check. I'm sure Dick will have some interesting wrinkles to add to his campaign while this gamemaster takes a rest and plays the role of consultant. If a PBM American Civil War campaign is to your taste, I urge you to contact Dick and enjoy the action. Good gaming. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior #130 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 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