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Patch was over yesterday, and I introduced him to the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series with the same scenario I played against Mark in May (that long? yeesh), Kernstown. I had contemplated going for scenario 2 in Stonewall in the Valley, but I figured this is a good one for learning how the system works. I took the Confederates, so I could try to figure out how to get anything done with such a small force (one of the Union brigades is a strong as Jackson’s entire command).

Patch sorted himself out fairly well, and I started falling back from Winchester, looking for opportunities. Some rain slowed things up, and took my chance early. Abercrombie’s brigade of the first division starts out separated and ahead of other Union forces on the SE flank, and had stayed so. The problem is, that is the large Union brigade. It turned into the Battle of Opequon Creek (a couple years early…), with three combats in quick succession. My initial attack was not that good an idea, and my brigade ended up disorganized (with a starting strength 2, it was an effective ‘1’, and vulnerable to massive odds shifts). Patch counterattacked… and completely blew the combat, rolling a ‘1’ while I rolled a ‘6’. This was about a final 0 or thereabouts, which didn’t do anything more to me, but cost him one strength point, and disorganized the unit. The Stonewall brigade then attacked, which exhausted it, but cost Abercrombie another couple strength points, and then another during the rout away from the field.

Despite the bulk of my force being in really bad shape for the next couple turns, I managed to get a chance to rest, and then slip away. I was planning to slip over the North Fork of the Shenandoah River at Guard Hill, and possibly even into Front Royal, and try to threaten to try and get around him with the river between us, but hard rain came (three days of rain), and I had to hurriedly slip west to Cedar Creek, where Patch caught up to me, and nearly trapped me. I exhausted the troops getting out  of that.

The next confrontation was down near Stony Creek, and Patch managed to inflict a crushing defeat on Fulkerson, putting him under Demoralize-1, and he eventually caught him and wiped out the unit.

The end of the game went out with a whimper as I managed to dodge getting trapped against the edge of the map to keep away for the last couple turns. (Patch tended to win a lot of initiative rolls in the later stages of the game, and nearly got me before I managed to slip away.

Patch had sent a few units out of theater, but not that many, and his losses were fairly bad, while I’d only lost three strength points. The final total as 97 VP for a Confederate Substantial Victory.

It was definitely nice to play the game again while I still had a pretty good memory of how the game worked, and Patch was definitely liking it. If not for the one disastrous die roll early on, things would have been very different, as I should have lost the brigade, and Patch’s losses would have been much less.