This is the western theater of the war and for the most part a back water operation. The Union starts the game controlling all but the four lower regions of Missouri and, of course, the Rebels control Arkansas. The things to note from the map are the roads I have highlighted in green. The North-South one linking St. Louis to Little Rock is the main avenue of attack from which either side use to go on the offensive.
The second road is an East-West one linking Memphis to Texas. This road is critical to the South. For some reason most of the South’s damaged units turn up in Texas after repair. The most direct and shortest route back to the Tennessee area is on this road to Little Rock and then by water if they have transports to the Tennessee area or by road to Memphis. If they lose this road they must go by much slower routes through Vicksburg or New Orleans.
The Union starts the game with some pre-arranged activations that allow them to make the moves in dark blue taking two of the critical areas. The follow up moves in light blue are carried out later as activations or cavalry becomes available. One of the critical tactics in this theater is using cavalry with its higher movement rate and no need of initiative to enter a region to make the initial invasion. If they are lucky they find no opposition and can overrun the region so regular infantry can move in. This is the method I used to advance first into Springfield then Fayetteville and finally Fort Smith. This method won’t work if the enemy garrisons the regions but this is what you are trying to force the South to do. The Union has to garrison Missouri anyway so make the South waste men as well. There is also another reason for keeping enough troops in this region to threaten the Rebels. The Political Points you pick up taking these regions are badly needed in the early part of the war to keep the Union on the positive side.
The red arrows show the main drive I try to make into Arkansas. I usually send one reasonably good leader so you always have the threat that he might activate. Coupled with a cavalry unit and leader you force the Rebel to respond or lose regions. The other prong of the threat is shown in orange on the rivers. This is the threat of amphibious attacks as the Union moves on Memphis. When Memphis falls the Union can clear the Arkansas River and threaten Little Rock.
In our game I was able to push all the way down to Fort Smith which opened the two prong threat of either taking Texarkana to the south or Little Rock shown in purple. Either will shut down the vital road to Memphis. I was able to move into Texarkana in January of 1862 cutting the road.
Refer to AAR for more info: 2nd ARR WbtS Whitehead(USA)
