The Great Campaigns of 1863/1864 tournament focused on scenarios from Grant Takes Command for the second year, and enjoyed 17 entrants who participated in nine rounds of play before a champion was crowned.

Scenarios from GTC started and ended Friday's qualifying rounds, with Sheridan Rides South up first in the morning and Battle of the Wilderness as the nightcap. In between, rounds of The Battle Continues (a Roads to Gettysburg scenario from Skimisher 1), Salem Church (Stonewall's Last Battle), and Piedmont (from the new Skirmisher 2) were also tightly contested. The participants obviously felt that the first four scenarios were balanced; games with no bids were in the majority and when bids did occur, a Union Bid of just 1 victory point was the most common selection. This balance held up in the results as well; in these first four rounds, there were eight Union wins and nine Confederate.

Interestingly enough, play then proceeded to the Battle of the Wilderness, a scenario that was used for the quarter-finals last year (when all four Union players advanced). Using this historical data, each Union player gave up three to six victory points to play the boys in blue and then each proceeded to lose to their Rebel opponent! A new more conservative approach to Confederate play in the Wilderness seems to be effective in stopping the powerful Union advances that we saw in 2002. Bruno Passacantando used such a rebel defensive enclave to hold off GM Ed Beach's Union advance (that featured a fierce offensive by Sheridan's cavalry that placed Sheridan directly behind the Army of Northern Virginia when it finally sputtered out).

Day Two of the event proceeded to the single-elimination rounds, with David Cross and Mark Booth facing off in the play-in game of Sheridan Rides South to see who would join Bruno, Paul Nied, and Chris Withers in the semi-finals. Mark's Confederates performed an all-out retreat southward, avoiding casualties but surrendering most of the RR stations. The extremely close match came down to whether or not a single Union brigade could rejoin Sheridan's main force on the final turn. In the end, the unit did escape, allowing David to advance to fight Bruno.

David had never played Strike Them a Blow before, and therefore selected the Confederate (defensive) position. Low movement rolls by Hancock slowed the Union advance, however Bruno's VI Corps was to get an entrenched foothold south of the North Anna river on the second turn. Day 3 saw intense action around Hanover Junction, with the crucial rail junction changing hands twice. In the end Bruno's desperate counterattack failed, moving David into a final round match against defending champ Paul Nied.

In the final, David played Bloody Spotsylvania for the first time, again choosing the defensive Confederates. David forced marched Ewell's corps to Spotsylvania, establishing a strong defensive position. He mixed some preemptive attacks with entrenchment actions near Spotsylvania to hold off Paul for three turns. Then rain arrived for two days. Paul was forced to resign, as his Army of the Potomac had already suffered heavy casualties and was not even close to threatening Spotsylvania. Congratulations to David Cross, the third winner in the past four years to earn their first WBC plaque from the GC3 tournament.