In WWII, the bureaucracy of leadership was so large that any one element was unimportant. This was not true of competent leaders in the Civil War. Examples? Well, Roosevelt did die during the wax. The . Russians killed off many high level officers, and lost more, in the first part of the war, and still did well. And so on. I am not suggesting this for every game in existence, and certainly not for most strategic games. Sorry I have to say this again, but I am not sure you are following this.

How can I say that leadership was more important in the Civil war? Simple. There are an awful lot of cases of bad leadership in the Civil War, of promotion through politics, and a lot of effort went into getting rid of these people. At the same time, the excellent leaders really stood out, even at less than the highest levels. One reason? The people on the scene made very important calls, often running things entirely for days or weeks at a time, due to poor communications. The effects of leadership were magnified by the period; good leaders, even at the regimental level, helped turn battles, routinely.

In WWII, the armed forces had radio. Plans were made and passed on through level after level of administration, each capable of taking over in some way. Certainly, individual commanders made a difference, but they had to keep doing so for weeks at a time, merely to overcome the attrition of the massive manpower involved. The loss of any particular leader would make little difference. Indeed, while it is common in Civil War strategy games, like Napoleonics, to assign specific adjustments to individual leaders, you don't typically see a "Patton +2" counter in a WWII strategic game. There is a reason for that - it is not the right scale, or the right conflict.

Rommel was, in the end, defeated. Why? Well, basically, we could sum it up with a die roll, every few months - on a 1, out of 10, the Fuehrer refuses to send supplies and reinforcements. Good grief, even Rommel couldn't understand why this happened - he felt he had to fly back to Germany to find out what the heck was going on! Kind of like a bolt out of the blue, for him.

I stated that WWII strategic is poor for random events. The Desert War is one exception. Why? The need to rely on long supply lines, the lack of certainty about enemy intentions and positions, and the mobility of many of the units created nearly as much uncertainty as in an older, lower tech war. And it is in this environment that individual leaders again shine. Even tiny units like the SAS-precursors played a role way out of proportion to their size. A good candidate for a more random system.

Most Desert War games deal with only the most balanced portion of the campaign. They start with the Italians just holding on, and end with the Germans pushed back one last time. Even with Rommel and good dice, they axe hard to win. They are fixed because they need balance. On the other hand, when the theatre is included in a large scale game, it almost *never* goes the way it went historically. The Germans often take Syria and Transjordan, or the Brits clean out the Italians early on. So the focussed games are artificially balanced by topic, looking at the only period where the Germans and the British had decent chances.

In a Civil War Game, a decent system at the operational scale would allow for the chance of Lee to be killed in an action. After all, we accept the deaths of fine leaders like Reynolds and Jackson. How is Lee any different, except that he lived, and by doing so became pre-eminent? In that case, yes, you take a small risk using Lee in a battle, just as he took a risk being near them. Isn't that accurate, at least a bit? I think it is reasonable.

Wargaming has been used as a planning tool since the 19th century, and the Japanese actually gamed the attack at Midway with disastrous results. So, it follows that, having all that info available, one must have a way to render a lot of it unreliable. Funny, that is part of what random effects can do. By screwing up plans, they help reduce the ability of the player to be the omniscient overlord. Random effects are even more appropriate in the American Civil War, I feel.

As I have said, there is a place for random effects in conflicts which involve small scale, or very poor leadership, or poor supply and communication, or high mobility. Stonewall Jackson's Way contains many of these elements, so it has a reasonable number of random elements to it. Seems right to me.