The letter by Perry Andrus and the article is by Dave Powell and Thomas Prowell in Operations #15 confirm that I am not the only one who has been uneasy with the unfettered mobility of army and corps commanders in the CWB 2nd Edition rules. Moreover, I have always intuitively felt that there should be a purpose for the Army Headquarters counters included in every game. While Civil War staffs were far from the vast aggregations that support modern commanders, they were more than a handful of advisors and aides-decamp. Their members served very real purposes in the fields of logistics, administration, intelligence, and planning. No army commander could function long without them. Equally important, headquarters were (to a degree) fixed locations that were easier for aides and couriers to locate than an individual commander, who might have ridden anywhere on the field. (Where was Vandamme the night before l'Armee du Nord crossed the Sambre?) All three writers in Ops 15 offer good ideas, and the best solution may be a melding of facets from all three.

Army Command

1. Army commanders receive a quota of Forcefulness Points. This occurs at the beginning of each day of a scenario and equals the number of hours they are on the field that day in the scenario (rounded up; e.g., in TATC II Scenario 10, Lee receives 10 on arrival at 3:00 p.m. I July, 24 at 1:00 a.m. on 2 July, 24 at 1:00 a.m. 3 July, and 20 at 1:00 a.m. on 4 July-note that the Day Marker does not change until the end of the 12 Midnight turn). Every order issued costs Forcefulness Points equal to the Force of the order.

2. An army commander at his HQ in a building or town hex receives one extra Command Point.

3. An army commander away from his HQ can issue only IPV or Simple orders.

4. Moving an army HQ requires a Simple IPV order from the army commander, which is automatically accepted, specifying the exact destination hex.

5. To move an army HQ, expend 6 MPs and flip the counter to its back ("Moving") side.

6. Orders issued by an army commander from a Moving HQ have a -2 modifier applied to the Acceptance Number.

7. To reestablish army HQ at the ordered location, expend 6 MPs at any point during the Movement Segment and flip the counter to its front side.

8. An overrun army HQ displaces as described in Rule 10.0c, immediately changing to "Moving" mode.

Corps Command

1. A corps commander at his HQ in a building or town hex subtracts one from any Delay Reduction Rolls.

2. Corps commanders at army HQ subtract one from their initiative die rolls.

3. When calculating the arrival time for aide-delivered orders (Rule 10.1e), add in twice the MPs a corps commander is distant from his corps HQ.

CONSIDERATIONS

Like Thomas Prowell, my partners and I find that most of our orders are Force 2, to a seemingly unrealistic degree. Also, in smaller games like Perryville, commanders will often reissue the same Force 2 order turn after turn until acceptance, which seems a distortion of the command system's intent. Thomas's solution is simple and easily implemented: keep a running total of Forcefulness Points in the Orders Log. However, it also smacks of artificiality, since some commanders of a hysterical bent probably were very insistent in all their orders. Thus in some ways, I like his risk of antiinitiative better, but it should not apply in all cases. As an Optional Rule, I recommend that designated commanders only (e.g., Howard under Hancock at Gettysburg) acquire an anti-initiative of -I whenever they roll a natural 2 on the Acceptance Table. Perhaps those orders are distorted when wadded up and thrown into the campfire.

Headquarters did not normally locate in buildings because generals love to stay comfortably out of the rain. They do, but there are also more practical benefits:

• Planning, decision-making, and order-writing are easier when maps, oil lamps, and writing paper are protected from the elements.
• A building is much easier for a courier (or visiting general) to locate than a tent or an open campsite.
• People generally do think more clearly when comfortable than when they are cold, wet, windblown, and/or insect plagued.

Keeping your army HQ in a structure improves the staff's ability to produce orders, and keeping your corps commanders under cover will allow them to better implement those orders. In addition, the practical goal of keeping the lines of communications as short (in MPs) as possible should prompt commanders to keep their headquarters on or near roads, but if they want to put them in the boondocks, there should be nothing to stop them.

Scott Johnstone is absolutely correct in pointing out that once an army commander left his headquarters, he was bereft of most staff support and generally ignorant of events occurring outside his personal perceptions. Limiting him to IPV orders unnecessarily restricts his ability to react to what he does learn, however. Instead, he can issue unsophisticated orders for his aides to relay to corps and division commanders, but cannot coordinate anything too complicated. Hancock, arriving on Cemetery Hill the evening of I July, can give defensive orders to both Howard and Doubleday without personally meeting with both of them.

I do not like restricting players from taking actions their real counterparts could for purely "gamey" reasons. Instead, I prefer building "penalties" into the rules to make players pay realistic costs for taking a historical actions that abstractions of the rules would otherwise make profitable. Thus, Scott's limitation of corps commanders to their corps' HQ or units is overly restrictive, and ignores a commander's occasional desire to go see for himself (i.e., personal reconnaissance-particularly important when using Dave Powell's Hidden/ Extended Movement Optional Rule). Instead, corps commanders pay for wandering too far from their headquarters by possibly delaying the arrival time of orders. This simulates the added time necessary for aides to locate the commander and pass the order on once it reaches corps headquarters. Of course, the corps commander must still visit his HQ to execute an order. Similarly, Thomas Prowell's prohibiting corps commander initiative attempts when outside their own HQ's command radius is a rather artificial response to prevent them from "camping out" at army HQ to wait for IPV orders. There is no reason why a corps commander, hanging around listening to the same reports the army commander gets (and possibly some from his own aides), cannot make up his mind to go implement his own plan if he is not getting any orders from his boss. Instead, a negative modifier reflects justifiable hesitation in doing so-he came there expecting orders, and will be somewhat reluctant to leave without them. These two "penalties" also eliminate the need for Scott's restriction on stacking of headquarters.

All three writers want to limit the movement of army HQs, but Scott's method is too drastic and inflexible: once Don Carlos finishes his lunch during the battle of Perryville, he should be able to move his headquarters forward if he has the energy. A better solution combines Dave Powell's and Thomas Prowell's methods for moving army headquarters. To do so requires an order from the army commander, which can be Force 0 and is automatically accepted because his staff is not likely to demur! Dave's idea of using the flip side of the HQ counter when it is moving is a good one, and requires the only physical change to game components (marking the reverse so it is more recognizable). Changing between moving and nonmoving modes requires 6 MPs either way (since 3/13ths of a turn equates to less than seven minutes, which is rather too rapid), and may occur at any point during the Movement and Close Combat Segment so long as the army HQ has sufficient MPs available. No die rolls are necessary to change mode: I understand Dave's desire to build in a variable delay in setting up army headquarters, but I feel it is a needless complication since movement occurs after orders are issued and at least one command Phase will pass before a stationary headquarters is reestablished. Dave's -2 acceptance modifier to orders originating from a commander with a moving army headquarters works well, simulating both the delay in reports finding and reaching HQ, and the difficulty in composing coherent orders when your maps are rolled up and cased for travel. Thomas has overrun HQs become disordered; this strikes me as another unnecessary complication, since the HQ will be in "Moving" mode for at least one turn and must receive orders to relocate.

None of these recommended changes add to the time required to play CWB games, and only slight modifications to the army HQ counters and the tables are necessary. Whether you adopt these rules or one of the proposals from Operations #15, 1 think you will find that refining the command rules will add to the enjoyment and realism of your games.

Summary of Optional Rules from Ops15
Title	Army HQs	Initiative Rolls	Orders	Officers
Which Way Did They Go? Dave Powell	Moving and Stationary Modes Roll 1-4 to change to Stationary	-	-2 from Acceptance number for orders issued from a moving HQ	Army commander must stack with AHQ
Back at Headquarters Thomas Prowell	Deployed or undeployed. 3 MP to change. Movement controlled by orders. May become disorganized.	Only corps commanders within 8 MPs of Corps HQ may roll.	Force points renewed and spent each day. Order distortion causes additional delay.	+1 to Acceptance number is Army commander stacks with AHQ.
Scott Johnstone (letter from Perry Andrus)	HQs may not stack, must stay on roads. Movement usually prohibited.	-	Army Commander must be at AHQ to send AW or AO orders.	Corps commanders must stack with corps unit or AHQ.