Letters to the Editor

from the readers

Dear Dave,

Here's my renewal. Keep up the good work! I especially like the Letters column.

Is anyone out there still playing Rally Round the Flag? It's by far my favorite set of rules, like Johnny Reb without the complexity.

You might want to encourage War Between the States gamers to visit, or better yet, participate in historical reenactments. You can learn as much in a weekend of humping a rifle-musket as you can in a year of reading. Have you ever thought about including a calendar of some of the bigger reenactments in various parts of the country? You might wish to contact Rick Reating, Reenactor's Journal, P.O. Box 1864, Varna, Illinois, 61375, (309) 463-2123 for permission to print parts of his calendar.

Thanks for all the effort!

Louie Hardaway

You're not the only one who likes Rally Round the Flag, Louie. Our friends in Victoria, Texas have used those rules for many years! Editors.

Dear David,

I want to comment on Mark Serafin's article, "Order Marking in Johnny Reb." I understand why he is writing his orders. One of the reasons I play JR2 is because I don't have to write orders. The order chits are one of the nicest features of the game. Our group has played very large scenarios (forty to fifty regiments per side) and have had no problems using chits. I would like to comment on some of the problems he has with the chits.

"The tendency for confusion to arise when units become crowded into a small area . . ."

Comment: In my many years of playing, I hardly remember this happening. I recommend that in some cases you give a single brigade order, if every regiment in the brigade is going to do the same thing. Keep your chits to the sides of the command bases of your regiments. Also don't leave chits from a previous turn on the table; remove them after every turn.

"They [the chits] get lost . . ."

Comment: I guess maybe the old olive green chits from JR1 can be hard to find on certain surfaces. The brighter green chits from JR2 probably also disappear on other surfaces. We use Geo-Hex, and it just simply hasn't been a problem. As far as forests are concerned, we do not use lichen. We do use trees, but we have found that outline the borders of the forest with dark green yarn (using your scenario map as a guide) works quite well. It clears up some of the clutter, leaves no questions as to whether units are in forests or not, trees can be temporarily removed in order to move units through the forests, and units can still be marked and found with chits without getting them lost.

"Never enough chits . . ."

Comment: This can be a serious problem and was for us until we recruited more players and badgered them until they bought copies of the rules themselves, including those who had old copies of JR1. Out of twelve of us, I think we ended up with five or six copies of the rules. Then we pooled all of our chits together, put them in clear containers, and set them around the table, not on the Geo-Hex. If there aren't but two or three players, I'd suggest ordering some blank wargame counters from Avalon Hill and marking them by hand. (It only has to be done once.) I wish we could order JR2 counters sheets from GDW, but I was told by our local game retailer that you can't. Is that correct?

"They clutter the table . . ."

Comment: Yes, I agree they do. I do not like clutter on the table either, be it rulers, charts, dice, etc. We recently bought an additional table to game on and left some space around the table on which to place gaming accessories (like beer and pretzels. Chits and markers (for casualties, shaken status and routs) are considered by many gamers to be a necessary evil, and I suppose it all depends on the tastes of the gamers involved whether chits are preferable to written orders, both for visual effect and gaming convenience.

How do you handle hidden movement without chits? Mark's idea of writing orders of battles ahead of time is good. Our group takes scenario orders of battle, substitute the names of our units, and gives each side a copy of this information; this cuts down on confusion.

I think the key to playing the larger scenarios using JR2 is to have a good ratio of players to units. In games with fifty regiments on a side, no more than three brigades per person is good. But if only two people are trying run ten brigades of five regiments each, along with thirty or forty gun sections, that situation can quickly get out of hand. With enough players, it's easy to play such a large game.

Any changes to a regiment's status (morale, ammo, etc.) can be recorded directly onto a player's OB. It really comes down to whatever works for you and your fellow gamers, but for us, the chits work just fine.

Now that the chit has hit the fan, and having just voiced my opposition to written orders, let me say that in campaign games, written orders are the way to go.

Last year, we played our first Shenandoah Campaign System (SCS) campaign game. It was obvious from the start that we needed some standardized way of record movement for the strategic board. This helps players keep track of fatigue, building works, etc., and provides the umpire with a way to mediate any disagreements. The forms I devised are similar to the one Mark uses in JR. But in SCS, movement is regulated by movement squares and is very simple when compared to JR2. if you can keep the brigade-to-player ratio at a non-confusing threshold, it works quite well (on this level) with SCS. This is assuming you use an umpire, which I strongly recommend. There are two forms: a unit (or regimental) form and a brigade form. Perhaps some are playing larger campaigns who make use of the unit form.

David Hoover
Amarillo, Texas

Dear Dave,

Here is some errata for the "Turning the Tables" article which appeared in the Spring 1995 issue of The Zouave. The modifier for "in columns" should be +1, not -1! I hate it when that happens!

Steve Fratt
Wildwood, Illinois

Note: This correction was made in the original chart by MagWeb.--RL

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