i just checked:
indeed, in scribus 1.4 multiple duplicate breaks the text chain.
if you use the "simple" duplicate (ctrl-d) the link is kept.
so you can do what is faster for you:
- manually link
- duplicate the first row, move the duplicate (with snapping) to the second row, duplicate the first two rows, move them, duplicate the four rows... move them... and when you have all your rows, link the last ones with the first ones of the each row and the next one.
scribus 1.5 has some big improvements but also lot of small things that have been fixed...
(and, of course, if you're fine with using 1.4 you don't need to move to 1.5 for such small things)