STRATEGIKON SERIES · THIN RED LINE GAMES

SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM: Turn 2, December 50 BC

Pictorial After Action Report ·

BigBoard Gaming · @wargamer · October 2026

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TURN 2 · DECEMBER 50 BC · Populares

An event card popped up. No effect, too early in the cycle for morale etc to be noteworthy.

I mentioned in last post that the strategy to reduce pools might be worthwhile. There are subtleties to this… that we will see.

Caesar takes on two Triremes and a Veteran Legion the XX th during recruitment.

For a while I thought raising troops couldn’t be simultaneous, because I couldn’t find a way to decide who would go first in a province. Turns out it is simultaneous, and the rules do decide: the faction with the highest morale goes first. For legions in the same province, the higher-morale side recruits first (25.4.10). For other units drawn from the same pool, the two sides alternate one unit at a time, higher morale first (25.3.6). FUBAR not quite averted. Got to keep it real with you lads.We setup a shipping lane on the Adriatic. Pushing supply to aid Caesars plans.

Corfinium is our initial target. Why? Because it puts me roughly between Rome on the other side of the Peninsula, and the South-East coast for a jump to Macedonia. Keeping Optimates side guessing as to intent.

We merge the now fresh Legion from last turn with Caesars forces pay for supply and then march with Caesar [as a continuation, of the first groups move, picking him up along the way. ] Caesar seeks surrender from the forces and Garrison. Who decline respectfully to do so.

Caesar’s army against L. D. Enobarbvs at Corfinium

Caesar, knowing that the weather not getting any better and the time is short, orders an assault. This uses more MPs, and requires more supply, raised via forage and the supply base.

The Garrison and forces total 35 combat value vs 69. A mere 1:1. Caesar realizes that this will require his deft leadership, and personally takes command of the assault. This gives the Populares +5. With an EIGHT rolled the town falls with barely a scratch. 1/1 is the combat result.

Enobabus a some what hapless leader offers his surrender on a knee. Caesar pardons him. There are ten stacking points of Roman legionnaires, and 2 of barbarians. Caesar executes the barbarians to make a point about fealty. Two stacking points of the least worthy and fit men are told to retire and return to their homes. The balance joyfully settle into the XIII and VIII legions replenishing their reduced numbers.

Morale changes? Caesar and his men are buoyed by the ease of victory, low death toll and successful month of campaigning. The province of Corfinium is under his sway, + 2 for capture of a city, but -2 for the attrition that will occur at turns end. Ney zero change.

Morale: Populares: 62 Optimates: 48

Corfinium taken: Caesar’s stack and the requisition marker

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Army 3 Moves.

They approach Rome which has no fortifications. But does have a Legion installed, and its inherent garrison.

They elect to stand and fight. The battle rruns for three rounds  with victory going to Populares. Pompeus Jnr is captured as is Varus.

Populares force losses- Italia now falls to Caesar and we need to update Morale again.

+5 for half the tax value of the Province of Italia. +2 for the battle.

The fight for Rome

Rome turned out to matter more than I realised. Duh..sigh…Control of the province of Italia rests on holding Rome, not on holding every city down the peninsula, so losing it is a bad thing for whoever owns it. And Rome is not a walled city. It is an open city, so there is no siege or assault to go through, just a field battle.

When Army 3 came down on Rome, my first instinct was to preserve the force. Both sides had basically one legion and a couple of auxiliaries, it was going to be one-to-one, and I did not want to bleed steps. I made the retreat-before-combat roll and could have slipped back to Neapolis. Then I thought it through again. Rome was the point, so everyone stood.

The rout levels came out at four for the Populares and three for the Optimates, set by how much of each faction’s strength was in the fight against its overall morale. The Optimates leader rates one step better than mine, but in a plain land battle that gives no modifier, so it was close to a straight roll. The first two rounds each cost the defenders a step and cost Populares nothing. Then it got bloody. Three-step results went both ways, Populares mercenaries went first, and the Optimates hit their rout level. The cavalry with Army 3 and having three or more subcommanders more than the enemy each earned a modifier. By the last round it was two-to-one Populares way, and that pretty much demolished their force.

With that force gone, Italia passes to Caesar: and as mentioned above plus five morale to the Populares, minus five to the Optimates. One thing I am still checking is whether a rout roll is made every round once a side passes its rout level, or whether the side just breaks. [That’s a comment from the video – yes each round as the rout level changes we roll. The wording here and structure of the Rout Rule is odd to me.]

Recruitment, both sides at once

December’s strategic phase has both factions recruiting at the same time, and it dawned on me that there is an advantage in being greedy: draw down every available legion recruit up front. The trade-off is the talents it costs to do so. Spend them early and you may not have the money to run out the rest of the game or buy what you need later, and in the longer game you have to pay maintenance. It is a game within a game. Caesar raised another legion and bought the last two triremes in Italia. On the other side, the Optimates get Legion X raised in Macedonia along with triremes and heavy cavalry, which will make it harder for Caesar to cross the Adriatic and gives Pompeius a way over to Greece [Greek States]. I am reading the recruitment pool and the faction pool as linked: you can only raise as many legions as the faction pool holds, gated again by the scenario’s recruitment points.

Reading the victory conditions, again

I had convinced myself Caesar could not win this in the turns left: three, by my count. Then I reread the victory conditions. The Populares need only one of the prerequisites, not all of them.
That changes the plan.
Option one is to take Italia, Sicilia and one of the Gauls, which sounds easy until you look at getting a fleet down to Sicily.
Option two is to keep the Optimates under 30 stacking points of land units in Macedonia by game end. They have 12 there now, ten legion points and two of heavy cavalry.
So Pompeius has to get to Macedonia and raise more, and Caesar has to land there and keep the number down by taking cities and closing off the places he can raise from.
Thus –
Race troops to Sicily, or risk Macedonia: lots of moving parts for both sides. It is also a more procedural game than most, and you have to stay on top of the sequence. I love this to an extent. Identify where you think you want to be as an ‘end state’ then work backwards. Forces required and ability to buy, supply needs per turn, baggage trains? Supply depots? Shipping? Excellent.

With all of that in mind the easy path is to send Caesar and as many guys as possible to Macedonia. – Damn the attrition, and attack, attack, attack. Take small towns so they cannot raise forces and either rasie more than them to reduce the pool or eliminated more so the Optimates stay under 30 size steps and Caesar wins…well unless he dies.

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END OF TURN · SUPPLY

End of turn note for Supply considerations and this is done out of order from sequence of play – The Final Supply check, is a serious bit of business for Caesar. He has a huge army in one area, that required significant resources. He will forage for 2, requisition and pay for 2 more from the city just conquered, leaving 2 more to be supplied [59 Stacking Pts] . In the final analysis, he rolls and must lose 15% of those not supplied. 3 stacking points worth [1 full unit [a convenience not 100% accurate via rules] and a flip]

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT · CORFINIUM,

The same month, the same town

February 49 is when the real Corfinium happened. Caesar marched down the Adriatic side through Picenum, collected the 12th Legion on the way, and found the first serious resistance of the war at Corfinium (Landmark Civil War 9.15–9.16; Goldsworthy, ch. XVIII).

Who was inside

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the Optimates’ choice to replace Caesar in Transalpine Gaul, had not got anywhere near his province. He held Corfinium with, in Caesar’s words, “more than thirty cohorts and a large number of senators and Roman equestrians” (9.17.2). Plutarch also has “thirty cohorts” (Caesar 34). Goldsworthy adds that “these were entirely raw recruits” (ch. XVIII). Around twenty of those cohorts Domitius had raised himself from the Marsi, the Paeligni and the country round Alba, probably from his own clients (9.15.7 and note).

Pompey had not wanted him there. His reply to Domitius’ appeal for help said “he was not going to put his cause at ultimate risk; that it was not upon his advice, and in fact was against his will, that Domitius had gone to the town of Corfinium” (9.19.4). Goldsworthy’s point is that Pompey “had no power to issue orders to Ahenobarbus and could do no more than send letters.” The game gives Enobarbus his own army counter, separate from Pompey’s stack. That is the history.

No assault was needed

The real Caesar never stormed the walls. His men drove Domitius’ cohorts off the bridge three miles out, Antony took Sulmo seven miles away without a fight, and within three days the 8th Legion arrived with twenty-two cohorts from Transalpine Gaul and about three hundred horse from the king of Noricum (9.16–9.18). Caesar then put a rampart and forts round the town. The Landmark notes estimate it at about five miles, half the length of the lines at Alesia (9.18 n.).

The garrison did the rest. When Domitius was caught planning his own escape, his soldiers held a meeting, arrested him, and sent word to Caesar that they would “open the gates to him, carry out his orders, and hand over Lucius Domitius alive into his power” (9.20.5). The whole business took seven days (9.23.5). Caesar kept the army out of the town overnight because he did not trust his own men in dark streets (9.21.2). The 8th Legion at my table is the same 8th that marched in to close the ring in February 49.

Domitius on his knee

The surrender was less dignified than the game makes it. Plutarch says Domitius “asked his physician, who was a slave, for a poison; and taking what was given him, drank it, intending to die.” When he heard of Caesar’s clemency he regretted it, and the physician told him “what he had drunk was a sleeping-potion and not deadly; whereupon Domitius rose up overjoyed and went to Caesar” (Caesar 34). Goldsworthy notes that Caesar’s own portrait of Domitius “is scarcely flattering, but our other sources were even less kind.”

Caesar pardoned him, as he does here. He went further than that. Domitius had brought six million sesterces of public money for his troops’ pay, and when the town’s magistrates handed it over, Caesar gave it back: “he did not wish it to appear that he had been more moderate in dealing with men’s lives than with money” (9.23.4). The Landmark notes flag that Cicero heard the money was not returned (9.23 n.). Domitius took the pardon and went straight back to fight for Pompey (Plutarch, Caesar 34; Goldsworthy, ch. XVIII).

What happened to the men

Caesar had the soldiers swear the oath to him (9.23.5). He did not fold them into his veteran legions. Those cohorts went “straight from Corfinium to Sicily” (9.25.1) and later fought under Curio in Africa, where they met some of their old officers on the other side (9.23 n.). All the senators, knights and young nobles taken in the town were let go unharmed (9.23.3).

That was policy, not softness. The Landmark editors call the clemency “sensational” in its effect on public opinion (9.23 n.). Goldsworthy: “Everyone had expected him to behave like Sulla or Marius,” and “his policy of clemency made practical sense” with an Italian population that mostly did not care who won.

Supply at Corfinium

The supply check at the end of this turn has a match in the source. Caesar stopped a day at Firmum “to take care of the grain supply” before hurrying on (9.16.1). In his first days outside Corfinium he was “bringing in grain from neighboring towns” (9.18.4). Domitius’ plea to Pompey was built on the same weakness: Caesar “could easily be cut off by their two armies because of the narrow passes, and his grain supply could be blocked” (9.17.1). A big army sitting in one place for a week had to be fed, then and on this map.

The slap to Pompey

The morale swing has its echo too. Plutarch: “When tidings of these things came to Rome, men were made more cheerful, and some of the fugitives turned back” (Caesar 34). Goldsworthy says the stand at Corfinium “wasted the equivalent of three legions”, and that “one senator acidly suggested that maybe it was about time the great man started stamping his foot.” Pompey left Luceria for Brundisium as soon as he knew Domitius was trapped (9.24 n.).

The cost to Caesar was time. The Landmark notes make the point: although Domitius acted against Pompey’s orders, “the seven days of delay he caused in Caesar’s pursuit of Pompey proved crucial” (9.23 n.). Caesar reached Brundisium on 9 March and Pompey got away across the Adriatic on the night of the 17th (Goldsworthy, ch. XVIII).

Rome, which nobody defended

The real Rome fell without a fight, and much earlier. When news of the advance reached the city in mid-January, “a sudden panic seized the city.” Caesar has the consul Lentulus opening the inner treasury for Pompey’s funds and then taking “headlong flight out of the city” before it was emptied (Landmark Civil War 9.14.1). The Landmark editors call that story “hardly credible” (9.14 n.). Pompey had left the day before. Goldsworthy: “Pompey quickly realised that at present he simply did not have the forces to stop Caesar,” and Rome “had been abandoned by all senior magistrates” (ch. XVIII). Caesar did not reach the city until after Brundisium, and convened what was left of the Senate on 1 April (9.32).

Sicily and Macedonia

Both of this game’s roads to victory run where the real war went next. Pompey’s plan was to leave Italy altogether and build an army in Greece with the eastern provinces behind him (Goldsworthy, ch. XVIII). Sicily went to Caesar without a battle: when Curio landed with the three legions made from the Corfinium cohorts, Cato denounced Pompey for starting a war unprepared, “and fled from his province” (9.30.5; 9.30 n.). Caesar wanted the island for its grain. Pompey meant to starve Italy by cutting its supply from the provinces (Goldsworthy, ch. XVIII).

[KEV NOTE: the paragraphs above are history only. Two table choices are yours to comment on or leave alone: executing the barbarian contingent and sending two points home, and folding the Corfinium men into the XIII and VIII instead of shipping them out the way the real cohorts went to Sicily.]

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REFERENCE

The Landmark Julius Caesar: Civil War 9.14–9.25 (Book 1.14–1.25), with editorial notes.

Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus: ch. XVIII, “Blitzkrieg: Italy and Spain”.

Plutarch, Life of Caesar 34–35 (trans. B. Perrin, Loeb, 1919).

First Man in Rome Scenario booklet v8, Scenario I; Rules v39.

Read the narrative version on Substack → bigboardgaming.substack.com coming soon.