Location: Near the City of Namur, Belgian Kingdom of the Nervii.
Date: January 19, 53 BC.

Objectives:
- Relieve the siege.
- + Defend the fortress.
- + Conquer or destroy at least 2 enemy villages.
- Quintus Tulius Cicero must survive.
- Titus Labienus must survive.

Unit Control Points: 240/700.
Troop Control Points: 11/50.
Starting units: 2x Archer Cavalry (16), 3x Equites (12), 2x German Cavalry (12), Physician, 2x Messenger, Titus Labienus (Centurion, level 1).
Available units: Archer Cavalry, Auxiliary Archers, Auxiliary Infantry, Balearic Slingers, Equites, Hawk Scout, Legionaries, Physician, Spearmen, Wolf Scout.
Available construction: Assault Ladder, Assault Tower, Ballista, Battering Ram, Catapult, Defensive Tower, repair.

                                  .-'-.
                               .-'     '-.
                            .-'  ~ ~ ~ ~  '-.
                         .-'         *  *    '-.
                      .-'          *  _   *     '-.
                   .-'   . . . .  *  |5| *         '-.
                .-'  . .            *  *  .           '-.
             .-'   .                 .     . . . .      .'-.
          .-' . . . .  +9           .             . +6    . '-.
       .-'  .    _        .         .                      .   '-.
      '-.   .   |4|     .           .   ~~          _      . .    '-.
         '-.      . . .             .      . . . . |3|. . .    .     '-.
            '-.    .    . . . . . .  . . .     .                 . . 1  '-.
               '-.   . .        .   .  .  . . .  .                     .-'
                  '-.    . .   .  .      .      .                   .-'
                     '-.     .   .        .                      .-'
                        '-.  .  .              ~~ ] [ ~~ ~~ ~ .-'
                           '-. 8            ~~       7     .-'
                              '-.     ~~ ] [            .-'
                                 '-.~       _        .-'
                                    '-.    |2|    .-'
                                       '-.     .-'
                                          '-.-'
 _
| | = Village/barracks (may include various defenses).
* * = Fortification/wall.
 +  = Tower (free-standing from village).
. . = Path (minor pathways not shown).
~ ~ = River, sea or lake.
] [ = Bridge or location for bridge.
                                                                          

1 = Start location. Allied Spearmen.
2 = Ariola (Nervii). Population 100.
3 = Basilia (Eburones). Population 300.
4 = Nastum (Treviri). Population 200.
5 = Cicero's Encampment/Fortress. Population 500.
6 = Allied Spearmen/Archers/Hawk Scout.
7 = Allied Spearmen/Legionaries.
8 = Allied Berserkers/Physician.
9 = Allied Spearmen/Legionaries/Archers/Physician.

As soon as you start moving your troops a group of Roman Spearmen will appear on the ridge to the west of the start location. They will head towards the fortress (5 on the map above), albeit via a route that takes them close to point 7, thus avoiding the enemy village of Basilia (3 on the map above). Four further groups of Roman troops appear at different map locations (6-9 on the map above).

Allied troops behave like this: They remain inactive until one of your units comes close, at which point they become active. If you are in control of the fortress, they then come directly under your control. If you are not in control of the fortress, they will head towards the fortress, sometimes stopping to attack enemy units that get in their way.

The mission starts with two new unit types, neither of which can be recruited at the fortress's barracks. German Cavalry function like normal melee cavalry, except they can enter woodland and have a special Impale Charge ability. Messengers conserve stamina when running, so they can run further than other units.

You have a choice of three main strategies for relieving the siege (there are minor variations on each): (1) Follow the group of Roman Spearmen on their circuitous route to the fortress, (2) rush some or all of your troops towards the fortress and ignore the Spearmen, (3) ignore the siege completely at the start, capture a village, train additional troops, then head for the fortress.

The first group of Roman Spearmen head towards the fortress via a point close to 7 on the map above. This avoids the enemy village of Basilia (3 on the map above). Lt_Kerensky warns: "Try not to fight the first Gaul town, they are too many." If the Spearmen are unaided they will almost certainly die after a few battles and never reach the fortress. Instead use your cavalry to chase down attackers and generally help the Spearmen survive. Speed is important. From Centurion: "When you are at the river with the other troops on the other side [7 on the map above], send a messenger to run over the bridge to meet them." Take care because most of the woods contain hostile units capable of killing your Messenger if he gets too close. If you get the timing right, both the initial Spearmen and the new group of Spearmen/Legionaries will march up to the fortress together.

If you wish, send units out to collect other groups of allied troops. For example, split the German Cavalry into a separate group and send them through the woodland on the northern side of Basilia (3 on the map above) to the allied group at point 6 on the map above. This creates two columns of troops to approach the fortress with, which gives more firepower on the ground, but can be hard to manage. Lt_Kerensky writes: "You can always try to reach the fortress with the messenger, evading all enemies. Then you can take command of the defense forces." The main benefit of sending some troops ahead to the fortress is that you gain control of the various groups of allied troops advancing towards the fortress. Remember to re-order these troops once you gain control, since they have a habit of just stopping in the middle of a battle.

The second strategy involves rushing one or more units straight to the fortress. The main advantage is that you gain control of the fortress before the worst of the enemy attacks start, meaning most of the defenders are still alive and both gates are in tact. Nixolus writes: "I ignored the first allies, went directly north toward a watchtower with some more allies [6 on the map above] and continued straight on to the fort." A group of enemy Pikemen and Bowmen guard the approaches, but can be killed using your full starting force. Only single man units (Centurion, Physician, etc) and German Cavalry can complete the journey because of the need to pass through woodland to reach the allied troops. However this relatively modest force can still be highly effective. Stiffler comments: "If you use this method, you can send one of your messengers to some nearby roman troops." A variation on this approach is to send a Messenger directly to the fortress and then use only the fortress's troops for defense. This requires careful use of stamina so as only to run when enemy are close, but just about works. It gets the fortress under your control almost immediately.

An example of the third strategy, from FV Constantinus: "Attack the southern-most village [2 on the map above] and recruit in it for a while. I divided into two forces then. I just broke one Auxiliary Infantry unit off the rest of the army at the village and had them pick up the allies on the ridge on the right side of the map. That force went to the fort." Although the fortress comes under some fairly heavy attacks, it should just about survive, even if you do nothing to help save it. After about 15 minutes the siege will quieten down to nothing. Unfortunately, some of the fortress's most useful defenses (such as its gates) are likely to be destroyed, making it harder to defend. A somewhat underhand variation on this method is to invade two villages prior to relieving the siege. Once you arrive at the fortress the new objectives will have already been met.

Many of the same techniques used in Of All the Gallic Tribes (see above) can be used to defend the fortress. In particular, place archers in the fortress's towers set to 'aggressive' and group up your cavalry into a rapid response force to deal with enemy siege engines and vulnerable bowmen.

Demote some units to create Auxiliary Infantry with which to repair gates. Yes, the fortress has two gates - it is easy to miss one of them... Keeping the gates in tact is very useful, and you should have enough time between attacks to mend them. If the gates are about to be destroyed, consider opening them by sending melee troops through them. This saves the gates (which cannot be replaced once destroyed), even if you take a few casualties (which can be replaced assuming you survive the battle). From bond0bhave: "I was unlucky. As I got to my base the gate in the north was destroyed. Just get some spearman on stationary and have your archers pick off all the enemy archers before they get in range."

A more offensive defense, from blackwulf: "I also placed units in areas (just south of the fort on the hill) where the enemy liked to marshal his forces for an assault - 'cut them off at the pass'."

Use the barracks inside the fortress to replace loses - you can produce new troops as fast as the enemy, and the enemy should be losing more. In between attacks consider sending a Messenger out to collect up the remaining allied troops. Attacks against the fortress never cease, but after about 20 minutes they become sporadic and easy to repel with a handful of archers and melee troops.

Once the attacks against the fortress have quieten down, use a proportion of your forces to capture or destroy two enemy villages. I suggest destroying the villages since this removes the need to defend a second or third location. Nastum (4 on the map above) and Ariola (2 on the map above) tend not to be as well defended as Basilia (3 on the map above), so it is preferable to attack the former pair and ignore Basilia. None of the villages are particularly well defended, partly because the tribes send almost all their new units to attack the fortress. This makes attacking their villages easy.

The most effective way to destroy Nastum (4 on the map above) is to meet up with the allied troops at point 9 on the map above, place archers on the ridge, in stationary mode, and let them burn down the village (from Centurion and bond0bhave). Alternatively, archers on the ridge can be used to damage enemy troops prior to a ground attack.

Written by timski