Bellwright Guide | How to Complete the Break Free: Padstow Regional Quest

Liberating your first settlement is a great boost to morale, but the real fight against Lord Ashbourne has only just begun. The crown is going to beef up the rest of its territories and aggressively at that. So your next target needs a lot more tactical prep and a lot more raw military force." Padstow is the second key step in your continental campaign, a heavily guarded industrial center that your growing rebellion sorely needs.

This one is a full opening for the mid-game tech tree, and your central headquarters will have access to high-end metallurgy and strong stone architecture. But the occupying garrison on this land is a lot better than the simple thugs you fought at the beginning of the tutorial. If you attempt to launch the liberation sequence without completely overhauling your militia's equipment, your allied forces will be slaughtered in a catastrophic battle.

How to be a Protector in Padstow

You have to win the hearts and minds of the population before you can declare open hostilities against the occupying crown forces. You reach this vital community tipping point by methodically completing various peripheral side missions, providing asked-for bulk resources and unlocking local highwayman blockades. To get this regional rebellion going, all you need to do is max out your localized reputation meter to the coveted Protector status.

Once you have officially achieved the rank of Protector, you will need to go to the center of the village and find the local elder. If you sit the elder down and speak to him in private, he will tell you that the local workers are finally ready to throw off their chains and fight back. He will officially give you the quest Break Free: Padstow and ask you to physically manifest their newfound defiance.

Military Infrastructure Upgrade Tier Two

The technology cliff between the starting zone and this second territory is huge, and you’ll have to completely rethink your manufacturing capabilities. Use the skilled apprentices you recruited earlier to build advanced weaving looms, professional tanning racks, and stone smelting furnaces. Setting up these automated production lines guarantees a steady flow of refined materials to outfit a professional standing army.

Fighting the elite Padstow guards with primitive wooden clubs and tattered cloth garments is a tactical death sentence. Your craftsmen will have to work day and night to turn raw animal hides into thick, hardened leather plating for your front-line shieldbearers. The overall infrastructure of your camp dictates how well your troops will survive the massive skirmishes to come.

The Making of Copper and Bronze Weapons

At the very least, you need to equip your soldiers with quality metal weaponry to survive this particular territorial dispute. Construct fortified mining outposts in the rocky ridges of the south to regularly harvest rich veins of copper and raw tin ore. You then smelt these raw minerals together in your advanced furnaces to create durable bronze ingots that can be hammered into lethal broadswords and heavy maces.

These metallic weapons do far more posture damage than basic wooden tools, allowing your troops to quickly break an enemy's defensive guard. You should also spend a good deal of your metal reserves in making reinforced copper arrowheads for your rear-guard marksmen. The elite crown soldiers guarding the village center wear thick chainmail that a concentrated volley of metallic arrows can easily penetrate.

Creating a Militia of Revolutionary Resistance

To get into this massive engagement, you will need a much larger military footprint than your previous encounters in the peaceful starting valleys. Community veterans strongly advise assembling a combat squad of 12 or 15 well-armed villagers before initiating the final assault. Your frontline fighters should wear heavy padded gambesons and carry strong wooden shields to absorb incoming directional damage.

Meanwhile, your rear guard should consist of five to six committed archers with heavy ash bows and dozens of metallic arrows. You will have to check the load-out of each and every companion in your active warband to ensure no one goes into battle empty-handed. Prevent catastrophic defensive failures in the chaos of street-level fights by swapping out any damaged shields and frayed bowstrings before departing your base.

Maximizing High Quality Nutrition

To ready your soldiers for a major territorial siege of this scale takes more than just doling out pristine armor. You have to keep a tight rein on the food the whole squad eats, as the game has very punishing stamina and health mechanics. Feed your troops a high-quality combination of thick meat stews and canned fruit jams and you’ll greatly expand their foundational survival pools.

These important food buffs also give crucial percentage-based modifications to their overall combat stats, allowing them to wield their heavy weapons without pause. If you don’t feed them enough, your fighters will be dangerously fragile, their blocking posture collapsing after a few parries. Take a few seconds to quietly check your team members’ active dietary modifiers to ensure everyone is in peak physical condition.

Building the Padstow Belltower

Now you must construct the physical symbol of the rebellion with your heavily armed militia, safely beyond the village's borders. The village elder will specifically request that you build a massive Village Belltower within the specified boundaries of Padstow. To get the architectural blueprints needed for this building, you must go to the advanced research table located in your main Village Hall.

Building the massive belltower requires quite a number of refined materials, which you’ll be gathering from your various automated production outposts. You have to physically carry a big bundle of raw logs, braided rope, copper nails, and hard wooden planks to the actual building site. Luckily, the neutral local villagers will be more than happy to help your character hammer the wooden frame together to speed up the building process.

Initiating the Uprising and Cleaning out the Garrison

Building the structure has the settlement in a very volatile state, but the actual violence doesn't start until you physically ring the bell. You are to exercise the utmost restraint and not engage the hanging rope until your personal military force is in position nearby. When your troops are well-fed, well-armored, and well-ordered on the main road, go boldly up and sound the alarm.

This deafening action instantly flips the village to an active rebelling state and the local heavily armed brigand guards draw their weapons. The first garrison usually comprises ten heavily armored soldiers who will charge your central position as soon as they hear the chime. Funnel the charging brigands artificially into a highly concentrated defensive chokepoint using the narrow pathways between the local houses.

Getting Ready for the Elite Reclamation Party

Clearing the first town garrison always gives a false sense of security, as the immediate chaos suddenly falls quiet. But Lord Ashbourne is not a man to give up his enormously profitable industrial territory without a huge and unbelievably bloody counterattack. The game will send a heavily armored elite Reclamation Party from the far-off Brigand Headquarters to reclaim the settlement in a few seconds, in silence.

This is a secondary invading force, much larger, with better metallic weaponry, and far more dangerous than the regular guards you just beat. The worst tactical mistake you can make is to wait inside the dense village center for the Reclamation Party to arrive. Fighting amongst the civilian housing will cause massive collateral damage, actively lowering the town's overall prosperity rating as local structures are destroyed.

Ambushing the Enemy Outside the Village

Your surviving squad must quickly move out of the town's borders to save Padstow's valuable infrastructure and innocent lives. Usually, when you bring up your map interface, it will show the approaching trajectory of the incoming enemy warband as it marches aggressively across the open wilderness. Instead, you move your forces to meet them in the fields around. This avoids the chaotic urban warfare that typically results in heavy allied casualties.

Look for natural choke points in the environment. A few trees together, a very narrow bridge. Use those to form your defensive line before the gigantic enemy arrives. Having the hostile forces march through deep mud, or around massive boulders, breaks up their organized formations before the melee even starts. The judicious placement of your frontline shield wall means it isn't completely submerged by their numerical advantage.

Volley Fire and Tactical Positioning

Once the elite Reclamation Party comes into visual range, order your frontline troops to form a rigid, immovable defensive wall. You need to keep the aggressive melee fighters from breaking ranks and charging blindly into the middle of the organized enemy formation. Let the enemy brigands come to you, but have your faithful rear guard shower them with a constant barrage of metal arrows.

The concentrated archery fire is absolutely devastating against advancing infantry, often breaking their armor plates before they can even swing their swords. In this chaotic opening exchange, pay particular close attention to the enemy archers at the back of their marching column. You need to actively flank the enemy line to get rid of their marksmen (one unchecked enemy archer can mow down your tightly packed squad).

How to Handle Stamina and Aggression in Melee

And when the two lines of infantry advancing finally meet, the fight is a brutal test of stamina management and posture-breaking. Keep your own reinforced shield up tightly to take a barrage of hits, counterattacking only when the opponent is out of their green energy bar. You have to keep an eye on the health bars of your allied friends and intervene if you see a friendly fighter getting surrounded.

The elite crown soldiers who guard the vanguard are very easily staggered by heavy downward strikes with a metallic mace. If you completely run out of stamina, then use a backward evasive roll to temporarily retreat behind the safety of your allied shield wall. It's important to manage your spatial awareness so you don't inadvertently isolate yourself from your squad's protective healing radius.

Securing the Battlefield and Plundering the Dead

When the last member of the dreaded Reclamation Party bites the dust, a triumphant, obvious notification will flash right across your screen. In this critical sector, the oppressive forces of the crown have officially been broken, permanently changing the map of territorial control in your favor. Spend a few minutes carefully and undisturbed searching the bloody battlefield, looting the fallen brigands for essential mid-tier survival gear.

These elite enemy soldiers have great value loot tables, often dropping pristine chainmail scraps, stolen silver coins, and heavy medicinal bandages. Getting these valuable salvaged materials back to your main base will greatly accelerate your progress toward tier-three architectural blueprints. With your backpack packed to the brim and your surviving troops bandaged up fresh, strut back into the liberated village with confidence.

Confirming the Liberation with the Village Elder

Head back to the busy town square and talk to the village elder again to officially complete the regional liberation quest. The elder will be immensely emotionally grateful for your spectacular martial prowess and will declare Padstow a free and allied territory. This crucial conversation sequence automatically triggers a massive roll of local notoriety, solidifying your status as an unstoppable revolutionary commander.

Your character will actually start to be seen by the local civilian population as their rightful lord and protector rather than a wandering outlaw. This is a complete reversal of local politics that officially removes hostile crown patrols from the immediate vicinity, making regional exploration much safer. Your sprawling rebellion now physically controls two major population centers, providing you a massive economic engine to fund your ongoing continental war.

Advanced Apprenticeships Padstow – Demystifying

The full liberalization of this industrial center completely transforms your base-building economy by opening up highly advanced strategic recruitment options. You are now officially permitted to recruit the highly specialized tier-two apprentices resident in the Padstow population. You can fully automate your complex mid-game manufacturing economy by having access to expert blacksmiths, weavers, farmers, and other specialists.

In addition, once you attain maximum trust status, local village merchants will be required to provide you with full access to their premium inventory stores on a daily basis. You will finally have reliable trading access to important agricultural seeds, rare knowledge books, and heavy metal ingots that were previously strictly restricted. Use these new logistical advantages and heavily fortify your current borders before you go for the next occupied territory. 

Also, check out our Bellwright Review and other guides:

• Bellwright Guide | How to Complete The Sigil: Padstow Discovery Quest
• Bellwright Guide | How to Complete the Time Has Come: Haerndean Liberation Quest
• Bellwright Guide | How to Complete The Sigil: Haerndean Investigation Chain
• Bellwright Guide | How to Complete the Ancient Legacy Quest
• Bellwright Guide | How to Complete the Hunter and Hunted Quest