On the way he effected a junction with the forces of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.
This general had been opposed in Westphalia by Pappenheim, but he seized the opportunity when the latter had marched to relieve Maestricht, which was besieged by Frederic of Nassau, to march away and join Oxenstiern.
The Scotch officers Ballandine and Alexander Hamilton were with their regiment in the Duchy of Magdeburg.

When the news of the king's danger reached them without waiting for instructions they marched to Halle and joining a portion of the division of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, to which they were attached, pushed on to Zeitz, and were there joined by the duke himself, who had hurried on from the Lake of Constance, attended only by his guards, but, picking up five Saxon regiments in Franconia.
Together they passed on to Wurtzburg, where they joined Oxenstiern and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

General Banner, with the fourth corps, was at Augsburg, opposed to Cratz, who was at the head of the remains of Tilly's old army.
Slipping away from his foes he marched to Windsheim, and was there joined by a body of troops under Bernhard of Weimar.

The force from Wurtzburg soon afterwards came up, and the whole of the detached corps, amounting to 49,000 men, being now collected, they marched to Bruck, ten miles north of Nuremberg.

Three days later, on the 16th of August, Gustavus rode into their camp, and on the 21st marched at their head into Nuremberg, unhindered by the Imperialists.
Gustavus probably calculated that the Imperialists would now move down and offer battle; but Wallenstein, who had detached 10,000 men to bring up supplies, could not place in the field a number equal to those of the reinforcements, and preferred to await an attack in the position which he had prepared with such care.