Wrapping up The Crusade

A massive thanks to everyone that took part in our 2025 Crusade this year and to Ali & James for their work pushing the narrative and scenarios (and betrayals). We hope everyone had fun, got to build the story behind their own heroes and got to play some interesting scenarios, including custom ones for the final battles!

Below is our final entry of the Certus Crusade on behalf of Ali & James.

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And so the Fires of Certus have settled…

Many were lost. Many were changed. Only some endured.

The Shatter Veil Pact was the first to suffer, reforming under the banner of the Shadow Purge Initiative. The Crimson Pact and the Seduced Panoply amassed their forces and became the Crimson Panoply. The Bug King Alliance fell into ruin as the tendril of Hive Fleet Jarg Brung withdrew from Certus to consume biomass elsewhere. The same fate claimed the Aquilae Liberati, who were doomed from the very start. Beneath the ceramite veneer, their leader was never who he claimed to be.

Only the Dread Mob remained true to its original purpose.

As the flames of war flickered on, the remaining coalitions battled back and forth, each securing a desperate foothold upon the surface of Certus Minor. The Crimson Panoply established their base of operations in the Tomb of Umberto the Second, a rising necropolis and imposing fortress. The Shadow Purge Initiative seized control of Hive Mordigan, relying on the catacombs below to mask the movements of their forces. Ambitious and foolhardy, the Dread Mob took a different approach entirely, splitting its forces between two locations: the Mire of Saint Veyra and the Silent Dockyards.

From a distance, the Shadow Alliance watched and waited. Undetected, its sleeper agents had infiltrated the enemy ranks. Alliances were broken. Trust was stolen. Hope was very nearly lost.

But from the ashes, the survivors rose, growing in strength and in boldness. Slowly, they came to realise the truth. If they did not fight, the Fires of Treachery would consume them all.

In the final battle, every warrior fought, performing mighty deeds as legends were forged in the furnace. But alas, there could be only one victor.

History began to repeat itself. The Shadow Purge was the first to feel the crushing bite of defeat, their forces routed on multiple fronts. Yet flanked by the claws of Hive Fleet Cerberus and the gilded blades of Harkhas Ghau, K’tharax the Ascendant would not be stopped. He continued to march forward. The Dread Mob pressed their advantage, seeking to sweep the planet beneath the Green Tide. Against this onslaught, the Crimson Panoply stood their ground, bravely defending the foothold they had established.

As the battle wore on, the Shadow Purge appeared poised to claim victory. But beneath the flickering flames, the coals of betrayal burned bright and hot. Ambition rose within the heart of K’tharax. Why settle for a meagre alliance? If he took control of the Shadow, he would command a power far greater than any this sector had known.

As fate would have it, another had reached the same dangerous conclusion.

Lucian stood surrounded by darkness. Betrayed by the Archon and her Shield-Captain, the Shadow was now his to command. But Lucian had other plans for Certus. He waited for the Daemon Prince to arrive. To the naked eye, their duel was terrifying and wild, the Warp convulsing upon itself as each drew upon its devastating power. In truth, it was an elaborate illusion. Deceiving the world around them, the great sorcerers had reached an accord. Lucian would relinquish control and continue with his own secret mission, and under the command of a new Shadow Lord, the Shadow Alliance would survive and endure. Unless…

On the other side of Certus, a Sister of Battle completed a daring mission upon which the very survival of the world hung. Turning her back to the monitor, she sank to the ground and let her head fall back, gently striking the cold steel panel. As she sat there, she felt a warmth coming from within the unit as the machine spirits began to power down, their task complete. Her transmission had been sent. All she could do now was pray it would arrive in time.

Elsbeth had uncovered more than she ever expected.

Her fractured message reached the Kommissar just in time, warning him that everything on Certus had been a simple ruse. Mysaria was not on the planet. She had never intended to return. Every skirmish, every feint, every whispered rumour had been carefully crafted to provide the perfect distraction, keeping the alliances away from her true target: the Poisoned Moon of Certus Prime.

Kommissar Grostki, the most kunnin’ mind in the Dread Mob, understood at once. He smiled, appreciating for a moment the dark genius of the Archon. Mysaria truly was a force to be reckoned with. But his appreciation was short-lived. Her deception had to be unmasked. Her design undone. It was time to unveil his creation.

Teleporting directly into the hurricane of soul-winds surging around the cursed moon, the Kommissar and his entourage found themselves caught in a maelstrom of psychic aftershock. The spirits of the fallen howled across the violet skies, their agony fuelling the storm Mysaria now sought to unleash. Purpose-built shields struggled to hold the spectral tempest at bay.

Then, at the centre of that nightmare, in the eye of the perfect storm, Grostki finally beheld the truth.

Archon Mysaria, the true architect of the Shadow Alliance, stood before him amid the broken stone of an ancient Aeldari citadel. Behind her crackled a vast Webway portal, the anchor for the growing storm and her escape from its devastation. At her side stood the Shield-Captain, Aurex Thandros, clad in the same burnished auramite he had borne on the day Grostki and Mysaria had first met him in battle.

This, then, was their final gambit. A soulstorm that would devour Certus Minor, swallowing the alliances and leaving a vacuum of power.

Grotski smiled once more. He no longer concerned himself with their petty schemes, for they had forgotten the most important truth. There was no force in Certus that could stop the glorious REVOLUSHUN!

At his cry, a tide of grots surged forward. Some ran on foot, some advanced in armour, and others were strapped into various kontraptions of extreme lethality. Vrag the Unstompable led the charge, the titanic frame of Grotsk’s greatest creation pushing onward through the screaming winds. The air above erupted as the mechanised horde unleashed a wall of dakka.

Custodians and Drukhari leapt forward, dancing around each other in a dazzling display of gold and white as gilded blades and dark lances tore through heaps of junk. But the Greenskin horde would not be outdone, and the tide of Orks continued to surge forward.

On the fringes of the battle, a shadowy shape slipped unseen through the gloom. Aboard her Raider, the Archon and her Incubi flanked the Kommissar’s forces in perfect silence.

“Come, Kommissar,” she taunted, her voice dripping with venom. “Your end is nigh.”

The strike came with impossible speed.

Little green bodies fell among the cursed stone as Grostki’s bodyguard was cut down. Turning, the Kommissar locked eyes with Mysaria as she raised her weapon, the elegant blade shimmering in the violent light. In that instant, the Kommissar vanished as the air cracked with unstable energy. Mysaria recoiled, seemingly denied her kill. A moment later, the grot reappeared only a few paces away. She turned, but it was already too late. In his little green hands, his weapon was raised, the barrel glowing with his final kunnin’ creation: the Majik Bullit.

The Archon smirked and strode toward him, utterly unaware of her peril.

The Bullet tore through her Shadowfield, shattering it like glass, and buried itself deep in her poisoned heart. For the first time in the conflict, shock and fear crossed her perfect features. The wound severed her control of the ritual, disrupting the final weave of the soulstorm. The devastation meant for Certus Minor died with a whimper as the winds abated around them.

Both combatants collapsed, fatally wounded yet unbroken.

Mysaria dragged herself upright, studying the Kommissar with cold amusement.

“Perhaps death does not suit you,” she crooned. “Oh… Saviour of Certus?”

Her mask could not hide her contempt, nor the flicker of respect beneath it.

“You will be left here, little Kommissar. The alliances are broken. Their trust is shattered. Through my rule, they have learned the only truth that matters. Betrayal is inevitable.”

She staggered toward the flickering Webway exit. Thandros, ever silent and ever implacable, materialised beside her, his auramite armour gleaming despite the storm.

Mysaria paused, coughing blood into the wind.

“It is far more pleasurable to leave you here in the ruins of Certus,” she said softly. “Knowing that everything they built, everything they believed, has come apart.”

The storm weakened. The battlefield lay broken. Her forces withdrew like shadows peeling from stone.

The Archon and the Shield-Captain turned one final time.

“Goodbye, Grotski.”

Then they stepped through the portal, and the moon fell silent.