Article by Peter Atkinson

The battle for the Secrets of the Agloraxi was a storm of blood and ambition. The Drakmire Lords in Exile waged war to reclaim their stolen birthright, the Cult of the Agloraxi sought to resurrect the lost empire of their ancestors, and the Free Ghur Corsairs brought fire and ruin wherever they set foot. Alliances were forged and broken, streets ran red, and ancient powers stirred – but in the end, only one banner would stand above the ruins.

Aaaaaaaand that’s a wrap! Our 2025 Matched Play Campaign, waged across three continents, has wrapped up. We can announce that the winners are…

The Drakmire Lords in Exile

So take a bow, as you take back your city! Today’s article – the last in the series – will launch into the story of where each faction finished up. Then we’ll consider how the map strategy developed, take a look at some prizes and reflections on the Campaign itself, and finish up with our highlights from the games played and hobby completed in the Final Round. Spoiler: One big-balled legend managed to complete both Destro battle tactics in a single game.

Ready? Let’s go.

Endgame

The city streets rang with jubilation as the Drakmire Lords in Exile marched through their reclaimed home, banners unfurled, and spells crackling in the air like fireworks. The Ogor mercenaries who had ruled with iron fists and bottomless appetites were gone, their palaces already being ransacked by vengeful citizens. Itzibitzi, resplendent in arcane finery, took to the balcony of the Governor’s Spire and declared the dawn of a new era.

Behind closed doors, however, the wizard’s tone was sharper. “The people cheer today,” Itzibitzi murmured to his inner circle, “but in time, they will grumble. They always do. We must ensure their continued dependence on our beneficence.” A murmur of assent rippled through the gathered Lords, though some exchanged cautious glances.

Meanwhile, in the great square, Grundle lay slumped against a toppled statue, surrounded by shattered kegs and cheering admirers. The Mega Gargant had drunk deep to celebrate their triumph, his laughter shaking the ground as he waved away the worries of tomorrow. But even as the city rejoiced, shadows stretched long. The people cheered, yet their eyes darted warily to the hooded retainers of the new regime, their loyalty absolute and their hands never far from their blades. And at the city gates, where the giant had made his temporary home, a different kind of reverence was taking shape. The people who had feared the Ogors now whispered the name of a new master—one whose hunger for power might, in time, prove just as insatiable.

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The Cult of the Agloraxi had come within a breath of victory. Their banners had once flown over half the Flamescar Plateau, their spectral ancestors had marched beside them, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed the empire of old would rise again. But history had other plans. Their final stand was bitter—Zargon the Virulent wading through corpses, The Red Bull cutting down foes until his blade dulled, and Melek-toth shattering the heavens with his sorcery. And yet, it was not enough. When the dust settled, the city belonged to another.

Their losses were grievous. Zargon, once unshakable, was dragged from his saddle and torn apart by the frenzied mob. The Red Bull was last seen surrounded, his defiance swallowed by a tide of steel. Melek-toth lived, but only just—his staff shattered, his right eye blinded by his own sorcery as he tried to turn the tide. Worse still, the ghosts of their ancestors, once so certain in their guidance, did not return. Had they abandoned the Cult in disgust, or been severed from this world by their descendants’ failure? None could say.

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The Free Ghur Corsairs had set the Plateau ablaze—not in conquest, but in sheer, mindless revelry. They rampaged through the streets, smashing, burning, and bellowing war songs to the darkened sky. It didn’t matter that they’d lost; destruction was its own reward. But as the fires burned low and the blood dried, an uneasy truth settled over them.

The holds of their ships were near empty. The Drakmire Lords had seized the spoils while the Corsairs, lost in their own carnage, had plundered little more than trinkets and barrels of foul wine. Grumbles turned to growls. Growls turned to blades drawn in the dark.

The first blade went into Kaptin Benn’s back, driven there by his own first mate. The second belonged to a Grot named Snaggle, who gutted the first mate before claiming the title for himself. That lasted about three minutes before a hulking brute of an Orruk caved in Snaggle’s skull and roared his own claim. The chaos spread from there. Squigboss Boule and his snarling pack rampaged through the streets, biting and snapping at anyone who looked at them sideways, while Leroy the Troggoth, confused by all the shouting, decided to eat the closest Orruk he could grab.

By dawn, half the crew were floating in the harbour, as the survivors knelt before their new leader Boule. With nothing left but grudges and bad memories, the Free Ghur Corsairs set sail with their diminished fleet, leaving behind a string of ruined settlements. The sea would carry them to new coasts, new raids, and new betrayals.

So how did the map flow in the final round? With the scores on a knife-edge, the Lords in Exile recorded the most wins for Round 4, which gave them the crucial initiative. They leapt through the Realmgate to take the Magebane Dungeons in the bottom-left corner, which hemmed in the Cult of the Agloraxi to the West. They also pushed into the Eyes of the Prismatikon and seized it from the Free Ghur Corsairs, granting them an extra dice in all of their shooting actions – and with the resources they had accrued, they shot up pretty much every territory on the board.

Or at least they attempted to. As GM I rolled the dice for all campaign actions on camera in our Discord, and I shot with all the accuracy and impact of one of these fellas:

It wasn’t a complete failure and the Lords were able to zap a few territories, but it did leave the door ajar for the Cult to punch back. The Cult failed in their attempt to sack the Razorfang Sprawl (which the Corsairs had Fortified) then unleashed all their own sun-lazers on territory held by the Lords. A clean sweep would have been enough to grab a last-minute lead… but they fell just short, and were left sitting one solitary campaign point behind.

So last up were the Corsairs, in the position of King Makers. If they trained their sites on one army they’d be very likely to blast them down into second place. The Corsairs had a robust debate among themselves which ended up in mutiny, and the final outcome was shooting all of their own territories, leaving every coastal settlement they’d touched in smoking ruins as they scrambled back to their ships in disarray. Perfect.

So after 8 weeks and a whole bunch of hobby and gaming, it came down a single campaign point, with the Lords in Exile claiming the win! We had a few cases along where people took their campaign armies to RTTs and recorded 3-0s which was great to see, and even some representation at GTs, but the most important thing is:

We did it.

If you’ve ever ran a Warhammer campaign, you’ll know that their average lifespan is about one-and-a-half rounds before they run out of gas. And while there was a huge variation in how much individual players were able to put in to every round, the team structure and positive-contribution-only scoring meant that the overall campaign kept chugging forward, even if some people couldn’t do much (or anything) in a given two-week round.

So thank you to everyone who took part! Now let’s look at a couple of spot prizes.

Awards

MVP: Most Valuable Pirate

Let’s hear it for P’tit Fut! Undoubtedly the MVP of the whole campaign, contributing massively every week for the Free Ghur Corsairs and almost single-handedly propping up their score. Fut scored maximum points by playing at least one game, plus contributing hobby and narrative, in 4/4 rounds – the only player to do so.

His in-game reward is a promotion to Kaptin for his named character Squigboss Boule, and in real life we already delivered Fut with this very fetching Tricorn hat. Bravo 👏

The “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” Award

And hats off to Hakan, the Winningest Player of the whole campaign. Hakan pitched in a massive 10 Wins¹ with his Campaign army across the four rounds (followed by ThomasX of the Cult of the Agloraxi on 7).

Hakan’s reward was an actual chicken dinner – we grabbed a cheeky Friday KFC, my shout.

Born in Fire, Bound by Blood

There you go Drakmire Lords, I just made you a motto.

We’ll get some medals made up for the winning team. These are still in production, so here’s an artist’s impression for now:

And by “artist”, I do mean “cack-handed blogger with a basic Canva account”.

Memento

And finally, I’ll be leveraging those elite Canva skills to create a poster with the final campaign map in the centre, then around the edges we’ll have photos people sent in of their games, hobby and armies. Selfies that people submitted of themselves at the table, little scrolls with the names of their heroes or key events that happened and so on.  It’s up to each player whether they do anything with it, but my own plan is to get it printed in A3 and frame it as a keepsake.

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So with all that said – let’s catch up on the highlights of that final campaign round, on the tabletop and in the hobby room.

Gaming

Can we just take a moment to appreciate that P’tit Fut managed to score both Destro BTs in the same game? I’ve still never managed the awful Time to get Stuck in!:

Here’s how he did it:

I had my Troggoth in the moon quarter and my Gobbapalooza in the center, with my Cave Shaman just behind. When I announced this tactic, my opponent redeployed the unit I was hoping to charge into. But his terrain was just 1″ away from his initial position. So I ended up being able to charge even with a -1D6 charge debuff on my trolls. Then I Powered Through with the Gobbapalooza to get out of combat range and wholly into enemy territory, and in the following the turn I just charged back in and killed a unit that was engaged to score The Kunnin’ Approach.

So there you go: charging enemy terrain (or Manifestations) is the key to unlocking Time to get Stuck in!

Fut has been playing games with the new Gits Battletome, and getting great results from those Bounderz on the charge with their enhanced charge mortals:

Shoutout to ThomasX who took his campaign army to a GT! ThomasX finished an excellent 11th of 76 players, with his 2-3 gaming result boosted heavily by Best Opponent votes because the bloke’s a legend.

Feedback from his games was that the +1 attack artefact was invaluable in the matchup vs Krondys, and Longstrikes really don’t like seeing their rend getting ignored by Ethereal units!

Graal was typically productive, smashing out 5 wins including a 3-0 result with his campaign army at the Sigmar at the Arena RTT:

And Bingus won a Gargant-off! Turns out his lot were the true Sons of Behemat, and the other mob were just step kids.

Hobby

Xander has been converting himself some techno-barbarians wielding Prismatik rifles. The idea is these are the original Cult of the Agloraxi, the Tzeentch-worshipping survivors of the empire’s downfall, still using ancient weaponry and grafting mechanical parts onto their flesh.

On the painting front, P’tit Fut has been hard at work expanding hit painted Boignrots:

While Furythrow2 cracked out the primary colours for his Swampcalla Shaman:

Campaign

Grundle

Bingus has got a converted Warstomper that’s bang on theme for a Cities-aligned mercenary. Let’s learn more about Grundle:

Grundle the Caskquaffer is a storied mercenary. Starting off as a small gargant, he made a name for himself by going on daring raids in the dark (might’ve been night time, or he might’ve been blind drunk) into encampments of humans and stealing every single barrel and bottle of booze they had. This fierce reputation for drink eventually opened up for some bartering opportunities for Grundle. They usually boiled down to “If you go and smash these guys, we’ll give you as much booze as you want.” Grown tall (and fat) by gorging himself of any food he could find and a near limitless supply of alcohol (mead is his favorite), he cemented his reputation as a fierce mercenary by helping a Dawnbringer crusade lay siege to a chaos fortress.

During this siege Grundle, annoyed by the lack of any proper progress, strode through the fighting masses right up to the portcullis, ripped it out of the building, and rolled it up into a club to batter the manticore that emerged to contest his move. During the fight Grundle lost his left eye but gained both a cool scar, and the undying gratitude of the host whom he helped. The settlers forged for him a giant Greatsword, fit for his massive size, and a hat replete with feathers from the manticore that he slew on that fateful day. Ever since then, Grundle and a few other Mega-Gargants have sold their fighting prowess for the highest bidder (and whoever could supply the most booze.)

So after being driven out of their home city by Ogor gangsters, the Drakmire Lords have invited an alcoholic Mega Gargant inside the city gates instead. I’m sure that will all work out just fine.

And finally, I’ll hand you over to the tireless P’tit Fut for the his own characters’ perspectives on the Corsairs’ final actions in the map campaign:

Going deeper into the land, Sébastien, Boule and Billy paused for a few seconds.

• Weren’t we supposed to be followed by others? Said Sébastien
• Yeah, there were other Gitz and a few Orruks replied Boule
• Where the Fuck are they? Asked Billy
• Grrrroar Leroy ended the conversation, for he didn’t really care for these kind of questions

The next day after there was a crackling of shots fired from afar. Apparently someone fell asleep on a canon and fired on everyone. Deciding to end this little expedition they all rushed back to the ship and to elect a new captain. Someone worthy. All four were grinning, all pretty sure to be the only possible candidate.

Closing Map

Is it time to fire up Green Day now? I think it might be.

Here’s the closing map, with that proud Drakmire crest sweeping right across it:

We’ll be back in 2026 with a whole new campaign. For those of you who’ve followed along, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did playing it – it’d be great to see you join us next year.

Well done and thank you to all who participated and especially to our winners: the Drakmire Lords.

Born in Fire, Bound by Blood

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1. Wins acted as their own in-game currency, with the team who won the most games each Round going first in the map stage. Furthermore, in each map stage, teams with more Wins could take one territory from an opponent with fewer Wins, because shit only rolls downhill. ↩︎