Like the rest of the Imperium, the borders and planets that make up the homeworlds of the Ultramarines have been eroded over time, but with the return of the Chapter’s Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, the time has come to push back against their enemies. But who should lead this campaign? Captain Titus has been chosen, freshly promoted out of Space Marine 2, to his former rank. Titus deploys with a new entourage to back up his new title of Master of the Watch and faces off a new Necron threat. In this article, we check out the new Warhammer 40K 500 Worlds Titus campaign books, and the new miniatures for Captain Titus, and 2 Necron enemies.
We’ve been covering Warhammer 40K for a while on the site, and you can check out our full Warhammer 40K Guide, our preview for the Leviathan box that launched the latest edition of the rules, or the most recent wave of Ultramarines and Space Marine reinforcements.
The 500 Worlds
Most Space Marine legions have a home base, either a world from which they exclusively recruit from, or a ship where they live nomadic lives, recruiting suitable candidates wherever they can find them. Before the events of the Horus Heresy, the Ultramarines had an entire sector of planets, known as the 500 Worlds, or simply Ultramar.
The Ultramarines still recruit and manage this sub-sector of space, but their empire has shrunk over the last 10,000 years, eroded by enemy forces from without and emerging cults from within. Now, the time has come to reclaim it all.
The Campaign Books
With the return of the Chapter’s Primarch (in 40K 8th edition) and after starting his new Lord Commander duties, for which the Indomitus campaign still takes up a lot of his time, he has started a new campaign to regain these 500 worlds. Missions of reclamation have been given to the Ultramarines and their successor chapters, warriors originally pulled from the same gene-seed as the Ultramarines, but divided into smaller forces to avoid the huge collections of warriors that had such a critial effect during the events of the Horus Heresy.
500 Worlds Titus is a set of 4 linked books detailing the campaign. The first, simply 500 Worlds Titus, details the backgrond for the Ultramar sub-sector and the imperial forces that defend it. This includes some fantastic maps of the sub-sector and the 4 fronts of the campaign, information about 10 Ultramarine successor chapters, and details about Captain Demetrian Titus and his new retinue.
The book also includes background for the Necrons and their place in the sub-sector, along with specific details about the 2 new Necron miniatures we discuss later in this article. The book closes with the narrative around the campaign featuring Titus battling against these new enemies.
The second book, 500 Worlds Titus — War of the Vespator Front, is a full campaign system for fighting linked battles as part of the 500 Worlds reclaimation campaign in the Eastern tetra of the 500 Worlds. In the campaign, players build their forces and create alliances, then battle each other and record campaign points. The book details some unique Vespatro Front events for use in game, along with details of the various theatres of war with terrain guidance and unique twists. The book also has a dedicated mission pack, with 6 new missions to play out the various scenarios in the campaign.
The third book, 500 Worlds Titus — Dread Incursions, entirely focuses on boarding actions, which is one of my favorite ways to play Warhammer 40K. The book includes rule adaptations for boarding action missions, 2 brand new boarding action detachments, Shield of the Void for the Ultramarines, and Harbinger Cabal for the Necrons. It also includes 3 campaigns of linked missions that use the 12 missions included in the book.
The final book, 500 Worlds Titus — Detachments, is a 16-page booklet with new Detachments for both the Space Marines (Orbital Assault Force, Bastion Task Force, and Reclamation Force) and Necrons (Pantheon of Woe, Cursed Legion, and Cryptek Conclave). All of these Detachments are available in the newly updated Space Marine Faction Pack and Necron Faction Pack. Detachments are new with this edition of 40K and give unique special rules for your forces, and usually some restrictions on the units you can take.
Captain Titus and Friends
Titus returns to 40K as a Captain, with a new entourage in tow. Previously available as Lieutenant Titus as a limited edition miniature (and in the Space Marine II board game), he now returns to his former rank to fulfil his new duties as Master of the Watch, defending the boundaries of the 500 Worlds.
Captain Titus comes in a box of 7 miniatures, which includes Titus and the Wardens of Ultramar — Veteran Sergeant Metaurus (who you might know from the Secret Level episode on Amazon Prime), Ancient Gadriel (whom Titus served with in the Space Marine II video game), Lucia Vestha (plenipotentiary of Ultramar), Astropath Dainal Kornelius, Gaius Silva (Veteran Commodore of the Ultramar Defence Fleet), and Aemelia Minervas (Commander of the 30th Macragge Defence Auxilia).
On the tabletop, Titus is extremely difficult to kill as his Honour of Ultramar ability means that if he would be removed and hasn’t fought yet, on a 2+, Titus can fight immediately after the attack is resolved, and if he destroys a model, he gets D3 wounds back. He can also fight later in the phase as his usual action, but he can only use the Honour of Ultramar ability once per turn.
The Wardens of Ultramar deploy as a unit that Titus can join, and includes all 6 of the Wardens. They all have different armaments and can redeploy 3 units after both players have set up, including putting these 3 additional units into strategic reserves if that suits your plan after seeing how your opponent has deployed. The Wardens can also join another unit, but if they do that, only Titus can join on top (they can’t bring a different Space Marine hero).
C’tan Shard of the Nightbringer and Nekrosor Ammentar
The enemies the Ultramarines face in the 500 Worlds campaign also get some reinforcements. Leading these enemies is Nekrosor Ammentar, a hero of the Destroyer Cult. Nekrosor is rapid, with a 10-inch movement, which is useful as they work best up close. At distance, they have the 18-inch range Enmitic Disintegrators, with 4 attacks, armor piercing -2, and sustained hits 2 for extra damage on 6s. But up close in melee is where they excel, with 2 different attacks for a total of 12 melee attacks, which benefit from Nekrosor’s own Infecious Murder-madness aura that gives nearby Necron units sustained hits 1.
Releasing alongside Nekrosor is a new C’Tan Shard of the Nightbringer miniature, which has had their stats updated alongside the new release. Shard of the Nightbringer is a combat monster. In melee, they can target armored enemies with a strike from their sythe, doing 6 attacks at strength 14, armor piercing -4 and dealing D6+2 wounds each, or sweep attack for hordes with 14 attacks at strength 8, armor piercing -2, dealing 2 wounds each. To add extra killiness for anything that survives that, at the end of the fight phase, any enemies within 6 inches take D3 mortal wounds on a 4+.
Warhammer 40K 500 Worlds Titus Final Thoughts?
I absolutely love this whole campaign. The format of the 500 Worlds campaign book is fantastic, with the background, campaign, boarding actions and new detachments, and releasing the new commanders for both forces alongside it makes it feel fresh and exciting. It’s all geared towards Ultramarines and Necrons, so if you don’t play either of those, the narrative, new detachments and new miniatures won’t appeal that much to you, but the campaign gives players of any faction a chance to join, even if you don’t have any Space Marine players as you can just tweak the narrative to a group of aligned forces trying to push back against the borders against another group.
The new miniatures of Titus and the Wardens, C’tan Shard of the Nightbringer, and Nekrosor Ammentar are all fantastic and full of detail. Both Necrons are murder machines on the tabletop, and I love that you can put Titus and the Wardens into another unit that can sit on and dominate an objective, and having to take Titus out twice is a fantastic mechanic that captures the lore-armor for a famous Space Marine hero.
The copies of Warhammer 40K 500 Worlds Titus, Titus and the Necrons used to produce this review were provided by Games Workshop.
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