The 500 Worlds Campaign is upon us and Drawbridge Games is going to be a site of battle for control of the Vespator Front. These are the tentative campaign rules for our store campaign. I’ll be serving as the “Warmaster” for the campaign, as well as being a pinch-hitter for all teams to help fill any gaps when games need to be played. Note that this is a campaign, not a crusade–so we’re not using any crusade rules but will be playing with the rules from the 500 Worlds: Titus set, including the map of the Vespator Front. Players are encouraged to pick up a copy of the set for themselves, as the information on the missions, infrastructure, and theaters of battle that will be affecting games will be in those rules.

NOTE: These rules are tentative, and based around the in-depth rules review from Goonhammer. The Warmaster may change things when we actually get the rules and can read them for ourselves. If players note any changes that would help make it a better play experience, absolutely let me know!

We’ll be having three Alliances that form the teams for the campaign. They are as follows:

Reclaimers are a some-what tense collaboration of forces that are supportive of Roboute Guilliman’s vision of a re-united 500 Worlds of Ultramar. While the Imperial forces are under command to do so, it serves Aeldari, Votann, and T’au interests to let the Imperials bring order to the segmentum in the short term.

Despoilers already lay claim to many of the 500 Worlds, and seek to simply despoil and extract from them. Whether stealing resources or enslaving populations, their goals range from actively warring against Imperial forces to simply spreading destruction to suit the goals of their own personal warlords. These include all Chaos forces, Orks, and Drukhari.

Terraformers represent the grand designs of the Necrons in particular, who have plans for a vast network of energy spanning the 500 Worlds. They’ve developed a new form of beacon/shroud device that allows them to direct splinter hive fleets of Tyranids toward various planets and away from others, as an entirely consumed planet isn’t a particular problem for them as long as it’s not a Necron tomb world. It’s not so much an alliance as the Necrons schemes relying upon a certain amount of sheer natural destruction as Leviathan carves its way through the 500 Worlds.

Each of these Alliances will be given their own Discord channel to conduct their secret planning for the campaign (only the Warmaster will be able to see all three channels). They each will elect (or endorse a volunteer) who will be the Alliance Leader for that Alliance. All members of each alliance will be given a role in Discord that changes the color of their name to show their allegiance as a fun perk on the server.

Each alliance will begin with four Fleets plus two reserve (spare) fleets. Our numbers are a bit higher than what the campaign envisions, so we’ll be flexing this part just a bit–allowing each fleet to represent multiple games. The results of all the games for any given Fleet action will be combined to determine the outcome of that action.

Reclaimers will start with two Imperial Fleets, an Aeldari Fleet, and a T’au Fleet. Despoilers will start with three Chaos Fleets, and a Pirates Fleet (shared Orks and Drukhari). Terraformers will start with two Necron Fleets and two Tyranids Fleets (the latter also including Genestealer Cult uprisings).

In their discord channels (and conveyed to me by each Alliance Leader) each Alliance will determine which planet will be their Stronghold (Power Level 4 and fills an Infrastructure), and then the relative Power Level of all the other planets in the system (three planets at Power Level 3, four more planets at Power Level 2, and the remaining two planets that are Power Level 1). They then will then decide to build three additional pieces of non-stronghold Infrastructure–spots that get attached to planets to provide minor bonuses. From the Goonhammer article: “Strongholds increase your power level when you fight on your home planet. Staging Grounds give you a higher power level as well when you fight on that planet or a connected one. Support Facilities let you count further planets as connected, and Fortifications increase a planet’s minimum Power Level.”

The campaign will begin on Wednesday, January 28th (presuming the 500 Worlds: Titus campaign books are released on schedule on Saturday the 24th, and adjusting if not). Each Alliance will Select Operations to be ready for games to start during the Monday/Tuesday before every Wednesday (or every other Wednesday, we’ll work out the right pace as we go). Each Alliance will get four selections each round (one per fleet). I’ll reveal each on the Wednesday and note which games can be played. If your fleet isn’t attacking on a given selection step don’t fret, anyone from the Alliance regardless of fleet can be a defender. We’ll keep these somewhat loose, so people can arrange games with players who fit their schedules. And players can play multiple games if they wish, it just has to be against different opponents from the opposing Alliance (tho we’ll try and coordinate to ensure everyone who wants a game can have at least one if timings allow). I do ask that each campaign round each Alliance do at least one Battle Operation so we can ensure that everyone who wants to play a game that round has a window to do so. Given that we’ll be doing Select Operations each week it is expected that players may not play every week just from scheduling alone–that’s okay and you’re still a part of the campaign and the alliance whether you get in one battle or multiple battles across all twelve weeks!

Note that there are a variety of missions players can choose when they’re part of a Battle Operation launched by a Fleet–in effect the attacking player gets to decide what sort of mission they’re doing as part of that battle. Alliances can of course discuss what benefits them most on given planets, and players can agree to follow that discussion or not. That gives some control to each player to affect events, and makes it feel like these campaigns are multiple forces that may not always fight in the way the leaders of the alliance wish. Players may want to seek different benefits, or just vary the missions!

Battles can be of any agreed-upon points value between the two players who decide to play. Games of 2,000 points are generally encouraged, but people should have in mind smaller forces and larger forces (if they have them and wish to) to accommodate other players. Even people just starting up a brand new army can still get games in this way. Aim for increments of 500 points, with 500 points being the smallest force for a conventional game of 40k. I say “conventional” because one of the missions is a Boarding Action, and there are likely to be special rules and even smaller number of points for those games when they’re played.

Drawbridge has lots of great terrain, so do your best to follow the rules for the Theatres for the planets being attacked. These determine the sorts of battlefields that are possible, and all have their own fun special rules that affect the games.

Once each game is finished, we’ll have a shared Google Sheet for recording results. In my Warmaster role I’ll go through and record the results and track them on my poster and provide routine updates for all (I think Sean indicated that he would mirror it with an electronic version we can have updated and share, thanks Sean!).

The plan will be to run the campaign for roughly three months at first (12 Select Operations phases), so we’ll have a target date for the Campaign Finale* of sometime around the week of April 15th. If there is continued energy for the campaign at that point, the Finale* will earn its asterisk and become a midpoint mega-battle instead (and we’ll have the fun of plotting another mega-battle to conclude things at the extended time). We’ll conclude the campaign with a Saturday event on April 25th. This will be a mega-battle, where the three Alliances will be deployed across all of the tables at Drawbridge in one final showdown clash representing the campaign’s culmination. Each Alliance’s Campaign Points will be used to determine deployment and missions for this event.

The Finale* (or midpoint) will also be the moment when we’ll do our grand door prize drawing extravaganza for the campaign. Given the scale, we’ll have multiple prizes and entries to the drawing for it will be earned throughout the campaign. Depending on the number of people who participate in the 500 Points for 500 Worlds painting challenge (see here: https://red-ones-go-faster.com/2026/01/08/500-points-for-500-worlds/ ) we’ll either do the drawing for that on that day, or have participants from that be given extra draws in the campaign drawing. But that means April 25th will be the deadline for completing your 500 Points for 500 Worlds entry pledge.

Draws in the drawing will be publicly tracked in the google sheet as well (I’ll lock that page to admin only). They will be one draw for each campaign round the player plays at least one game. One draw for participation in the final mega battle. One draw for fielding a fully painted Boarding Action force the first time it’s fielded. One draw for each newly-painted 500 points of models for the campaign army played, the first time they’re fielded (yes this can overlap with the 500 Points for 500 Worlds challenge, but is also a way to reward people who are tackling their piles of grey plastic as part of this campaign). One draw for painting up a table’s worth of thematic terrain for a particular Theatre and using it in at least one game. A variable number of draws during the Finale* for some player-voted competitions: best sport in each Alliance and best painted army (a scale of draws for first, second, and third most votes in each category). Finally one draw for being on the side of the Alliance with the highest number of Campaign Points calculated for the Finale*. Note that none of these are about winning any one particular game you’re playing, so remember that the spirit of this is fun games and collaborative encouragement of hobbying.

This is a lot of info, and again note that we can adjust it to fit what works best–so if you have any suggestions either now or when the 500 Worlds: Titus materials release, contact me to discuss.

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