Gladius: Gameplay Guide & Campaign Playthroughs

Welcome! This is a work in progress guide that will hopefully help players improve their Gladius gameplay.

Please post comments and help me improve this guide in the upcoming weeks and months!

Initial Sections will be devoted to gameplay and advice while other sections will contain complete campaign playthroughs (some of which end in disaster).

Gladius Reviewed

Gladius is a great game and the first (to my knowledge) 4X Warhammer 40K game ever made!

Strengths

• Factions play and feel distinct and unique
  
• Great sound mechanics (closer you zoom in the louder the gunfire)
  
• Good graphics and animations (for the most part)
  
• Extremely challenging
  
• Intilligent AI (it will retreat to fight another day)

Areas to Improve

• Animations don't line up sometimes or bug out
  
• More factions (though the devs did an excellent job with the 4 in game - hoping for more cough*cough* Tau)

Conclusion: Full-price is well worth it if you love 4X games and the Warhammer 40K universe (like me)! If not, I'd recommend waiting for a sale!

Necrons Impossible Difficulty Campaign

Welcome to the Necron campaign and guide recommendation.

Overall Strategy

My primary initial strategy is to leverage the stronger starting units to expand and capture as many outposts as possible to supercharge my economy as quickly as possible (solid focus on research).

I recommend research focusing on Doom Scythes (great damage and mobility allowing you to hit and run). But before spamming Doom Scythes, I do plan on building a tomb blade or two and an Annihilation Barges. I found that that Doomsday Arks are fantastic and tanky to play the main role until you can pump out Monoliths.

The goal is to have 3-6 Doom Scythes to rotate in and out to focus fire down enemies. I
d recommend getting a Monolith to help you TP in your infantry into the fight In the interim. I also plan on producing 2-3 hero units to help support.

After building 3-4 Dommsday Arks, I focused on pumping out a bunch of Monoliths (literally 4-5). I position these in a wall formation keeping my Annihilation Barges and Doomsday Arks behind them.

At this point, you should be completing research for Doom Scythes. I built 3 Nameless Gateways to pump out Doom Scythes in 2-3 turns. The great mobility and heavy damage allows you to tank with the Monoliths and swing in with Doom Scythes to eliminate virtually any enemy unit.

I'll be playing against this strategy in the upcoming videos. Please post ideas and suggestions as I progress on Impossible mode!

Episode 1 - Starting the Campaign

Episode 2 - Establishing a Second Base

Episode 3 - Building our Forces and Securing our Border

Imperial Guard - Very Hard, Large Map (WIP)

The Basics

The Imperial Guard start off with some of the weakest units in the game making the first 20-30 turns critical to being able to win a campaign.

The Overall Strategy

The Imperial Guard have some of the weakest starting units that are fairly cheap and quick to produce. The key strategy I recommend is keeping multiple units close together and quickly researching Frag and Krak grenades with Heavy Troops in the first phases of the game.

Once you unlock Hydra's and Basilisks, it's easier to start expanding out. I consider the Imperial Guard a "siege" type faction. I'd recommend building a Techpriest and researching Bastions and start deploying them slowly further out securing your border. I'd then leverage the Basilisks and multiple guard units to secure your border and start a 2nd city.

I'd recommend playing defensively adding Leman Russ's and additional armor until you unlock the Bane Blade. From there it's just a matter of pumping out Bane Blades and steam rolling the enemy!

Gameplay and tips for Imperial Guard

Resources

Food - used to support troops
Ore- used to build buildings and vehicles
Energy - used to build Techpriests and support buildings
Research - used to research new technologies and units


Imperial Guard Campaign Videos

Space Marines Campaign (Ends in Disaster)!

Space Marines have a few unique mechanics:

Key Resources:

Requisition - used to acquire infantry, vehicles and aircraft
Energy - used to support buildings
Research - used to determine progress and speed of research
Influence - used to obtain heroes and operations (edicts which are buffs to troops or orbital strikes and deployment of Fortresses of Redemption)

Overall Unit Review - Space Marines have some of the strongest starting units in the form of Tactical Marines. Tactical Marines can carry frag, kraken and melta bombs/grenades and have fairly high hit points. Great starting unit to leverage to take control early game.

I created a few tips and tricks and review of Space Marines. More to come and an update pending after my second Space Marine Campaign!

Tips and Tricks on Space Marines (my humble opinion):

Campaign Playthrough

Space Marines, Hard, Medium Map at Fast Pace

[geraintwd]

Just one thing to note about Thunderfire Cannons (and IMHO the most important reason for building them) is that they are to vehicles what apothecaries are to infantry. The TC has a heal that only affects vehicles.
As I write this, you may already have discovered this, but I thought I'd mention it here as it's not covered in the guide. Thanks for a great beginner's guide, it's been really helpful.

[Shadowcoast]

@george_dupnitsa sorry I'm not sure to be honest and thanks for calling out, I originally was going to do more on Gladius but ended up stopping given the game was ok (not great) so moved on. I updated a few of the tags and removed them since I didn't end up covering it!

[george_dupnitsa]

Since this is tagged achievements I'll ask here not knowing where else to go - Is the "Rock around the Clock" achievement bugged? I swear I turned every last tile to bedrock and still nothing. Certain I didn't miss even one, spent like an hour after victory working on it.

[Pokemastuh]

Rejoice, man who coughs words, for the T'au have arrived on Gladius Prime.

[colleem]

Is it just me or is the game a bit.. strange ^^ played my first necron round today. the main fractions were almost laughable easy to destroy with only a few necron warriors, a destroyer, a lord and one doomsday bark? the heaviest enemy i saw was a predator

[Shadowcoast]

Definitely! Have to say, I was hoping for a bit more out of the game now that I've played through several campaigns. Does become a bit repetitive!

[RandyMcRedneck]

Even though this guide is more then half a year old, very cool :) will sub to your yt channel

[NinjaPlays]

I generally prefer written guides, but props to you for, y'know, the first /actual/ guide on here ha ha.

[Shadowcoast]

I'll add written components but the majority of the guide will be video based.

[Tchey]

I didn't watch the videos, i was expecting a written guide. Anything like this coming ?