This is Page Two of our Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War AAR, covering Turns 1–44. To navigate you can use the page buttons at the bottom of this post, or you can head back to the main page here.
Turn 1:
With the dust still settling around my citadel, I had already made a foolish mistake in putting my back to the ocean. Space Marine citadels might become sprawling metropoli, but they can only expand outwards from the hub, meaning I surrendered almost a quarter of my potential space for growth.
The first twenty or so turns are very heavily guided through tooltips that recommend technology, buildings and direction. The area around my starting location is relatively harmless, bar the dangerous wireweed and some light wildlife.
The first Space Marine objective is around improving requisitions — something I took to heart, leading to a surplus I never shook.
Turn 4:
In classic Warhammer fashion, the westward extent of my base features some Enslavers and an Imperial tower. The Enslavers would go on to be a pest for the next while, however this hive moved on. Replacing them, however, was a Catachan Devil; it turns out that Gladius Prime is crawling with their nests. These would turn out to be a much bigger problem. In the short term, the Space Marines were dead by the end of turn five. Thankfully, two turns later I’d finished building my Apothecarion, letting me generate new Space Marines to replace the squishy dead ones.
Turn 15:
Between turns four and fifteen I abandoned the idea of exploring off to the south east, as two Catcahan Devils and a cluster of Enslavers appeared around a lucrative-looking artefact. Instead I decided to send my remaining starting squad of Space Marines — plus the fresh ones I had just called in — dead south instead.
Back at the Fortress of Dorn, everything was going as swimmingly as I could hope. Another tile, for a total of four, was secured within the extended city walls and I’d made moves to keep the city from falling into negative energy production. I queued up the next 30–40 turns worth of building development with my surplus resources, and moved to research Dormitories: an essential technology as space is sparse and you need population to work your buildings.
Turn 18:
Nothing remarkable happened during turn eighteen until the AI’s move. That big red glowing Warhammer in the screenshot above means, in this case, that a Catachan Devil has used its ability. Good’o. However, rather than running, I decided to see if I could face down a Catcahan with two units.
During the turns that ensued, the dormitories research finished, so we opted to research the anti-armour Krak Grenades. Another group of Tactical Marines went racing off to combat as soon as they were created, arriving just as the Devil finished off the second squad I’d started the fight with. It’s a good thing Space Marines don’t have time for fear, because the ten shredded corpses they had to walk over to kill the beast would have been quite a distraction otherwise.
Turn 23:
Nailed it. I celebrated by dropping a new fortress near the site of the battle and sending off the victorious marines to try destroying the Catachan Lair. A turn in, they got to deploy some of the newly researched Krak grenades (I opted to research frag grenades after) which didn’t do much damage, but hey, it’s a start.
As the hive looked fairly harmless, I sent the next batch of recruits westward towards the friendly neighbourhood Imperial Watchtower, with the intent of securing the tomb of goodies that stood nearby.
Turn 31:
The Catachan Devil Lair was almost destroyed. We’d researched frag grenades and moved the research onto Kraken Bolts, which would keep my Tactical Marines relevant as the enemies increased in numbers. Everything was going swimmingly in the south.
In the west, however, my new marines had run into another Catachan, possibly the one that slaughtered my first scouts shortly after landfall. It was right next to its lair — which is good, as it’s always nice to know where those are. For some still unknown reason, the Catachan Devil actually turned tail and ran away, which was fine because I made sure that my marines did the same.
A few turns later these gains didn’t matter. A Devil burst out of the south lair as a swarm of Psychneuein flew in. The two made quick work of my most veteran unit before striking out north to attempt to destroy my fortress there. Through some ridiculous luck the tower managed to destroy the Devil, however the buzzing pests kept at it. In the meantime I’d slammed a tower into the group up near the Devil’s lair in the west and narrowly managed to keep the squad there alive before moving them over to support the besieged fortress..
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