Brothers of the golden cross, do not allow the groomers of Slanesh, with their fetid, dung streaked purple robes and rainbow pigmented hair, to set foot within our towns and cities. For if they do, then even the most remote hamlet will be enshrined by their decadence and hedonism.

If we permit them even an inch, then we will live in an age where men strut about, with their nipples pierced by iron rings, women with raiment's designed to stroke the fire of men's lust and our youth, why they will be birthed in these dens of iniquity, with their minds forever morphed by these barbaric harridans, who wish for nowt but to besmirch the very fabric of our culture, our land! Now heft up your ax and strike down these lily livered rainbow wastrels and allow their stygian, caustic ichor to permeate and mar lands aware from our benevolent borders. Today is the dawn where men are men and woman are woman! Where love is to be kindled betwixt a man and a woman and none other. Where allies to Chaos will be burnt alive at the funeral pyre, whilst our youth jubilantly skip over their derelict ashes, assembling a grey mound beneath where they once lay. REJECT HERESY, EMBRACE THY LORD.

I played this with a friend for a while. Then we bought Civ VI and the added complexity and options of that game made me think I wouldn't be going back.

That was a while ago, I'm still playing Gladius, I don't have Civ installed any more.

There's something to a more tactical hex based game that appeals; no diplomacy, in the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, we exterminate the enemy or we die.

Turns go quick and there are quite a few options for how to play each faction, I never felt locked in.

You get to exterminate an entire space marine chapter's worth of marines and then cuck them out of their homeworld, which is a plus in my book. Kneel to the might of the necrons meatbags.

Negative points: Some animations are borked. Larger units can use a stomp ability which is literally just playing the running animation over an enemy hex and back again, it looks super goofy. The astra militarum basilisk fires its shots into orbit but somehow hits the ground, ect ect.

Sometime games can feel like they are won or lost in the first forty or so turns. Either the enemy finds you first and you are quickly overwhelmed or you find them and realise you will have no problems rolling over them. This is solvable with a bit of playing around in game settings until you find a good balance.

None of those are deal breakers and I very much recommend Gladius.

good solid 40k iteration