One of our favorite Warhammer 40k PC games has just added yet another beloved sci-fi faction to its playable roster, as strategy publisher Slitherine launches the Warhammer 40k Gladius Drukhari DLC.
Released onto Steam on Thursday, the Drukhari DLC adds the Aeldari‘s dark, sadistic, pirate cousins as Gladius’ 11th fully playable army, alongside the ten Warhammer 40k factions already available.
The release comes alongside a sale period until Tuesday, December 5, with a hefty 90% discount on the base game, and between 10% and 40% off every expansion, with all the new faction DLC packs at 40% off.
For those not in the know, the Drukhari are the dark mirror of 40k’s famous, willowy Aeldari – or Eldar – space elves. Where the Aeldari escaped their civilization’s doom at the hands of Warhammer 40k chaos god Slaanesh via high-tech soul storage technology in their world-ships, the Drukhari survived by embracing depraved cruelty, learning to sustain their cursed souls by inflicting pain on others. They’re not good guys.
This new Gladius DLC represents their unsavory lifestyles in various mechanics that mirror the Drukhari’s tabletop rules. Power from Pain sees your units gain stacking bonuses “as pain spreads across the battlefield”; infantry units can activate Combat Drugs to trade some hit points for combat buffs; and destroying enemy units gifts you influence from harvesting the souls of the dead.
Troops even gain a temporary combat bonus right after jumping off their zippy gunboats – and, best of all, the entire faction gets a blanket bonus to armor penetration in melee, to represent the Drukhari’s natural affinity with knives.
There’s an impressive roster of Drukhari units from the main-line 40k miniature wargame represented in the DLC, too:
| Troops & Constructs | Vehicles | Characters | Buildings |
| Kabalite Warriors | Raider | Archon | Webway Portal |
| Kabalite Trueborn | Ravager | Succubus | |
| Hellions | Razorwing Jetfighter | Haemonculus | |
| Incubi | Reaver Jetbikes | ||
| Scourges | Venom | ||
| Wracks | Voidraven Bomber | ||
| Wyches | Tantalus | ||
| Cronos Parasite Engine |
Despite turning five years old this July, the wordily titled Warhammer 40k Gladius: Relics of War has a loyal following of folks in the (sizeable) center of the venn diagram of ‘Warhammer fans’ and ‘lovers of 4X games‘.
And with good reason: Gladius was never revolutionary in its field, but it’s a solid, playable turn based strategy game that, in our book, has earned a place among the best Warhammer 40k games. Gladius launched in 2018 with four playable factions: the indomitable Space Marines; rampaging Orks; self-repairing android Necrons; and the dauntless human armies of the Astra Militarum.
Since then, alongside a few smaller expansion packs, Slitherine and developer Proxy Studios have added six (now seven) extra factions via $15 DLC packs, including:
- Tyranids (January 2019)
- Chaos Space Marines (July 2019)
- Tau Empire (February 2020)
- Aeldari (November 2020)
- Adeptus Mechanicus (November 2021)
- Sisters of Battle (December 2022)
- Drukhari (November 2023)
It’s been a busy year for Warhammer videogames, what with Warhammer 40k Boltgun wowing everyone, and Darktide finally getting good – and it’s not over yet; the Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader release date is coming up next week, making for the grimdark future’s first true foray into isometric CRPGs.
We were denied a holiday treat when the Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 release date got unceremoniously pushed back to 2024, but it’s probably all for the best; we need time to sell some internal organs to buy ourselves a $1200 Lieutenant Titus Wētā Workshop statue.
In other news, a shiny new Warhammer RTS game came out this month – Age of Sigmar Realms of Ruin – and has sold terribly. But our own Tim Linward gave it 9/10 in his Realms of Ruin review, and stands by that, saying it doesn’t deserve the hate.