History YMMV / Warhammer40000Gladius

** Enslavers, those damnable gasbags guarding Old One Relics, are surprisingly tough, can fly, passively drain the morale of nearby units, and can MindRape your low morale units into obeying them. Killing them can be a chore, requiring about four attacks from basic infantry, which you have to do if you'd like your units back. Necrons get a tiny bit of leeway, for even though they are inexplicably not immune to being controlled (despite their anti-warp presence and lack of souls), they take a while or even never go down the morale threshold for control, which means the Enslavers must generally settle for "only" using their claws, which deal [[ArmorPiercingAttack Rending damage]], so enjoy watching half your Warrior squad die in one shot. For added fun, they can easily be found wandering into your starting area as early as turn 3 (if you happen to start close enough to a Relic). These guys are why you research grenades the moment the game starts.

** As per usual, the orks get most. The keys to the space hulk are described as having fuzzy dice attached, some pilots quote ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', Ogryns describe orks as tough, strong and good-looking ("like us")...

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Unit animations vary between good, average or bad, but many users have noted that the animations for the Canoptek Spyder is considered one of the best.
* TierInducedScrappy: The Orks and Tyranids get a lot of online flak because of how bad they are from early game to late game. The Orks start off with weak units, need to keep morale up or they start dying and require a lot of influence as an extra resource, their late-tier units are powerful but still not on the scale of those of the Necrons and Astra Militarum plus they're a big drain on the Ork economy. Tyranids have weak units and have a need to keep many of their units close to a synapse creature or face major penalties (such as constantly bleeding off health or having their movement cut down). Even Tyranid late-stage units are rather weak with the exception of the Lictor. The saving grace for the Tyranids are powerful heroes and being the fastest ground force in the game.
** Orks have recently gotten a bit of a reprieve thanks to their scavenger abilities, which let them generate resources by killing enemies. Also, every time they fight, regardless of who the attacker is, their units generate a fairly hefty chunk of Influence that grows with unit level and tier, making it easier to keep their Influence-consuming war machine rolling. That said, they're still comparatively weak and have problems maintaining momentum.

** Enslavers, those damnable gasbags, are surprisingly tough, can fly, and can MindRape your units into obeying them. Killing them can be a chore, requiring about four attacks from basic infantry, which you have to do if you'd like your units back. Necrons get a tiny bit of leeway, being that their anti-Warp technology lets them ignore the mind control, which means the Enslavers must settle for "only" using their claws. Which deal [[ArmorPiercingAttack Rending damage]], so enjoy watching half your Warrior squad die in one shot. For added fun, they can easily be found wandering into your starting area as early as turn 3. These guys are why you research grenades the moment the game starts.

** Kastellan Robots come in two flavors: incredibly deadly, and destroyed, with a very large amount of work going into turning them from the former into the latter. They have [[StoneWall hit points and armor levels]] on par with mid-game defensive fortifications with the firepower to match, so even one of them can bring an early game advance to a dead stop with a pretty good chance of defeating you. You will, however, almost certainly never run into just one, more likely four or more, which is when you get to watch them rotate themselves through the front line as they take damage, swapping in fresh units while the bot you just spent four turns grinding down waltzes away. This is when you find out they're being repaired on the fly by units of [[MrFixit Enginseers]] far faster than you can damage them. Now take all of this, and roll the dice on having a couple of them come barreling into your deployment zone on turn 5.

* GoddamnBats: Kroot Hounds come in large swarms that do just enough damage that you can't outright ignore them, but force you to spend precious actions killing them. Early game, they're a legitimate threat to isolated units, but they quickly become roving chunks of experience that like to liberate your outposts when you're tied up halfway across the map.

* TierInducedScrappy: The Orks and Tyranids get a lot of online flak because of how bad they are from early game to late game. The Orks start off with weak units, need to keep morale up or they start dying and require a lot of prestige as an extra resource, their late-tier units are powerful but still not on the scale of those of the Necrons and Astra Militarum plus they're a big drain on the Ork economy. Tyranids have weak units and have a need to keep many of their units close to a synapse creature or face major penalties (such as constantly bleeding off health or having their movement cut down). Even Tyranid late-stage units are rather weak with the exception of the Lictor. The saving grace for the Tyranids are powerful heroes and the fastest ground forces in the game.

** Catachan Fiends, scorpions as big as tanks and half as friendly, they pack a wallop and are lightning fast over difficult terrain. Which, of course, is also where you find their nest, that you need to knock out if you want to stem the flood of monster bugs eating your men. Even low level Fiends can lop off half of a Tactical Squad's health in one blow while requiring anti-tank weapons to do anything above ScratchDamage, and even then require several hits to go down, or else they'll just skitter out of sight and come back a few turns later at full health and as hungry as ever.

* GoddamnBats: Kroot Hounds come in large swarms that do just enough damage that you can't outright ignore them, but force you to spend precious actions killing them. Early game, they're a legitimate threat to isolated units, but they quickly become roving chunks of xp that like to liberate your outposts when you're tied up halfway across the map.

* TierInducedScrappy: The Orks and Tyranids get a lot of online flak because of how bad they are from early game to late game. The Orks start off with weak units, need to keep morale up or they start dying and require a lot of prestige as an extra resource, their late-tier units are powerful but still not on the scale of those of the Necrons and Astra Militarum plus they're a big drain on the Ork economy. Tyranids have weak units and have a need to keep many of their units close to a synapse creature or face major penalties (such as constantly bleeding off health or having their movement cut down). Even Tyranid late-stage units are rather weak with the exception of the Lictor. The saving grace for the Tyranids are powerful heroes and the fastest ground forces in the game.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Unit animations vary between good, average or bad, but many users have noted that the animations for the Canoptek Spyder is considered one of the best.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Unit animations vary between good, average or bad, but many users have noted that the animations for the Canoptek Spyder is considered one of the best.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Unit animations vary between good, decent or bad, but many users have noted that the animations for the Canoptek Spyder is considered one of the best.

* SpecialEffectsAreAwesome: Unit animations vary between good, decent or bad, but many users have noted that the animations for the Canoptek Spyder is considered one of the best.