Turn-based strategy fits Warhammer 40K. Small squads, high lethality, decisions that matter. Most games in the genre fall apart after a few missions. These five don’t. This is the best of them, ranked by how well they play and how well they understand the setting.
5. Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector
Black Lab Games, 2021
Battlesector is the most complete faction-based tactics game in the Warhammer 40K catalogue.
About
A turn-based strategy game focused on fast, lethal combat with clearly defined units and aggressive pacing. The main campaign follows the Blood Angels in the aftermath of the Devastation of Baal, deployed to Baal Secundus to cleanse what’s left of the Tyranid infestation. It’s a straightforward story about post-crisis clean-up and internal loyalty, with some tension over Primaris integration. DLC campaigns cover other factions, but most of the game’s value sits in skirmish mode and custom battles.
What It Does Well
It gets the basics right. Units don’t waste your time. Movement is generous, damage is decisive, and fights resolve quickly. The UI is clean, the rules are simple, and nothing gets in the way. You’re always acting, not waiting. That’s rare in this genre.
The big strength is its faction support. Eight fully playable armies, each with a proper unit roster and mechanics that matter. Necrons reanimate. Sisters trigger chain buffs. Orks charge and collapse. It’s not surface-level flavour. Each one forces a different approach. It plays like a wargame should: quick decisions, visible consequences, no room for dithering.
Limitations
The writing’s flat. Campaigns feel like filler between battles. Some DLC factions are less refined than others, and it’s clear they weren’t all built with equal time or care.
Why It Makes the List
Because it works. It has scale, variety, and stability—something most 40K tactics games never reach. If you want a system that lets you set up a proper tabletop-style scrap without fighting the interface or modding the hell out of it, this is it. Solid, honest, and finished. That’s enough.
4. Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War
Proxy Studios, 2018
Gladius is the only 4X Warhammer 40K game, and it leans fully into the one thing 40K does best: endless war.
About
A turn-based strategy game in the 4X mould, stripped of diplomacy, trade, and peace. The story is light, but the setup works: multiple factions converge on the dead world of Gladius Prime, each with their own motives. You expand, build cities, research tech, and crush everything that moves. There’s some lore framing for each faction, but it’s minimal. This is a mechanics-first design built around territory control and escalation.
What It Does Well
It captures the constant, grinding hostility of the setting better than most. There are no alliances. No ceasefires. Every turn is about positioning, reinforcement, and attack. The map is full of threats – wildlife, enemy factions, resource fights – and you never get to relax.
Factions play differently in ways that matter. Tyranids consume biomass and operate without loyalty mechanics. Astra Militarum leans on combined arms and cheap units. Necrons expand slower but hit harder. Space Marines rely on elite infantry and lower unit counts. DLC adds more factions – T’au, Chaos, Sisters, and more – each distinct, each pushing a different playstyle. It’s not just cosmetic.
The AI’s not bad. The tech trees are deep. The economy has enough friction to force real choices. And the tone is right: cold, hostile, and completely uninterested in balance.
Limitations
There’s no campaign. Just procedural maps and objectives. Narrative is limited to faction intros and lore popups. It can feel repetitive after extended play, especially solo. Multiplayer is stronger but niche.
Why It Makes the List
Gladius understands the setting. It’s a strategy game that ditches pretence and commits to conflict. No hand-holding, no storytelling detours, just steady escalation and map control. As a turn-based representation of how 40K factions might actually function at scale, it’s still unmatched.
3. Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch – Enhanced Edition
Rodeo Games, 2015
Deathwatch is the closest any 40K game has come to feeling like a proper turn-based board game without being slow, clunky, or smug about it.
About
A top-down, action point-driven tactics game built around a small team of Space Marines drawn from different chapters, dropped into tight, objective-based missions against Tyranids. The Enhanced Edition upgraded the original mobile release for PC—better visuals, better controls, and the full campaign intact. There is no skirmish mode or faction switching. You play as the Deathwatch, you fight Tyranids, and that’s the loop.
What It Does Well
It’s built around clarity. Every move you make is visible and deliberate. Each Marine has a fixed number of action points and a role, be that heavy weapons, melee or support. You’re expected to play them like a real squad. You’ll clear rooms, cover flanks, and make decisions that feel immediate and practical. It avoids bloat. There are no half-baked systems or pointless gimmicks.
The chapter mechanic adds a lot. You’re not just fielding generic marines. You’re mixing Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Space Wolves and others, each with unique traits and abilities. Some add movement bonuses, others boost morale or melee power. You build a team that suits how you want to play, and the game doesn’t punish you for experimenting.
The campaign’s structured like a slow-burning escalation. Early missions are straightforward. Later ones stack pressure. Enemy spawns ramp up, choke points close down, and resources tighten. You’re outnumbered and increasingly surrounded, which is exactly where the Deathwatch should be. It’s not about base-building or empire management. It’s about surviving another deployment.
It’s also tight visually. Everything’s clean and readable. Animations are sharp, sound design has weight, and it doesn’t lean on cheap spectacle. It plays like a tabletop scenario rendered just enough to feel physical without getting bogged down in detail.
Limitations
It’s one-note. There’s no faction variety. You’re always the Deathwatch, always fighting Tyranids. No branching paths or real story to follow. Replay value drops off once the campaign’s done, and there’s no procedural content or PvP to fall back on.
Why It Makes the List
Because it’s focused and it works. Where most 40K tactics games spread too thin or get lost in gimmicks, Deathwatch knows exactly what it is. Tight missions, strong squad building, no wasted space. It won’t impress you with scale, but in terms of execution, it does more with less—and it’s still one of the best squad-level tactics games in the franchise.
2. Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
Bulwark Studios, 2018
Mechanicus is the only Warhammer 40K game that understands its faction all the way down to the sound design.
About
A squad-based, turn-based tactics game where you control a cohort of Tech-Priests from the Adeptus Mechanicus exploring Necron tombs on the planet Silva Tenebris. There’s a light metagame between missions where you manage upgrades, research tech, and choose which tomb to raid next. The story follows Magos Dominus Faustinius and his crew as they push deeper into xenos territory, balancing knowledge acquisition, strategic gains, and their own theological contradictions. The writing is machine-priest weird in a way that actually works, and the decisions you make carry weight in how the campaign unfolds.
What It Does Well
Mechanically, it avoids a lot of the usual clutter. There’s no RNG to hit chances—if you’re in range, you hit. That alone gives the game a rhythm most 40K tactics titles lack. It’s all about positioning, sequencing actions, and managing cooldowns. Enemies escalate as you move deeper into tombs, and you’re forced to weigh every choice—do you search for blackstone and tech, or pull back before the threat level gets out of control?
Each Tech-Priest is built from the ground up. You equip augmetics, customise weapons, and specialise roles. There’s no generic loadout—your team is whatever you’ve built, and every tool has a purpose. Servitors and Skitarii fill support roles, but the Tech-Priests are the core. Watching them wade into battle with multiple actions per turn, surrounded by drones and support units, is one of the few times the AdMech have felt powerful in a video game.
But it’s the presentation that makes it stand out. The music is cold and ritualistic—binary chants, metallic drones, corrupted hymns. The writing stays in character without being tedious. And the UI reflects the faction’s philosophy. Every layer of the game looks and sounds like it was built by people who actually understand how the Mechanicus thinks. It doesn’t just borrow the iconography, it leans into it fully.
Limitations
There’s only one enemy faction: Necrons. The campaign, while flexible, is still locked into a single storyline and a single opponent. Once you’ve beaten it, replay value comes more from build experimentation than fresh content. Some late-game abilities can snowball, making the final missions less tense than the early ones.
Why It Makes the List
Mechanicus isn’t broad, but it’s deep. It’s the only game in this genre that nails the tone, tactics, and weird internal logic of its faction without compromise. The mechanics are tight, the atmosphere is exact, and the whole thing feels designed rather than assembled. It’s not about scale, it’s about precision. ….and that’s what gets.
1. Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters
Complex Games, 2022
Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters is the most complete turn-based strategy game in the Warhammer 40K franchise. It sets a high bar for mechanics, presentation, and tone, and unusually for a modern 40K title, it actually feels finished.
About
A turn-based tactical campaign where you control a squad of Grey Knights in a galaxy-wide purge of Nurgle’s Bloom: a Chaos plague spreading system by system. You operate from a strike cruiser, juggling research, ship repairs, and faction politics while deploying elite squads to ground-level missions. There’s a story, but it’s more structure than centrepiece: kill daemons, close warp gates, survive. The focus is on your team, your upgrades, and how you fight.
What It Does Well
Combat is fast and forces aggression. This isn’t XCOM where you hide behind cover waiting for better odds. You press forward, use abilities, and eliminate threats before they multiply. Precision targeting lets you disable weapons or stun enemies outright. Action points are flexible. Melee is brutal. It rewards you for taking control instead of playing safe.
Each Grey Knight is customisable through wargear, abilities, and class upgrades. You’re not just filling roles—you’re building specialists. Apothecaries, Interceptors, Purgators, Paladins—they all have distinct jobs, and most missions will stretch your roster thin enough that you’ll need to rotate squads intelligently.
The campaign map ties it all together. You’re constantly reacting to outbreaks, deciding where to intervene, and balancing long-term progress against short-term survival. The Bloom evolves over time, introducing new enemy types, mission modifiers, and penalties. Fail to keep up, and you’ll start losing systems. It’s a soft timer without being a cheap one.
Presentation is strong. The art direction avoids the usual “just make everything brown” problem, and the sound design hits properly—bolters, daemons, psychic powers, all carry weight. The characters are voiced with enough restraint that they don’t sound like theatre rejects, and the interface actually respects your time. This is the first 40K tactics game in years that feels like it had a proper budget and a real QA process.
Limitations
You only get one faction. No Chaos campaign. No other playable chapters. For a game that clearly had room to grow, the lack of post-launch faction DLC is a missed opportunity. Late-game missions can start to repeat, and once your squad hits full strength, the difficulty softens unless you self-limit.
Why It Makes the List
Because it’s the best in the field. Most 40K strategy games break down in the details with clunky UI, shallow mechanics, half-baked faction design. Daemonhunters doesn’t. It plays like a modern tactics game built by people who understood the assignment: A fully realised, tightly executed campaign. For turn-based 40K, this is the one to beat.
