Webway Guardian Achievement Guide
[Editor: If you find reading hard then you might like to watch the video version of this article. See the end of this article for the video embed.]
The “Webway Guardian” Steam achievement for Gladius Relics of War requires us to complete the game as Aeldari without losing any web gates. This little guide will show the best strategy for doing it.
Alongside this achievement we could bag the “Where There’s a Web, There’s a Way” achievement since it has similar requirements. In that achievement we need to have a Web Redoubt built on all the web gates.
Setting Up
First off let us look at the best game parameters for helping us get this achievement.
The fewer web gates there are the easier it will be to protect them. So before starting the game we can set the number of web gates to “very low”. This setting is in the advanced settings of the game lobby.
Also the fewer enemy factions there will be, the easier it will be defend those web gates. We can give ourselves just one enemy faction. Naturally this suggests putting the game on a tiny map. A tiny map with one enemy faction and very low web gates will give us just 3 or 4 web gates to keep safe for the game.
At this point we might choose an enemy faction rather than let a random one happen. It is practically cheating but we could choose the enemy faction to also be Aeldari! In this case presumably they will not even attack neutral web gates, only our own. Although the strong caveat here is that we will not be able to win by destroying the enemy faction as that will require destroying their web gate base… A quest victory would still be an option though.
Even if we choose a different faction for an enemy then likely only one web gate will be threatened in the earliest part of the game. This is when they are most vulnerable as we are least able to protect them.
Early Game
Aeldari begin the game with the knowledge of the number and location of all the web gates on the map. Although the fog of war remains over those locations until the web gates are activated. We can check on their health and see when an enemy attacks them even before activation.
Any of the factions except another Aeldari faction will begin destroying web gates as soon as they encounter them. They do this with the same prejudice they engage other neutral or enemy units. However web gates do not fight back or retreat so their destruction is almost guaranteed shortly after they are found. Enemy factions then are the main and earliest threat to our web gates but there is another…
Neutral entities like the native wildlife will leave web gates alone until it is claimed by an Aeldari player, because until then web gates also count as being on the neutral faction. However as soon as the web gate is turned to our faction through activation it will also become a target for the neutral entities the same as our other units.
For this reason it is wise to avoid activating a web gate until we are ready to send a force through it strong enough to tackle both any enemy factions nearby as well as any neutrals. This can bring us some tough luck if the nearest neutrals are the tough castellan robots.
Early Development
At game start we have almost zero ability to defend a web gate and with each turn that passes the likely goes up that an enemy will find a gate and begin attacking it. Often that will start from the first turn. Thus it is an imperative to focus early development on rushing out military units. Our first building should be the infantry building and because using web gates costs influence the following building probably should be the influence building.
Research
Our early research should be focused on making our guardians stronger with plasma grenades as well as researching other infantry types like the ranger and banshee. The next immediate research goal is to get the ability to turn web gates into cities. This will not only make our web gates tougher but also give them the ability to fight back and build a garrison in situ.
On a tiny map with a very low web gate density we are still looking at around 4 gates to turn into cities. So loyalty will become an issue if we rush this. Consequently getting the loyalty building researched should come soon after the Web Redoubt tech.
One tech that we might think we should get early is Webway Cartography which removes the influence cost in web gate activation. However with only one enemy faction there is only likely to be one web gate in immediate danger of destruction and so only one web gate that needs early activation.
There is some intelligence to our advantage in that only enemy factions will engage neutral web gates. So the first web gate to pick up damage should be the nearest gate to the enemy faction..
End Game
Once all the web gates are securely turned into garrisoned web redoubts we can focus on either going for a quest victory or a conquest victory by eliminating our only enemy.
Alternatively since unactivated web gates are in no danger from neutrals we could just build out the web gate nearest the enemy faction. Then use it as a staging point for a rush raid on their base. If we destroy that base then we win the achievement in short order. Although using that rush we would not get the Where There’s a Web, There’s a Way achievement.
Even so I managed to get the Webway Guardian with Where There’s a Web, There’s a Way by turn 91.
Do you like playing Aeldari? Did you get the Webway Guardian Achievement?
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For the full playthrough see the video below.