I would like to delve into the WH40K universe a bit more but I'm not quite sure what to get. Other than the Dawn of War series, which I absolutely adored (the first one at least, the second not so much) and Rites of War which was decent but a bit bland overall, I'm a complete noob to the franchise.

Ideally I'd like something with:
-At least a decent story or campaign mode
-Decent gameplay quality and lenght
-Solid singleplayer mode (I have zero interest in MP)
-No need for a ton of DLCs to be called a complete experience

Armada1&2 really caught my eye but they have rather bad reviews... Sanctus Reach and Gladius have a ton of DLCs and their reviews are far from flattering either. Chaos Gate and Final Liberation seems solid enought, but I'm wondering how well they have aged. I'll probably get Space Mureen, but beyond that I don't know...

Forget about the DLCs: Gladius base game is a very solid 4X/wargame on its own, and it is full of lore snippets if you want to learn more about about WH40K lore. I would not advise buying any of the DLCs before having played a couple games with each of the factions from the base game, there is already dozens hours of entertainment to be gotten from it.

While such games can get a bit boring after a while in single player, they spiced things up with a series of quests for each of the playable factions. They usually provide challenging objectives, and the rewards are not breaking the game balance.

Hi.
I'd recommend following games:
- As you mentioned, Dawn of War is great. It'll land soon©®™ on GoG. Don't bother with Steam version, it has broken save
system, so saving a game can last to 5 minutes. Every time you hit a checkpoint or save game manually, you can go to make a tea.
- Space Marine. One-man army at it's finest. Gog version is castrated from multiplayer mode. Multiplayer Team vs Team and Players vs CPU in whatever-it's-name are removed. As long as you are for singleplayer, why not?
- Infamous Fire Warrior. WHY? This game taught me something. Space Marines are not the biggest threat. Greatest enemies are: poorly implented shooting system, snail-pacing movemet and shitload of cannon-fodder guardsmens. Frustrating? Yes. Fun? Somehow.
- Troll answer: There is a theory, that Warhamme Fantasy take place in 40k universe. In that case, grab Mark of Chaos. Good soundtrack, good gameplay, good memories.

Give WH40K: Mechanicus a look. Solid turn-based tactics gameplay, good atmosphere and thorough single-player campaign experience (even if the writing is nothing notable), and self-contained package without needing to get a bunch of DLC. Plus you get to play tech-priests.

er.
I agree the base game is a very solid and full of lore to learn more about about WH40K like you said. It's nice each faction gets their own set of task to complete. Make each factions play through more unique. I would say he could also skip the Adepta Sororitas and Adeptus Mechanicus DLC altogether.

Space Marine is a no-brainer.

Mechanicus if you like turn based stuff, but the game overstays its welcome quite a bit towards the end.

And of course DoW. Both games. There is no 3rd game.

My personal WH 40k titles would be

- Dawn of War II

- Armageddon, https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_40000_armageddon
I really enjoyed this little panzer general inspired title. It is a lot of fun and always nice to play around with the diverse unit pallet on offer. The DLC offer mini campaigns that really challenge you.

- Gladius, https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_40000_gladius_relics_of_war
Another wargame, a 4x (3x actually, since there is no diplomacy, only war, huhuhuhuh) this time and well worth its money if you don't mind xing that is. The game can be enjoyed both as a regular skirmish map but you can also choose to follow specific race goals, which is quite nice. The dlc are a bonus if you would like to enjoy a bigger variety in opponents/player race choices.

- Space Marines, https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_40000_space_marine
if you don't mind your 3d person action, ultramarine story, then please, take a dive into this one. I believe the DLC with this one are all mp minded, so, don't bother.

I know for a fact that battlesector is highly recommended to.

Some movies you could enjoy that are available on youtube.

An ultra marine movie. Ultramarines, a Warhammer 40k movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fpvOyD5Jr0&list=PLYPxqrciB3Gxx3P4okpUh7TkOSDJVb6eZ&index=3

Hellsreach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fpvOyD5Jr0&list=PLYPxqrciB3Gxx3P4okpUh7TkOSDJVb6eZ&index=3

I really enjoyed both the style and the story of Hells reach, you follow a company set to help out on Armageddon.
If you feel during the first couple of mins, what is this for graphical nonsense, i would implore you to have faith in the Emperor

Thank you all for the suggestions. :) That's what I've been playing but I haven't had any issue with saves. Everything works perfectly fine on my end. That's unfortunate, but if the choice is between working multiplayer and drm-free, I'd rather have the latter. Thanks for the info. Would have been my first choice, unfortunately I don't have the hardware for that (please don't laugh :P). I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future. Coming of age... for an ultracentenarian chaptermaster? :P Noted, thanks for the imput. The Horus Heresy seems like a the best place to start since the fall of the Empire and the birth of Slaanesh are the two events that intererest me the most (are there any good Eldar focused book by the way?). I tried liking it, I really did, but the switch from massive army vs army battles to almost Dota-like skirmishes just isn't doing it for me. I mean, it's not a bad game by any means, but it kinda felt like it was a primarily MP focused game with a single player campaign tacked on as an afterthough. I'm surprised it's getting so many endorsements, my first impression was... not good. So I've read most of its reviews, but I still don't understand what I should expect from it. Does it take place in a single map like Civ\SMAC? A series of maps chained together like HoMM? Is there a plot behind it all, or just a collection of objectives to fullfill? Thank you, that's interesting. Are they based on official lore or just original stories? I mean, I'm fine with both but I'd like to know beforehand. :P

Space Hulk: Deathwing is WH40k's take on a Xenomorph infestation. Enter a derelict space-ship and exterminate swarms at a time of hallway-filling aliens that are literally called "gene-stealers".

The game is more similar to civ then homm. You build your city(ies) recruit units and try to take over the planet Gladius. Or at least try to fulfil the (optional) objectives. The game is more warlike than a civ game, hence the absence of diplomacy, and comes with a sometimes more than decent AI to play against. Especially harder levels can be quite the challenge. The story its self is minor but perfectly in line with lore and race. Don't expect a novel, but it does a good job of helping out with understanding certain game mechanics and providing some fixed goals to work towards. Lore

Gladius obviously takes some inspiration from Alpha Centauri, but this is not surprising as their previous game (Pandora: First Contact) was a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri.

One major common trait is the very hostile planet, meaning that you will be fighting for a long time before even meeting your real opponents. The hostile "monsters" here are no joke, nothing like Civilization barbarians, and can wall off some parts of the map for a non-negligible amount of turns.

The factions are really diverse in play style, and your starting location on the map (defining what resources you have an easy access too) adds some twists ensuring you have no definitive "build order" that would work best in every situation. That is not enough to make each game fully unique, but it gives a surprising replayability for a game with only four playable factions.

The faction-based quests are more like a series of objectives, but each one comes with some text snippets that tell a story usually revolving around your faction leader. There is actually quite a lot to read in this game, as each unit, building, technology, terrain feature, etc. comes with its lore snippet in addition to the technical description.

As already reported, the AI in this game is very good compared to what we are used to in other 4X games. Don’t expect to be able to win in the harder modes before a long time practising.

While it looks like a Civ game on the surface, don’t get tricked by this: this is mostly a wargame with resources management and base building. Nothing like culture, religion or diplomacy to distract you from the point of any good WH40K game: war!

My major gripe with Gladius is the lack of voices for units, they use blurb text instead. I think there is a mod somewhere out there adding voices extracted from other WH40K games, but I am not bored enough with the vanilla game yet to start trying mods.

Trying to skip titles already mentioned:

In terms of "pure pleasure" of gameplay, I had a lot of fun with Sanctus Reach (although IMO the best campaign is the one added with the DLC Sons of Cadia - fortunately there are literally 3 DLC and two of them are adding new armies, but IMO only "must have" is Sons of Cadia).

And the same goes with Battlesector, although here I don't think you need any DLC to have fun, campaign is long and "meaty".

The main problem of those two is rather humble story. In Sanctus it's very humble, in Battlesector it's slightly better presented, but still not that great.

From oldies - I see you already know Rites of War, so I would highly recommend Final Liberation. When I finally caught the basics, it was an absolute blast - plus I enjoyed the cut-scenes and story, while rather simple, was for me still enjoyable. Disclaimer- actually the general rules are pretty simple, but for a long time I was convinced, that I'm doing something wrong, because my troops were notoriously missing. Turns out that it's related to the "Epic" system, which was this game based on.


Regarding Books - my personal experience tells me, that the best option is "Gaunt's Ghosts" series. I personally liked the collection of novels "into the Maelstrom", since it's a collection showing many "perspectives" of WH40k Universe, also those lesser known.

OP, Chaos Gate was given for free a few months back. Maybe you already have it?

The standard WH40K recommendations are Dawn of War, Space Marine and MEchanicus. All great games. But I do recommend you check out this article, it's an onverview of almost every WH40K game: https://www.pcgamer.com/best-warhammer-40k-games/

Also check this one for Warhammer Fantasy: https://www.pcgamer.com/best-warhammer-games-every-warhammer-game-ranked/

It's a bit janky but I do enjoy Mark of Chaos. It's like Total War but without the empire management.

for the start books-wise I'd recommend you:
- the Ciaphas Cain series;
- the Eisenhorn \ Ravenor series;
- the Gothic War Series (a duology about "Lord Solar Macharius" cruiser).