Lord/Hero Characters

[The Beast of Chaos]

I'm pretty interested in this game as a lapsed 40k player and am leaning towards getting it. One thing I'm curious about though. Having watched a few reviews I haven't heard much about individual characters, just how do they work in the game? Are there generals/leaders and are they customiseable? Do they have their own personal quests, can you level them up, give them wargear etc.?

[Dilkington]

You can recruit hero units (e.g. Librarian, Chaplain for the SM, Warbosses for Orks and so on) which are just a single person unit. They're much stronger than normal infantry and come with their own traits. All units level up, but heroes can pick abilities when they level up, like the Chaplain can get a morale reducing ability. No personal quests, but you can buy gear for them at trading posts throughout the map using influence. As far as I've seen in my playtime, there aren't any named characters.

[luckz]

You can recruit a choice of three heroes per side (I think?), as many times as you like, build price increasing depending on how many of that one you already have.
They can hold up to 6 items each, active or passive effects. Items are the same across all factions, so it's not "wargear" or anything. More movement points, more health, more armor, more melee damage, etc.

Heroes level up with XP, like all units. Like all units, they have a max level of 10. Heroes get to use a skill point towards an ability every level. Their special signature ability is only available from level 6 on. They have 3 other active or passive skills to level (each up to 3 levels). At level 10 a hero has everything they could possibly have.

They don't have anything unique about them, like names, quests, different weapons, etc. Two warbosses with the same equipment at the same level are identical.

Originally posted by 21st Century ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Man:

As far as I've seen in my playtime, there aren't any named characters.

I believe some high level (XP) units might get flavor names.

[The Beast of Chaos]

Thanks would of liked to have some unique wargear and quests like TW: Warhammer but seems the basic elements are there with abilities and items. Will give this a purchase, hopefully the devs will expand on the systems over time.

[Corossion]

Originally posted by 21st Century ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Man:

As far as I've seen in my playtime, there aren't any named characters.

I can confirm that there is some Name-Giving algorithm in the game. One of my Ork Units got a unique name at some point (I believe it was "Sneaky Gitz" or something like that), which was pretty neat... until they got slaughtered by Necrons the next round.
I haven't really seen the reason why they got that name, seeing as other Units also leveled up... maybe because they killed a specific neutral enemy or something?