This is a guide on how to pick your heroes. That is your HEROES. Not your leader! Your leader is the head huncho who you probably custom-designed at the start of a randomized map game. This is for people who are confused about all of the heroes of different class types from your leader who keep showing up at your throne city offering to fight for you in exchange for gold.

That's right, new player who just bought Age of Wonders 3, you had to worry about picking a race, a class, three mysterious "specializations", and now that you are finally in the game-you have to worry about a whole secondary cast of heroes to help your fledgling leader build his/her empire!

Because, for me at least, I actually was a little stressed out by this part of the game. Heroes were yet another part of the game that I didn't think I even had to consider. And there are no guides or wikis that I know that really talk about them!

But don't panic. I'm here to help. To maybe save you the time I just spent.

I am not a master of the game (not even close!), but I have played enough and decoded the wiki enough that I think I can be helpful for somebody. If you want competive strategies for a multiplayer game with pros, look elsewhere. This is just to give you something to consider when it comes time to hire your hero.

On the other hand, you can also just set the game settings to 0 maximum heroes and tell me to take my guide and shove it. And hey, that's cool too. That didn't hurt my feelings or anything...

Any, lets begin.

A note about Hero spells and casting points: Now, your leader's spells can be cast anywhere, even in battles that the leader is not participating in, so long as the leader has both mana and casting points equal to the spell's cost. Casting points a restriction on the amount of mana the leader can use for casting spells, and they can be improved by cities producing enough knowledge to research an upgrade in the leader's skill book with a class-specific name such as "Warfare I" if your leader's a Warlord (for instance.) But wait! Your hero, "Warlord jr." just did his old man proud by leveling up, and there's a perk that he can choose that is also called "Warfare I" and grants him more casting points, too! Not only that, but there are all of these combat spells which were also in the book on the list!

Basically, Warlord jr. has his own book of in-combat spells, but these can only be cast in a battle where he is present, and it uses his own pool of casting points. This can help save Warlord sr. from spending his grand, empire-wide wad of casting points, but it will also drain the empire of mana. Basically, it comes down to which resource you are trying to preserve for other tasks than spellcasting; Knowledge (for expanding the leader's casting pool that could be used on other important empire upgrades instead), Leader casting points (for casting leader spells in combat which could be used for other combats or the leader's own battle, or strategic spells instead), Hero upgrade points (which are only gained when a hero levels up and could unlock more important abilities), or Mana (if you made none of the hard choices above and end up casting way too much when you haven't built enough temples in your empire to keep up with your gluttonous demand). Now, some heroes are more spellcasting oriented than others, so a Warlord, Dreadnought, or Rogue can just learn other skills and ignore spells entirely because its not what they are about, but Sorcerers? You really aren't using your Sorcerers properly if you don't build up their CP.

Dreadnought hero
-Lightning Rod Banner (40% team Shock protection, GREAT FOR MACHINES)
-Forge Aprons (40% team Fire Protection)
-Can Repair and Rebuild Machines
-Tunneling (Good for Subterranian exploration, but builders might be better for this menial job)
-Throw Net (Good Escape plan)
-Pest Control Squad and Wizard Hunters (Destroys lots of critters)
-Sabotage (Damages machines and walls)
-True Sight (See invisible units)
-Imperial Authority (Raises Morale, good for halflings)
-Decent but non-essential spellcasting options if you'd rather rely on the leader's spells

Niche: Obnoxiously good overall, even if you aren't using machine-heavy armies.
Spellcasting: Low mana-intensive Has a number of good spells, but many, like Choiking fumes, are very cheap.


Rogue hero
-Sabotage
-Night Vision
-Counter Poison (40% team Blight protection, GREAT FOR ELVES)
-Stealth Commander (team Forest Concealment, PERFECT FOR ELVES)
-Sprint (Escaping again)
-Cunning Escape (Helps save a valuable unit)
-Assassin's strike and First Strike (The best defense is a one-sided offense!)
-Charm
-Taunt
-Invisibility (Good for teaming up with other concealment)
-Shadow Step (Sets up Back Stab, and backup escape option)
-Urban Stealth Commander (team Urban Concealment. NIFTY!)
-Assassins of Kings (team Hero Slayer)
-The Combat Spells "Sadism" and "Smoke Screen"

Niche: Mischief and Skullduggery. Can steal units from enemy armies with Charm. Early Forest stealth.
Spellcasting: Low mana-intensive. Quick Dash is a useful spell to cast on occassion.

Warlord hero
-Blood Honor (Our friend died! Hooray! A hilarious way for halfling armies to get more lucky.)
-"Command" Series (Generic team buffs)
-Fleet Command (Grants Mariner to the army. Which is useless for humans but alright for other races)
-Martial Arts (Easy escape)
-Blood Brothers (team Strong Will) and Break Control counters mind control and spirit dmg
-War Cry (Attack Buff)
-Tireless and First strike (and a whole bunch of other self buffs...)
-Toughness (20% Physical protection. Rare, might make Sorcerer summons OP)
-Steadfast Ward (prevents death for two turns) and Bloodbath/Relentless Army (Buff entire army)

Niche: Overall army stat booster.
Spellcasting: Low mana-intensive. Spells are situationally useful but can be overlooked to conserve mana.

Archdruid (without the "arch")
-provides the party Protection from Blight, Frost, and Spirit
-Healing and Nurishing meal battle abilities
-Helps Befriend neutral animals without paying mana in the early game
-Druid Spells and abilities are all kind of meh, honestly...
-A few interesting skills buried very, very deep in the level pool
-Can make army Volunteers
-Forest concealment at level 11 but oh man the Rogue gets it so much earlier....

Niche: Supports animals, some in-combat summons, most worthwhile skills are way too late game
Spellcasting: Fairly mana-intensive, but spells are highly situational and do very little damage

Theocrat hero
-Theocrat spells are kind of useful for keeping army alive
-Tons of useful support abilities
-Convert
-Healing battle skill
-Holy Champions (Great if you are going to be fighting Dedicated to Evil units)
-Spells can declare enemies as Heretics, which helps Theo-Leader's Devout units destroy them.
-Can make army Volunteeers
-Chaplain (Raises morale, great for halflings. Touch of Faith also helps)

Niche: Smite spell and wand provide spirit damage otherwise lacking
Spellcasting: High mana investment. Debuffs and Punishes attackers, while protecting allies.

Sorcerer hero
-Fantastic spell choice
-Inflict Stun and Spirit Breaking
-Phase
-Dispel Magic
-Projectile reflection
-Mend Magical Being (Heal summons, great for Sorcerer Lord's creatures and Archdruid animals)
-ILLUSIONIST (PARTY GAINS INVISIBILITY!!!) at level 11
-Can learn to float, which might be useful for Earth masters casting Earthquake

Niche: AOE Shock damage. Spells are superior to most other skills.
Spellcasting: Invest in mana. Invest! Sorcerers can heal, buff, and spam Chain Lightning

Necromancer hero
-Great spells but kind of fragile.
-Bane of the Good (Trains army to murder faeries, gold dragons, and innocent puppies)
-Can dominate undead creatures (Wraiths and others are Dedicated to Evil, so watch out...)
-Can raise and ressurect cadavers, who are USELESS without Reanimators and Bone Collectors
-Necromantic aura is a fairly late game but could be useful capturing neutral undead.

Niche: A constant annoyance. If a necro shows up to your city, asking for a job, you reply "BURN THE WITCH!" ...But seriously, the Necromaner's ability to charm undead might be of use if you are fighting another Necromancer. The leveling will be tough, but with Control Undead, and later Necromatic Aura on a suitably toughened up Undying Necromancer hero, it could turn out that you can fight fire with fire...
Spellcasting: Depends on what your plans are for them, but you'll probably want a decent amount of CP.

The format for the later entries goes:
Leader class or race
-Hero class (Reasons behind choice)

Got it? Okay, let's tackle the meat of this guide!

Archdruid
-Rogue (Especially Elves and Halflings who like Forests created by Wild Growth. Forest concealment ahoy!)
-Dreadnought (Clashes thematically but good all around. Maybe skip the tree-crushing skill?)
-Warlord (Especially for Halflings for Blood Honor luck boost silliness while fighting in the woods.)
-Archdruid (Only if you really need to befriend every single animal you can find.)

Vs. Archdruid
-Archdruid (Steal summoned animals from the other druid!)
-Dreadnought (Pest control squad butchers Animals among other things. You can also crush those pesky trees.)

Dreadnought
-Dreadnought (Heals your gizmos and protects them from lightning!)

Vs. Dreadnought
-Rogue and Dreadnought (there's this little ability called "Sabotage"....)
-Sorcerer (Oh yeah, Lightning is good vs. all them metal thingamabobbers...)

Necromancer
-Necromancer (Charms wandering undead, heals and revives troops, raises Cadavers)
-Dreadnought (Good leader all around. Cheap spells)
-Rogue (Sadism spell)
-Warlord (Blood Bath spell, Blood Brothers protects undead from dangerous spirit damage)
-Archdruid (Sometimes, you can zombify a monster or animal with the ghoul curse, and buff it with druid abilities.)

Vs. Necromancer
-Necromancer (Steal Ghouls and other critters from the other necromancer!)
-Theocrat (Did somebody say SPIRIT DAMAGE!?)
-Rogue (Well, the undead ARE immune to blight, but they also tend to die quickly. Sadism helps.)

Rogue
-Rogue (Rogues love using Assassin's strike and Pass wall run with an army of assassins and take a city)
-Theocrat (Die, Undead, Die! Spam Smite spells to sizzle sinful saracens seeking succor within sarcophogi!)
-Sorcerer/Dreadnought (Die, Machines, Die! ...oh, wait...)
-Archdruid (Kind of a stretch, but you can sometimes find a giant or dragon dwelling on the map which you can easily integrate into your empire with Courtesan Ambassadors and get recruitable giants. Huh. I guess those giants like short girls...)

Vs. Rogue
-Anything with True Sight and/or Total Awareness (Your ambush tactics can't save you now, cowards!)

Sorcerer
-Warlord (Low mana use, kind of useful all around)
-Dreadnought (Just obnoxiously useful. Lightning Rod Banner completely nullifies shock damage on summons.)
-Sorcerer (They can heal your summons)
-Archdruid (You can summon monsters, which can be buffed with Savage Rage. The Eldritch Horror in particular can be Revitalized for more uses of Shock Breath.)

Vs. Sorcerer
-Dreadnought (Wizard Hunters skill kills summons Lightning rod banner and Dampening field are good, too)
-True Sight, from any support unit, can counter invisibility.

Theocrat
-Theocrat (Can cast the spell Holy War, which powers up Devout units)
-Dreadnought (To maintain the Shrine of Smiting!)
-Warlord (Also good choices. Some strapping lads to assist the faithful and crush the heretics.)

Vs. Theocrat
-Warlord (Blood Brothers grants entire party strong will)
-Rogue (Dirty Dozen makes your entire party of heathens Devout slayers, crushing the Theocrat's army!)
-Machines or other Strong Will units (Your spirit damage can't save you now! Dreadnoughts repair them.)
-Archdruid/Sorcerer (Spirit of the Land and Spirit Shield are more easily acquired Spirit protection skills)

Warlord
-Sorcerer (Warlords don't specialize in mana use, so you can level up Sorcery as much as you want!)
-Warlord (Birds of a feather flock together.)
-Theocrat (Excellent support hero for your awesome, awesome armies....)
-Archdruid (Warbreeds count as monsters, apparently, so you can awaken their spirits.)

Vs. Warlord
-Archdruid (Has more Cavalry types to exploit with Feral mount)
-Sorcerer, magic attacks in general (Warlord units are typically cursed with low resistance...just like Orcs)


Races: Also, certain races work well certain types of heroes, just like classes. You can eventually absorb the cities of other empires to get access to other races, so if you know you'll be playing a long game against a particular race, you can also use this list to see what to do with your new subjects, but remember that planning around your starting race is more important to consider than who might eventually obtain.


Halflings
-Anything that raises or protects Morale (Touch of Faith, Partisan specialization, Race happiness...)
-Rogue (Remember to terraform more forests and less fertile plains, so you can use Forest concealment!)
-Theocrat (Chaplain raises Morale, but they also have Divine Justicars to auto-revive fallen halflings!)
-Dreadnought (Imperial Authority also increases party morale)
-Warlord (Eventually, the Toughness skill can cancel out the halflings weakness to physical damage!)

Vs. Halflings
-Anything that lowers morale, does physical damage, or does AOE damage because they can't ALL dodge...right?
-Necromancer/Warlord/Rogue (all of these lower morale. Archdruid is a little situation with Feral mount)


High Elves
-Rogue (The Elves will grow forests everywhere, and Rogues provide Forest concealment. Also, Counterpoison.)
-Dreadnought (+1 ranged damage makes the gun even deudlier!)
-Archdruid (early army blight protection and EVENTUAL party-wide Forest concealment.)
-Sorcerer/Warlord (They make your Storm Sisters and Archers, respectively, better at what they do!)

Vs. High Elves
-Dreadnought (Trample those trees! ...Oh, and shoot the elves a lot, I guess that's more to the point...)
-Rogues and Necromancers and ANYTHING that does Blight damage!
-Anything that can kill or corner those ulcer-inducing Ranged units so they can't shoot you anymore!

Draconians
-Archdruid (Has a rare Frost protection skill!)
-Dreadnought (Boost Fire protection even higher and can cast "Core Detonation!" Who needs fire mastery?)

Vs. Draconians
-Necromancer (When it comes to last minute sources of frost damage, beggers can't be choosers...)

Frostlings
-Dreadnought (Has a rare Fire protection skill, and fire attacks to diversify damage types)
-Theocrat/Sorcerer/Necromancer (Also diversifies damage types.)
-Warlord (Fleet Command grants the party Mariner which makes Fast Embark even sexier...)

Vs. Frostlings
-Dreadnought (Fire spells, from the cheap to the uber)
-Archdruid (Frost protection)

Dwarves
-Dreadnought (Use Tunnelling to dig through the underground. Core Detonate safely w/ 1stborn + Forgepriests!)

Humans
-Theocrat (the basic human priest is devout, so even if your leader is not a theocrat, you can still team up a high level theocrat hero with other men of the cloth to cast Holy War and deal loads of ranged spirit damage. Its cheesy, but its a fun idea.)


Goblins
-Archdruid (If you have the right DLC, your goblin civic governance can unlock the ability to recruit Tame Trolls, which are monsters that can be enchanted with Savage Rage)
-Theocrat (awesome skills like "Mighty Meek" and "Divine Justicars" can allow for silly strategies like recruiting 4 theocrats for heroes, recruiting a ton of untouchables, and having all 4 of these units march as an unkillable death-blob.)

Vs. Goblins
-Rogue and Archdruid (One word: Counterpoison. ...or is that two? I'm confused now.)


Tigrans
-Dreadnought (Fire protection stacks with Sun Shield on Tigran Spearmen, allowing you to Core Detonate with minimal casualties.)
-Arch Druid (Support units can transform into various Were-beasts, which are animals, also can counter cold weakness with Warm at Night and support bloodthirsty Prowlers with Inflict Bleeding wounds.)

Vs. Tigrans
-Necromancer (See "Vs. Draconians.")
-Dreadnought (The sphinx is a difficult unit to use, and its even harder when the entire enemy army can just shrug off your precious Sun disk.)

.....

"Wait, what? It's over already!?" you ask?

That's right! That's all I'm going to share! I already told you I'm not going to dissect every hero's skill tree, or tell you when to save up upgrade points for the next level, or anything. This is just me dispensing some basic knowledge of the game and what synergies I've noticed. You'll have to figure everything else for yourself!

The last piece of advice I can tell you is to stop reading guides all day, and go play the game already! Your oppressive Tigran Empire isn't going to build itself!