There are 33 Heroes to recruit by the end of Act 3. Their missions are always available at the same point of the campaign, while your chosen Morality values will raise at a consistent rate as well. So there isn't any randomness to speak of.

12 are Morality rewards, of which you will only get 5 of in a single run. And Act 1-3 each have a 'Choose one or the other' moment, though you can take both Balain Brothers. That still leaves 23 Heroes fighting over 12 Slots on your team. The Loyalty bonus (and penalty) for Morality will strongly emphasis some heroes over others, but its up to you who is going to make the cut.


Loyalty
I was 20 weeks in my first game before I realized you could hover over a Heroes Loyalty to see the break down of all sources of Loyalty. Heroes get a boost/penalty for half your Morality values compared to their views.

So at the end of act 2 with 10 Tyrant / 10 Old faith

• Morgawse will get +5 and +5 Loyalty (+10)
  
• Guinevere will get -5 and +5 Loyalty (+0)
  
• Sir Tegyr will get -5 and -5 Loyalty(-10)
  
• Dindraine will get -5
  
• Sir Kay will get +0

You can get Neutral or Conflicting Morality knights Loyalty up through other means, but matching heroes will get the +20% damage and +1AP that much easier. Allowing you to focus event bonuses on other Heroes.

Required Hero Missions
Other than Mordred, there are only 4 missions so far that require a specific hero in your party after you recruit them. Kay, Dindraine, and Ector all have side missions in Act 1, and all 3 are automatically added to your round table at the start. So unless you kick them immediately you won't miss those quest.

The other case is Lady Guinevere, who joins you during the main quest in Act 2. Her side quest is notable as it allows you to recruit Sir Percival. Lady Guinevere must be on the Round Table (not an aspirant), and then saving and reloading the game should make the (somewhat hard) side quest available.

Required Hero Events
Some of the Heroes have unique Events when they are in your party. Most of the time, the largest benefit from these events will be the Loyalty points you can get for said Hero.

The most notable is Sir Tristan's event, as it leads you to getting Lady Isolde's remains which you can resurrect to add her to your party.

Relics
While the differences in skills can add some variance or strengths to individual Heroes, often Relics end up being far more impact-full to a Heroes build.

Arcanist have the most diversity and the fewest shared skills. Even the skills they do share they tend to get at different tiers, or in some cases get upgrade-able versions of Basic Skills (ex: Long Reach or Mental Guard). Of the 5 Arcanist two are mutually exclusive choices, and two are morality rewards that include the Old Faith.


Sir Ector is close to a base line Arcanist who can go Hex build, or focus on Fire Blast and Force bolt for damage. Sir Dagonet can go the hardest into hexs, and desecrated ground can be upgraded to make a 4x4 area with slow to control for great crowd control. Morgana gets the most out of her direct damage frost skills, and frost mastery allowing weapon damage to ramp up when freezing large groups of enemies. Merlin has the most unique tool kit with illusion/mind fog for control and plenty of large AoE Fire abilities, though he is not necessarily the most damaging.

Faerie Knight enables a melee arcanist build.. Can skill his main attack to 3 ap, applies shock, and good damage. Can teleport behind enemies to back stab archers or gain stealth, while Frost armor allows him to trade with enemy knights as well.

Champion sports the largest number of heroes, with three of them having exactly the same skill trees. They have the fewest changes between them, though those changes can make some difference. Usually involving giving up Defensive Stance early for a different type of Defensive ability later, or for gap closer at the expense of being more squishy. They also pair surprisingly well with a Relic that provides a ranged damage spell, since their base weapon damage is high to being with.


Baalan, Lanval, and Brunor share the same kit, but that kit already works well enough. Lanval spends most of his time training anyway. Kay gives up Tier 1 defensive for a Tier 3 defensive + counter attack. Black Knight gets a Gap closer. White Knight gets a self buff that returns AP on kill, and can stack if you get its Cool down lowered (Inspire or Strike upgrade). Lancelot is the most unique being the loner with a team wide inspire buff, half Champion half Sage, but he loses the Rage stacking damage.

Mordred is your Main Story required Defender for most of the game. You can pick up Pelleas in Act 1 as an alternative, but every other defender is conditional and half of them don't come until act 3.


Mordred is a bit of a hybrid Defender/Arcanist, whose lightning skills really do some work. Percival and Galahad are two flavors of "Kill it with fire, for the lord" protectors. Gawain and Red knight went to the Mordred school of the best defense is a good offense. Also Pelleas exist... he protec.

Marksman each get a different tier 1 ability to set them apart. They are able to spread damage, apply poison debuff, and provide another source of Scout to the team. Item builds tend to lean Marksman towards Cover, Over-watch, or Backstab builds; but they are fairly squishy if caught out by enemies.




Lady Dindraine voted most likely to kill it with fire. Yvain has additional sources of physical AoE damage. Sir Bors gets more abilities to apply slow/weakness, as well as access to medium armor and medium armor relic modifiers. Sir Geraint can apply shock to multiple units, while Damas has borrowed some Vanguard Gas Traps for choke points.

Sages have few differences between them (except when they don't...). Inspire, Bless, Protection Aura dispensers are nice enough on their own. Other than Lady Guinevere, the other four sages are all conditional as well. Morality reward, choose one or the other, or the Tristan Event.


Leodegrance is surprisingly bare bones for a morality hero compared to the other Sages, while Lady Isolde is Leos skill set + Ice Lance and Aura. Guess its the trade off of using a Resurrection tome. Guinevere's upgrade-able teleport allows her to do a Vanguard impression, hitting the encounters back line from stealth. Luncan went to the Percival and Galahad school of 'Kill it with fire, for the lord' and even picked up Gawain's Monster Hunter, so a bit of a Sage/Paladin hybrid.

Then there is Morgawse, who gives up all the iconic party buffs of sage, and instead takes on a number of lightning damage abilities making her more like a Sage/Arcanist or Warlock. Still has Aura of Protection, and with the addition of Ice Shield can continue fighting near the front line.

Of the five Vanguard, two of them share the same kit. In theory there are potientialy interesting ways to build them other than chaining back stab damage. Using them to peel of enemies then retreating to stealth to prevent your front line from getting overrun. Using traps to slow and bleed AP and Armor at choke points. Or... just chain kill a bunch of enemies from behind.


Balin and Tegyr let you choose your flavor of Christian (Rightful or Tyrant). Tristan is unique with his Poison Cut at 4 AP and large next turn damage, and can eventually reduce this to 3 AP like the other Vanguard at Tier 3. Bedivere is afraid of heights. And Boudicea decided to give up all that trap business in order to focus on Rip and Tare.

Here is one last graph, if your only concern in building a final team is matching Morality choices for Maximum Loyalty. Start with Heroes that match both your Morality Axis. Then pull ones that match a single Axis. Finally use the Neutral pool to fill in any gaps, or swap out any Heroes you just don't like.

Of course you can still pull from heroes outside your morality as well, if you are going for a Class build or to pick a favorite.