Last Stand - Lord General

Perhaps the hardest-to-use Hero in the entire game, the Lord General, in proud tradition of every game Relic has ever worked on that has the Imperial Guard in it seems to be one-dimensional and inefficient - and, insofar as his being a character one can just pick up and use, this is most-assuredly true. The Lord General, at a glance, sucks. His basic traits traits are abhorrent - no mobility boosting until level 20, poor support abilities until way late-game, limited build options, mediocre damage output in general, and no way to boost his HP, making him the most fragile hero in all of Last Stand.

One has to wonder if Relic pulled out all the stops in making the Lord General suck, in fact.

Sadly for Relic, if they did intend for him to just suck utterly, they failed, because there's many ways to make him viable, and this guide will show you just how powerful he can be. Using the Lord General involves using your brain and learning to delegate battlefield control - either to your minions, or to your teammates - and adapt on the fly. You cannot deal with enemies in the conventional fashion, and you need to fight smart to get anywhere with the guy. When properly leveled, the General's builds open up much more, and he becomes incrementally more fun to play with each and every level obtained.

There's a few things that the Lord General particularly excels at. One is fighting defensively; his ability to call in backup, set up turrets, and establishing killing fields means that when your team needs to hold ground, there's nobody better. Properly backed up, the Lord General can actually become a dominating force on the battlefield. The other is killing priority targets. From the get-go, the Lord General excels at murdering high-level threats like enemy heroes, Zoanthropes, and Wraithguards.

Armor

• Carapace Armor - Default
  • Armor Rating: 18
    • Default Armor. Sucks, yadda yadda yadda.

• Cadia-Pattern Carapace Armor - Level 1
  • Armor Rating: 125
  • +0.2/sec Energy Regeneration
    • This initial armor is remarkably useful, though it doesn't really come into its own until later. It provides excellendtprotection, and an incredibly useful ability to boost your energy regen slightly.

• Master-Crafted Carapace Armor - Level 4
  • Armor Rating: 79
  • Trait: Fearless (Immune to Suppression)
  • Ability: Tarantula Heavy Bolter Turret (25 energy; Deploys a turret with heavy bolters that suppresses targets and does modestly good anti-infantry damage)
    • The first of the Turret Armors and arguably one of the most useful. The Heavy Bolter Turret is always helpful for suppressing enemies, this armor has decent protection, and it makes you Fearless as part of the bargain. It works well if your squad does AOE damage (Catachans, Flamer or Grenade Launcher Guardsmen).

• Artificer Carapace Armor - Level 8
  • Armor Rating: 72
  • Trait: Unshakable (Immune to Knockdown)
• Ability: Tarantula Missile Turret (25 energy; deploys a turret with twin-linked missile launchers that does decent anti-armor damage and has strong knockback)
  • • The other of the commonly-used Turret Armors, this is a great alternative to the Heavy Bolter turret of the Master-Crafted Carapace Armor. Decent overall defense and the always-useful Unshakable trait combine with a turret that has better performance at killing vehicles and can disrupt infantry effetively. Whilst it tends to be not as useful as the Master-Crafted Armor, the added armor-punching of the Artificer can be a tremendous asset, depending on your loadout.

• Mordian-Pattern Carapace Armor - Level 12
  • Armor Rating: 37
  • Ability: Executioner Heavy Turret (40 energy; deploys an anti-infantry heavy turret that rapidly fires plasma blasts. These blasts deal area-of-effect damage at a long range)
    • At a glance, a heavy turret with a Plasma Cannon seems like a wonderful idea. Sadly, it's nowhere near as awesome as it sounds; the turret is bugged and does barely any damage due to lacking any armor penetration, to the point where the Heavy Bolter turret out-damages it. Providing barely any protection and with a turret that costs much more than the smaller pair to further drive home the fail, the Mordian-Pattern Armor is to be avoided.

• Armageddon-Pattern Carapace Armor - Leveol 16
  • Armor Rating: 30
  • Ability: Vanquisher Heavy Turret (40 energy; calls down a turret with a powerful anti-tank cannon that fires at long range and has a large area-of-effect, and penetrates armor)
    • Like the Mordian Armor, the Armageddon one focuses everything on its massive turret. Unlike the Mordian, however, the Vanquisher turret from the Armageddon-Pattern Armor is reasonably good. Though neither very accurate or powerful, the Vanquisher cannon of this turret has both area-of-effect damage and armor penetration, which places it well above the Mordian Armor. Though not as useful or cost-effective as the lighter turrets, it's quite effective if placed correctly and can be extremely handy if used right. Note, however: The Armageddon-Pattern Armor has even less damage protection, however, and no traits, which further restrain how useful it can be.

• The Black Plate - Achievement Unlock
  • Armor Rating: 125
  • Trait: Black Armor (50% Damage from all melee attacks).
    • Unlocked via the achievement "Unshakable," which is done by beating 10 waves whilst holding both strategic points, and not losing them all round. Once obtained, it's the most protective armor in the entire game for the Lord General, though it provides none of the myriad benefits of other armors. Still, due to its raw defense, it's one of the more reliably useful ones, and gives him excellent survivability where he otherwise wouldn't have it.