Finished the mission to recruit the Orcs. Jeez that one was pretty brutal. The Elven mission was complete babby mode and picking flowers in the meadow in comparison, though I guess it's very apt. Loved the mission, a lot. You had to go all around the map subjugating the different Orcish clans while defending what you conquer (and unlocking new Orc units this way!) before mounting an assault at the main bad Orcguys fortress. The Orcs are so good. I highly, HIGHLY recommend bringing along a White Mage who can rez and heal / cast regen aura since the Orcs are very sturdy units but seem to have absolute crap HP regen, and rezzing orc units that hit for 30 damage and have 300~ HP is a bit more valuable than doing the same for some puny Human and Elven units.
Anyway, I have unlocked a few new companions, an I must take issue with the games skill tress, specifically the Hero's. The 3 skill trees you pick in the beginning are pretty bad in that most of them don't have any real synergy with each other. Most of them feel like they overlap with each other more than anything. This is understandable since they are all intended as skill trees that form the base of your character, however, you have 3 of them. Now that I have Gor as a companion, I can easily see that he'll be the best Fire Mage in the game simply because the Orcish Shaman skill tree has a Fire Totem that acts as a kind of equivalent for the Blizzard spell, except the AoE is far greater. It's really powerful and great for wiping out large groups of weaker units and dealing a nice amount of damage to stronger ones. The fire perk in the elemental skill tree that reduces the cost and cooldowns of fire spells also works on this Fire Totem spell, so there is an element of synergy between the trees.
I also got a fighter, I forgot his name, but you got him from the Orc mission during a side quest. He has a skill tree for the basic Defensive and Offensive skills, and he has a skill tree called Occultism. Occultism is really strong. Each point in the passive gives you a 5% chance to do pure damage, which bypasses all resistances. There's also a melee attack that always does pure damage, a passive perk that increases HP by 100 and focus by 10 and another passive that makes him regen HP and FP each time he attacks. There are also some abilities that deal in weakening and dealing massive damage to enemies under conditionals (like killing them while they are under a curse). Again, thanks to this bonus skill tree that is unique to this character, it creates useful synergy between the skill trees. The +20% bonus HP passive looks a lot nicer thanks to the extra 100 HP he gets from Occultism, and the damage you get from Brutality becomes even more effective when you start dishing out pure damage with a 25% chance. He's going to end up being a complete powerhouse who makes things explode, but thanks to the massive amount of HP, massive damage he does AND passive life leech, he's going to be sweeping the floors with everyone.
The main character doesn't really have much going on for him. I hope there will be opportunities to unlock new unique trees for him later down the game. Otherwise the Leadership tree will be his most defining aspect, but he or she will lag behind everyone else due to their more unique abilities. Not to say that Leadership isn't good, because it is. Particularly the skills that repair buildings and increase worker effectiveness are quite valuable, but they aren't necessarily as interesting as, say, the ability to summon a "very powerful Demon" (this is the ultimate ability for the fighter I found).
