Looking through the other games set in the Terrinoth world one of the recurring mechanics is that of the Heroes that are separate from the larger factions. Pure speculation at this point but I'm wondering how long it will be before we see some of the Hero characters from Descent, the Runewars board game, and Runebound make their appearance in this game as well. For that matter, some of the Lieutenants from Descent could also appear as Hero characters for the Waiqar faction as well I would guess.

Thoughts?

There already are. Some of the hero's were shown at gencon.

They were already spoiled at GenCon. We have no idea how much they'll cost, but there is a video with Anton Torres showcasing some hero characters for each faction. Lord Hawthorne and Vorakesh are two of them.

Well lookee there....

I'll admit that I hadn't seen that video, I tend to shy away from BoLS videos but that is some good info and great closeups of the minis. Speaks to my inner Warcraft II player from ages past. I'm not an expert on the background/lore of this setting but this video increases my interest level.

From what I understand there is a large pool of these Heroes to pull from, correct? Are they all related to specific factions or could some be multi-faction models?

Given how much background information there is for each hero character in Descent/Runebound (ie. five sentences at most, and many don't have even that), your own guess is as good as anyone else's.

For illustrative purposes, this is all the background information available for Avric Albright of Descent 2e fame:

Avric Albright spent 3 years as a soldier assigned to the Citadel of Archaut before hearing his calling. He traveled to Vynelvale to join the priesthood, but never arrived. On the way, one innocent's cry for help led to another quest to rescue a small town, to another adventure deep beneath the earth... And so it goes for Avric, a man so devoted to the principles of his religion he cannot find the time to be inducted into its holy orders. Still, none doubt his faith nor his blessings.

For purposes of Rune Wars faction affiliation, there is nothing you could infer from that and every hero is like that - they have backgrounds that are vague in the extreme if they even have one. You could probably assume that if he ever would go into any RWM faction, he would go in the Daqan faction, but that would be strictly by the logic of the Daqan faction being 'humans' and Avric being 'human' as well, since there is literally nothing else to go by.

For illustrative purposes, this is all the background information available for Avric Albright of Descent 2e fame:

Avric Albright spent 3 years as a soldier assigned to the Citadel of Archaut before hearing his calling. He traveled to Vynelvale to join the priesthood, but never arrived. On the way, one innocent's cry for help led to another quest to rescue a small town, to another adventure deep beneath the earth... And so it goes for Avric, a man so devoted to the principles of his religion he cannot find the time to be inducted into its holy orders. Still, none doubt his faith nor his blessings.

For purposes of Rune Wars faction affiliation, there is nothing you could infer from that and every hero is like that - they have backgrounds that are vague in the extreme if they even have one. You could probably assume that if he ever would go into any RWM faction, he would go in the Daqan faction, but that would be strictly by the logic of the Daqan faction being 'humans' and Avric being 'human' as well, since there is literally nothing else to go by.

You can also base your guess on the fact that some characters wear Daqan armor with Daqan colors and emblems. Lord Hawthorne is the first one confirmed as we saw on the pictures. These characters are:

Alys Raine http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Alys_Raine

Andira Runehand http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Andira_Runehand

Avric Albright http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Avric_Albright

Lord Hawthorne http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_Hawthorne

Wow. The old Andira Runehand looks sooooo much better than the new one. I drew Andira in my Runewars game tonight and she was amazing for my Uthuk Y'llan army (although she did eventally desert me). I'm so glad Runewars uses the old look.

(If you haven't caught on to FFG's naming convention yet, Runewars = boardgame; RuneWars = miniatures game.)

I bet that they are going to make a lot of factionless heroes, that can be used by lots of factions, just like in the boardgame

To me the Daquan mage looks like an older Leoric, others have also said Master Thorne.

I would also like to see some generic 'Daqan Lord' type heroes, I like being able to have a 'generic' lord and name him myself etc

FFG seem to love using named characters.

I also wonder if we'll get 'special standard units' aka "King's first spear division" with a slightly different dial...