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Warhammer Survivors Squad System

Keywords decide who can wield a weapon; off-Keyword weapons bring followers who fight for you but never take damage or collect items.

Last updated 2026-10-24 · Demo build

🚧 Demo-era build: Warhammer Survivors launches November 10, 2026. A demo is playable now on Steam and Xbox PC — pages are seeded from demo-era sources and completed at launch.

The squad system is how Warhammer Survivors lets one champion field several Warhammer heroes at once. Everything below comes from Auroch Digital’s Feature Focus: Squad System (Steam, October 21, 2026) and earlier official posts; anything the developer has not explained is marked Pending launch.

Keywords: the rule behind every squad

Every character and every weapon has one or more Keywords, and so do some items.
Keywords decide who can wield what. Some weapons are tied to particular champions — the developer’s examples are Marneus Calgar’s Gauntlets of Ultramar and Gotrek’s Zangrom-Thaz.
When your champion picks up a weapon their Keywords do not allow, an ally who can use it joins you and wields it on your behalf. That ally is a follower, and together you form a small squad.

What followers can and cannot do

Follower rule	Official wording, summarised
Attacks	Followers use the weapon for you and “unleash devastating attacks”.
Damage taken	Followers cannot take damage.
Pick-ups	Followers cannot collect items — collecting stays your job.
Role	An “extension of the player’s area of effect with no risk of losing health”.
How many	“Multiple followers” can squad up with one champion. Exact cap: Pending launch.

How you recruit squad members

There is no separate recruit menu in the official description: you recruit by taking weapons. Three official routes put extra Warhammer heroes or troops at your side:

Off-Keyword weapons. Taking a weapon your champion cannot wield brings a follower who can (Squad System post).
Weapons that level up into squads. Trooper Kozlowski’s Lasgun fires at the nearest enemy; as it levels up, squadmates join him (First Survivors Revealed, Nov 19, 2025). Upgraded, it brings in additional Cadian Shocktroopers (Squad System post).
Evolutions that summon a hero. Evolving the Fyrestorm Greataxe calls Gotrek Gurnisson to your side with Zangrom-Thaz (Feb 25 post); evolving the Power Fist brings Marneus Calgar with the Gauntlets of Ultramar (Apr 9 post). If you are already playing that hero, no clone appears.

Evolution requirements themselves are tracked on the weapon evolutions page.

How the squad system relates to characters

Champion vs follower is a role, not a character type. Trooper Kozlowski is a playable champion who starts with a Lasgun (Oct 19 post), and he is also used as a follower example in the Squad System post. See the characters list.
Some champions scale with followers. The Black Templars’ Castellan gains attack power and skill “with every follower gained”.
Universes stay separate. Each universe has its own roster, weapons and stages, with some shared weapons (Nov 11, 2025 FAQ post). So expect followers from your own universe only (our inference from the separate rosters); cross-universe weapons such as the D6 Dice and Nuln Oil exist in both.

Developer-highlighted combos

Pairing	Why it works (official description)
Bastian Carthalos + Lorai, Child of the Abyss	Bastian’s Uskavar the Sunderer hits in close-range patterns; Lorai’s Nebulous Sea Fog draws foes in and damages them, pulling enemies into Bastian’s damage zones.
The Castellan + Trooper Kozlowski	Kozlowski’s upgraded Lasgun brings extra Cadian Shocktroopers, and each one adds to the Castellan’s follower-scaled damage.

These are the developer’s examples, not tested rankings. Neither pair has been confirmed as available in the October demo, whose six champions are listed on the demo page.

Beginner takeaways

Treat followers as free damage, not bodyguards. They cannot take hits, so they do not soak damage for you either — positioning is still on you. (Inference from the rule that followers cannot take damage.)
You still have to walk to every pick-up because followers never collect items.
Read the Keyword fit before you skip a weapon. An off-Keyword weapon is not wasted: it arrives with a follower.
Follower-scaling champions like the Castellan want follower-producing weapons such as Kozlowski’s Lasgun.
Followers carry weapons that can apply status effects, so check which effects your squad’s weapons bring.

Still unconfirmed

Full Keyword list and how the game displays Keywords: Pending launch.
Maximum follower count, and whether followers level separately: Pending launch.
Whether Bastian Carthalos, Lorai or the Castellan are unlockable in the demo: not stated officially.

Questions? The developers take questions in a Reddit AMA on r/Games on October 27, 6–8pm GMT, announced in the same Squad System post. Related: Keywords in the glossary · FAQ.