Villain or Hero: The Iron General

This artwork originates from the "Old-World Humans" picture.

In my D&D campaign, he was a villain, the leader of the Forces of Mechanicus, a reawakened army of ancient steam-powered robots intent on world domination.

In some Broquest images, they have used him as one of the potential bros.

Now, I don't know yet how many bros we can have in the campaign, but I would like to say that I vote this man as a Villain.

I cite the following points:

1: Look at him. Doesn't he just look like a robo-nazi that would be fun to fight?
2: From my surveys conducted using this image: https://2img.net/r/ihimg/a/img22/3205/2ot7.png he is one of the most popular villains picked since his debut. A lot of people seem to like the idea of fighting a robot army with him as the cool, collected tactician general.
3: The Rampaging Juggernaut is an interesting villain, but can he really carry a campaign of his own? In my D&D campaign, I didn't think so. As such, the Juggernauts were the siege engines of the Forces of Mechanicus, their most powerful units, each one serving as a powerful boss fight. In the end, though, it was always the Iron General pulling the strings.

Now, maybe there are some good ideas for having him be on the player's side, but given the large number of options we have for bros, I firmly believe that the Iron General should be given a chance to shine as a lead villain.

Thoughts?

Why not do both?

The Iron General brings a robo-nazi to the table for our bros, which is character trait we don't have among our other bros. He seems interesting enough to be able to merge into the story later on.

He could at first be a villain, trying to eliminate whatever species/race/etc he wanted. After his defeat, he realizes what a good commander you are and joins you on your quest. Which at that point he's essentially a brilliant tactician, but also a super racist.

Both. I think it would be interesting if he was a villain at first.
ALSO it would be awesome if he became a villain depending on which path you take.

Example: You meet the Iron General early in game and basically ignore him all the time because you think he sucks. What's more: you don't even want him to join your party so you skip that sidequest. Then you advance through your quest and defeat X evil villain, which is what was preventing the Iron General to rise in power. Since he is not your bro, the path is clear: he will try to achieve his goals by becoming a bad guy.

I think he should be both.

He starts needing some allies to do shit related to his quest, then when he has what he wants he betrays you and escapes to another location where you'll have to fight him.

So we have most people wanting him to be a bro, and then also a villain. The question then is how is he incorporated into the main storyline effectively? I like the idea of betrayal.

Here's a post from /v/:

"To me the Iron General's story was one I could really get behind, being a burnt faced genius kicked out of the military probably because he did something that won a battle at a cost the military couldn't forgive.

It made me think of a character like, I dunno, Doctor Doom or Lelouch. Someone who you could rely on to make dangerous strategic and tactical calls, who will direct you to a solid path of victory, you just have to fight hard enough to get there.

I also liked the idea of earning his respect through showing your competence at combat or leadership, and I also liked to take the Troublemaking Orc as a sort of counter-balance. Someone who you can get along with easily, but who needs discipline to work well."

Nave the DM wrote:

Doctor Doom

Holy shit yes. Making the Iron General a sort of Doctor Doom personality clone would be fucking fantastic.