Targeting Heroes

Beacon can be used to target a specific building/turret, but you cannot specifically target the defending hero. Some heroes are very deadly to your unit composition (see the section on units for details). In this case, it is advisable to kill the hero before assaulting the base. Here are some ways to do that:

If the scriptorum is in front of most turrets, and most/all turrets cannot reach the drop zone, deploy your hero or one group of units and move them into the scriptorum's range. As soon as the hero comes out, beacon them back to the drop zone (to get away from the turrets). The hero will chase your units, moving away from the protection of the turrets. Then deploy the rest of your army on top of the exposed hero, killing him instantly. Watch out for heroes with the Psychic Lashback talent when doing this as it could wipe out your whole army.
If the base is near the back of the field but the above strategy is not possible, destroy the scriptorum using your starting energy. Then deploy your hero or one group of units to draw him out, away from the base. Then deploy the rest of your army on top of the exposed hero.
On some bases, the dominate tactic can be used on a beamer to attack the enemy hero.
If you have enough energy and it's worth spending most/all of it to kill the hero, destroy the scriptorum with deathstorms to draw the hero out, then once the hero stops moving, use orbital strikes to kill him.

Note: Heroes with stealth wargear can do a lot of damage to your units before you have a chance to kill them. If this is particularly problematic, use your starting energy before deploying to destroy the scriptorum. Then wait for the stealth to expire before deploying units. Note that while your units cannot target stealthed heroes, combat tactics such as deathstorm and orbital strike will still do damage to stealthed units.

Tip: Archmagos Draykavac is particularly dangerous to vehicles. If it's not possible to kill him before deploying, you can use the haywire tactic to temporarily disable him. If you are chaining haywires together, make sure to deploy the next one before the previous one expires as he will launch his curse/haywire in even the smallest gap of time in which he is not haywired.