Kurtz leads all the KLG factions and Wesson appears to be in charge of uaf factions considering he calls upon them all in district 14. But as GIR said, read up on the lore of the heros to find out more.
Jado is the loremaster here. But what i do know it that indeed Kurtz bribed all the other factions outside of UAF and a select few. Uaf AND Airborne is all Wesson’s. There are no leaders in UAF airborne as it is an extension of the UAF
But if we’re talking like the leader of the squads, then the guesses may not be too far
Do you mean leaders as in the foremost member of the faction, rather than who is in charge? Factions named after Kurtz answer to Kurtz. All UAF answers to Wesson. Without revealing too many spoilers, other factions either made a deal with Kurtz to answer to him, are convinced to join Ryker (not UAF, to be clear), or are not mentioned in the Campaign. Regarding the “best” faction members, we can have a proper discussion/argument without scrutinizing the lore (I mean argument in the rhetorical sense, as in making your point).
With this premise, I believe we should rank faction members among many criteria? Versatility, DPS, survivability, Support skills, etc. I would not rank Mk. 2 above Verrill, or even Ballista, due to their more useful passives (in my opinion). I would also rank Duran much higher than Voltage (once again due to his passives).
You seem to like the 7 stars, but thanks to power creep, the newer 5 stars exceed them in terms of power. Quasary is much more useful (in my opinion) than Artemis. Is Artemis their leader, meaning in charge, perhaps based on the campaign, but Quasary has more power, reloads faster, and has support passives I’d argue are among the best of any hero in any faction.