Nowadays, additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have gained a pivotal role in several industrial sectors producing high-quality parts and reducing the amount of material scraps with respect to subtractive manufacturing processes. Direct Energy Deposition, also known as DED, is one of the seven classes of the AM panorama and refers to a 3D printing technique that usually involves a coaxial feed of powders to an energy source, typically a laser, to form melted layers on a substrate. This technique is mainly used for metals such as aluminum, titanium, copper, and stainless steel, but also cermets like WC-Co. The latter is a material composed of a ceramic phase embedded into a metallic binder, highly employed in the machinery, tooling, and cutting industries due to their extraordinary hardness, toughness, and corrosion resistance. Over the years, WC-Co compounds have been usually processed via powder metallurgy or deposited as hardfacing coatings by plasma techniques on several substrates to increase their wear resistance. In the last few years, the advent of metal AM, especially the laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) techniques, has opened new possibilities in processing these materials. Several studies dealt with analyzing the evolution of both microstructure and hardness of WC-Co parts fabricated by L-PBF, mainly focusing on analyzing the effect of the process parameters. Conversely, in the literature, only a few works investigated the metallurgical features and properties of WC-Co specimens built by DED. Hence, in the present study experimental WC-12Co clads were deposited via DED on a High-Speed Steel (HSS) substrate according to specifically settled process parameters, including the laser power, the scanning speed, the powder feed rate, and the scanning strategy. Investigations were performed by optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM/EDS), assessing the high quantity of WC polygonal grains and herringbone δ-carbides distributed across the Co matrix. Pores were detected across the deposited interlayers, affecting the coatings' microstructural quality. Microhardness profiles were also performed across the specimens. Moreover, aiming at improving and optimizing both the microstructure and the hardness of the clads, the effect of different heat treatment routes was also investigated.