Owning the resource mines is the key to victory, just as holding cities was in the old games. So how does the gameplay feel? Surprisingly very similar in spirit to the old turn-based games, but with many nice touches. The ability to pause the action to issue movement orders is most welcome when you see a horde of disease-carrying enemies swarming towards some of your best units. But nothing is invulnerable, when tackled by the right tactics.

The most powerful game units, such as the dragon, take a long time to build, but have strong bonuses that make them truly devastating in combat. Cheap infantry and good ranged units are often the way to deal with poison and disease-carrying enemies. It's important to recognise these and know how to deal with them getting your hero diseased is a big pain with no cure spell. Certain units can cause fear, chaos, terror, awe, poison and disease. Each hero has four primary stats (strength, intelligence, dexterity and charisma) and these add to the skills (common to all hero classes) and abilities (which depend on class and race) that shape the character. Warrior-focused heroes can concentrate on building their combat and command skills and abilities. Spells have prerequisites, so you have to learn the simpler ones first. The 83 spells are split into 9 spheres, such as summoning and healing, with certain heroes able to 'major' in each, raising ability and spell casting chances for spells in that sphere as they go. Bonus spells don't have to be cast individually on units. They can cast area spells that can also boost friendly units (or harm enemy ones) in that radius of influence. Heroes exert a circle of influence in which all friendly units gains combat bonuses. The game has more in common with Warcraft than, say, Heroes of Might and Magic which are comparable in scope and style to the earlier Warlords games.Īs in previous Warlords games, the hallmark of Battlecry is the importance of heroes, unique characters who lead your armies. Warlords Battlecry is the last and undoubtedly most underrated entry in SSG’s celebrated Warlords series, long heralded as the best fantasy wargames for die-hard wargamers everywhere.īattlecry marks a sharp departure from the previous Warlords games in two respects: real-time play, and narrow tactical-level scope.

Warlords battlecry iii class skills