The details are a little fuzzy but from what I recall the game was an arena-style (constrained space) turn-based duel between some form of wizard-type characters. You had magic spells and the ability to summon monsters at your disposal.

The game view was top-down and sprite based (or similar). The arena setting was wooded as I recall and the arena floor had trees (and possibly rocks) by way of natural obstacles.

The starting space for each wizard was a shield space (the shield was a sphere sprite/icon).

I believe it was a DOS (or Win95) era game. It may have come on one of those game collection CDs that were around at the time but I don't recall.

The overall graphical tone was dark I believe.

I've spent much of today looking through various sites and formulations of search terms on google image search looking for something that matched up but haven't been able to find anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No, not Archon. Never played that one. Though I had lots of fun playing Archon Ultra.

The wizard was a human character and the field of play started off empty but for the wizards (and the shields). The graphics were also more advanced than Archon's were. Color and somewhat detailed. More like a flatter 2D (and somewhat less detailed) Battle for Wesnoth (assuming my memory is accurate).

Have you tried this list. It might spark a memory and is a chronological list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_turn-based_strategy_video_games#List

I know it is not this, but just want to put it out there:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/chaos

It is being remade :)

[url=http://www.gollopgames.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=34]http://www.gollopgames.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=34[/url]

That is definitely not it but, from the screenshots and captions, it looks like the right idea for the gameplay. Hadn't. Will. Thanks. Here's hoping.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/magic-the-gathering

MicroProse version of Magic: The Gathering?

No, not that.

But of course, this is........... /www.mobygames.com/game/dos/dark-legions

www.ebay.com/itm/301032530157

Posting abandonware links on the forum is against the rules I'm afraid...

Nope. Though Dark Legions was awesome too.

Etherlords?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVY1-jbcmFw

A lot of these types of games have different scenarios/campaigns set in different lands and terrain, so the pictures you find may not have the correct terrain that you remembered. With Etherlords, you would probably remember the "Chime" bell sound between player's turns in combat... if that's the game you seek!

Might it have been Magic the Gathering: Battlemage? (Quite different from the other roughly contemporary Magic the Gathering game)

Where do the rules forbid that?

TET told me when I was new and tried to post one.