Good to see you. Introduce yourselves!

Is there an intro guide to playing this? I came in expecting Age of Wonders but now I'm just mind-boggled.

Is it not appropriate for me to post if I had it for awhile?

An intro guide... hmm.

What's boggling you? Easiest thing to do is just right click all the things, since it brings up a fairly helpful tooltip in almost all cases. Aside from that, glance through the manual and spellbook. (Especially the back of the manual; it lists things like the hidden bonuses you get from having high ranks in a given school of magic...)

Aside from that, be glad to help with anything troubling you

I discovered that the menu had auto combat on. Right click for everything, check.
How is the game structured? Is it scenario by scenario or kind of Lords of Magic big free for all?

Big FFA. There is NO Campaign in this game only a randomly generated map, with specs u choose, to play. Guess it is like Lords of Magic in that regard then hadn't thought of it that way myself before.

For me I like it because Single Scenarios are what I like to play 98% of the time. For someone who really loves long campaigns not so good.

Oh and be sure to read my Malleus <3 thread as it gives a good overview on the importance of Heroes and why certain ones are worth it and others not.

Heroes aren't the only way to play, of course.

I myself was always partial to Chaos magic. What's that? You think your crack troops and heroes can beat my spearmen? NOT IF THEY'RE ALL CRATERS FIRST!

Different strokes, and all that. I myself prefer Sorcery. It allows me (and my heroes) to say, "Chaos magic? I don't see any Chaos magic. Do you see any Chaos magic?" ;)

That's what's beautiful about this game. All of the different magical disciplines can achieve some really cool endgame stuff.

Life: "I summon the Messiah and cloak him with enough magical power to shake off dragon breath, then send him out to cleave through whole armies."
Death: "Oh, go ahead, send an army against me. Once I'm done ripping out their souls and raising their flesh as undead monstrosities, I'll send them right back, led by Death Knights."
Chaos: "AHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAAH BURN ALL THE THINGS, MY CITIES WILL BE TINY ISLANDS OF PROSPERITY IN A SEA OF DESOLATION AND FLAME!"
Nature: "Every root, every leaf, every twig, is a spy for me. I know where your armies walk, and know where your scouts fly, and in the place where you least expect it the very Earth opens up to swallow your leaders and release the savagery of fangs and claws."
Sorcery: "I'm the only one allowed to summon. Or cast. Or take turns. Go sit in the corner and wait while I dismantle your entire empire."

Or you could take the zero spellbook route, and be a famous charismatic alchemist from another plane of existence, with a talent for leadership and crafting artifacts.

Not that it's ever been done before, of course. ;)

Or the Node Lord route, combining Node Mastery with Chaos, Nature, or Sorcery Mastery. You'll have an advantage in attacking Nodes (because you can ignore the magic suppression effect), you gain double the (already substantial) magic power they give, and for your chosen school's nodes it's x4 the base node power. Sure you won't have access to Nature's uber-beasts, Sorcery's reality-warping, or Chaos's "ruin every speck of the world that you don't control," but you'll have a selection of minor spells from many schools, some good spells from your "specialty" school, and the raw power flow to abuse the everloving hell out of every piece of magic you do get.

Or you could just go with mundane units and beat the ever living heck out of your opponents with rocks and pointy sticks. Magic? Who needs magic, we have cold steel! Or, well, cold Adamantium, because we're cool like that.