So, how do these games compare to turnbased classic Warlords games? Are the maps wide open 4Xish but with RTS style play or is it some sort of more mission based thing?
Feel free to compare it to Spellforce, as I picked up the copy on sale the other week, and liked that even though I generally detest realtime "strategy" games since there usually isn't any strategy involved.

I'm not fammilar with TB warlords, and Spellforce does not appear to like me. However!
The main map is, at its most basic level, just a mission selection screen. Select a zone, then a choice of missions, shops, recruitments and upgrades are available. Not all zones are available first off, they become available when certain missions are completed. At this point, it's turn based... but no enemy movements are made aside from a journal clock that tracks your progress on how many game days it takes to finish it ;)
(Not an actual clock, you can leave it still on the screen for a day and nothing will change)
Some missions are in parts, they unlock when you complete others. The Main Quest, will have you exploring pretty much the whole main map. Random encounters are also present.
Mission maps are your standard RTS flavour. Though there are 4 different resources, and a huge amount of hero combinations to play through. Most are 'kill all opponents' theough there is some variety 'most raised buildings' 'most killed number of enemies' 'retrieve the doflicky' and so on.
The RPG-ness comes in from that your hero character and surviving troops (limited) can be taken into new missions, slowly upgrading to become more powerful. However, all but the hero character can actually die. Once a troop member is gone, it is gone for good.
Items, including 'set' pieces can be taken between missions. You can restart the campaign at any point, with your kitted out high level hero and eventually the game changes from an RTS to a hack'n'slash. At this point, it's best to upp the difficulty, or move to multiplayer and skirmish modes.
edit: I should also point out, the game is a bit of a 'huh? 3am already' type of game in the addiction level for me. One of the most surprising titles here I've played in terms of enjoyment .

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Thanks for the reply, in that it's more typical RTS mission based, yet you get to keep your hero and army yet that still isn't enough to sell me on it. (I always find RTS trivial once I come up with a good way to abuse the game into easy resource capping then its just spam the enemy -> no real strategy there or even tactics, of course I do the same in TB but it usually takes longer and the AI (and players) seem better...)
The original Warlords games were awesome, turn based games where IIRC you get randomly generated large maps with cities, etc. (sort of like civilization series) AND heroes + units. You had to then explore the map and conquer enemy AI(or other players). I cannot recall at all if the captured cities(you could raze them as well IIRC) had upgrades or not, but I think that they were race restricted to the units that they could produce. They were alot of fun, but mostly a bit dated now although I suspect that the TB Warlords III + expansion would sell well on gog. An Age of Wonders(TB) collection would probably go good as well, although AoW1 AI was horrible.
Well off to buy King's Bounty Legend then, I think.

Apples and oranges. Warlords is a turn-based strategy series, whereas WBC is a true RTS/RPG hybrid series. I'm going to stand up for WBC here only because it offers something no other RTS does, and that's a truly deep character (hero) development system. Tons of classes, tons of spells, tons of items, and tons of skills that affect everything from unit cost to unit morale make the WBC series one-of-a-kind. Though perhaps not as flashy, the depth of character development rivals that of most full-fledged RPGs.
Unfortunately, WBC2 is the highlight of the series and GOG doesn't sell that one...

'Eventually the game changes from an RTS to a hack'n'slash'
Just started playing and I noticed my 14th level Plaguelord Defiler (Sniffles) keeps running around slapping Golems into gravel. I save a lot. He's got a +25 twinkly sword and a belt of troll regen. I stuff him in a tower when he gets hurt.
So. it could be played like Diablo with an army.

Yeah well but as I was asking in a thread I made does not your hero just run around and capture mines a lot? That and chasing enemy heroes to kill them quick and get ahead of the hero mine grabbing race?