My specific question is this:

Is this a subset of any of the previous SSG Warlords series?? I LOVED that game, both I and II. I communicated with the developer (Sydney, Australia, across the main bridge, etc, etc.), hoping for a third version. Then, 'life' occurred... :) At any rate, can anyone tell me if this has anything to do with SSG, albeit with a different publisher?

the original turn based warlords games and the battlecry series were both created by steven fawkner and his team (used to be ssg and later became infinite interactive)
the story of the battlecry games takes place in the same fantasy universe. so you will see familiar characters and places, but the gameplay is different... it's mostly an rts with some rpg elements.

I just bought it myself but I'm a HUGE WBC 2 fan and from what I've heard it's that with a little more of a campaigne which of course #2 had none of. The graphics are almost, well okay totally, identicle but you get some really groovy new species to play around with.

It's in the Warlords universe, but a different style of game.

As was said, it's a real-time strategy game with role-playing elements. You control on a persistent hero from map to map, where they gain experience and items. At the same time, you're training troops and building stuff, just like you would in a regular real-time strategy game, only this one lets you have your role-playing hero tag along and fight or cast spells. Can create a wide variety of characters, so it's good in the role-playing department.

If you only like turn-based as was Warlords, you probably won't like it obviously. You can however slow the game speed down, which I find very nice, so in a way, you can slow it down enough to make it feel like a turn-based game. Nice for those that don't like frantic gameplay.

Something I love about this game, you can use your same hero you create on campaign maps, on skirmish maps, and in multiplayer. So that's pretty fun and cool. The best Real-Time Strategy and Role-Playing mix game series out there in my opinion.