Screw futuristic alien armies and lame realistic combat skirmishes. Warhammer: Battle March brings real time strategy back to where it all began: fantasy. Slamming into your Xbox 360 this fall, Battle March enables you to jump straight into beating the crap out of opposing armies, without having to wade through boring resource management. We had a chance to check out an unfinished build of Battle March and came away impressed at what was shown.

Battle March uses a simplified control system, deviating from the radial menus of other RTS console ports, while maintaining controls that won’t alienate hardcore players. The basic controls are A to interact, Y to follow unit or Garrison your troops, B to clear and X for Master Select or Jump to unit. Because you don’t have to spend time building or maintaining bases so much, the controls make it easy to select a unit and flank your enemies.

The epic single-player campaign will take you through the conquests of three factions - Chaos, Empire and Orcs and Goblins. Also available are Hero and Champion characters that are able to wield magic spells like fireballs and healing powers. Also, your Hero character can split off from the unit during battle and duel other Heroes.

With an in-game editor enabling you to customize everything from unit colors to battlefield maps and 120 different unit types and online PvP, there’s plenty to do in Warhammer: Battle March. Check back in the coming months for more.

Apr 16, 2008