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Wartales is a turn-based RPG with a lot of fun and interesting medieval elements.
The overall concept is you recruit and form a band of mercenaries that wander the land doing quests, killing foes, collecting coin, armor and weapons.
There’s no magic spell casting, but there are otherworldly creatures to encounter. Damage is done with typical weapons of the period, applied poisons, and burning fire. Healing is performed using bandages or alchemists’ potions.
There are no fireballs, but there are fire arrows and fire bombs. A current downside is the fire mechanic that transfers the burning debuff to any character standing next to the burning NPC (at the end of their turn). You are less likely to use fire on the enemy as they just run up to your troops and light them on fire. It is manageable but is an inconvenience. It needs restricted so only the burning NPC burns unless the enemy purposely applies fire to your troops using a fire arrow, fire bomb, or torch. Hopefully this will be changed as a lot of people have complained about it and the devs seem to listen to feedback. This is my biggest negative hence the - 0.5 on the rating.
There are a lot of character classes such as fighter, archer, ranger (more like a rogue), brute, spearman, crossbowman, and each have sub classes so you’ll be able to have a lot of different fighting styles available to choose from.

You can adopt or capture animals such as boar, wolves, and bears and have them fight alongside you in battle.
You can also capture prisoners and recruit them, command them work in your camp, or turn them in for rewards. Some of the prisoners from various factions have special abilities that make them worth recruiting into your party. Recruiting a prisoner takes time and some specific resources so look up a guide on that part of the game.

Characters have stats that can be leveled up and modified by armor, weapons, food buffs, oil buffs, and even professions. You can run standard builds putting points into your class to buff constitution, strength or dexterity, or run meta builds that focus more on critical hit% and high movement speed to get around the battlefield.
There are some cosmetic appearances you can select at creation and can change mercs hairstyle and color in game using a barber knife. Changing hired/recruited mercs faces isn't an option.. yet.
There are 11 professions to master and every character can learn one or more, but switching between professions loses accumulated crafting XP so most people assign one merc to one profession. Although 11 companions seem like a lot to manage, you’ll find you might need even more to survive some of the fights. One merc assigned to a primary profession is good. Once they master it, you can have them learn other skills so you have backups in case one of them gets killed in battle. Death is permanent. You can, and probably will, lose characters. Plan for it.
There is a cool feature where you can create a memorial to the fallen by placing a headstone on the world map. Some people create graveyards to remember their lost comrades.
Your troops can mine ore, catch fish, gather plants, craft potions, cook basic and complex foods providing buffs, forge items, armor and weapons, and even upgrade them at the forge or brotherhood camp.
There are swords, shields, bows, crossbows, throwing knives/hatchets/sickles (can be poisoned), polearms, 2H swords, 2H hammers, 2H axes, maces, daggers, and katar (special pugilist duel wielded weapons), torches, fire arrows and bombs.
Armor classes are standard heavy, medium, and light. Heavy armor reduces movement and movement is very important on the battlefield. You can increase your movement stat during level up, with equipment, or increase movement in combat using various skills.
There are towns, camps, mines, tombs, and other places to visit, most related to a quest you can complete for coin and influence. Influence is a secondary currency you can spend to enhance your parties’ abilities.
Combat is played out on various battle maps. You can move your troops around before the battle starts so you have tanks in front and ranged in the back. Depending on the map you could surround the enemy, have them surround you, or have each side split into smaller groups.
As you kill enemy units, or they kill yours, morale will change. If you kill enough of them, they will become demoralized and you will become galvanized (doing more damage). Eventually they may decide to flee and you can choose to let them go or finish the fight and slaughter the rest. You can also flee a battle but your troops may become injured and lose happiness.
There are different “paths” that increase based on your combat, trade, debauchery, and exploration. You can unlock new skills or features based on your actions in the world.
Surprisingly, the game not only accommodates the underworld, it seems to encourage it by requiring you to pick locks, steal items, attack merchant caravans, refugees, guards, and even complete assassination missions. Of course you don’t have to do any of these, but you’ll miss out on a lot of coin, XP, items, and skills. Keep in mind, Wartales is set in the harsh medieval era, and back then practically anything was fair game to ensure your survival.
At first you walk everywhere. You can buy ponies and outfit them with horseshoes to increase overworld movement speed. There are a lot of ways to boost movement speed and reduce fatigue. Fatigue accumulates over time, slowly when not moving, faster when moving, and fastest in battles that take several turns to complete. Eventually you’ll unlock trading posts that will allow fast travel between major cities.
Your ponies can be upgraded to pack horses to carry more gear, or warhorses where they can join you on the battlefield and engage in combat. You don't actually ride the ponies, they are more like pack mules. The war pony (warhorse) has a nice skill called Inspiration that can double any units movement standing around it. That's pretty useful for racing across the battlefield to take out pesky archers. The warhorse is often used in that role as well.
The Battle AI is so-so; it seems to target the closest or weakest enemy unit. They will walk though fire to get to you which is of course NI (NOT Intelligent). The devs just released an update to address some AI concerns but the enemy still likes to walk though fire to get to your troops. Use that to your advantage, (EDIT: From what I read, the AI is dumber on low difficulties and gets smarter the higher you go. So my complaint may be due to starting on a low difficulty to learn the game).
You can play region locked or adaptive. Region locked is good for beginners as it keeps you in an area until you complete a regional questline. Then it allows you to move on to the next higher area or stay and complete other remaining quests. Adaptive play allows you to go anywhere at anytime and the enemies scale with you so you always face a challenge.
You can respec characters but it costs a lot of Krowns. And you can buy additional skill books but they also cost a lot of Krowns. In the early game money is tight so you may want to invoke the five-finger discount on the books.
You could always invest in opening a tavern to increase the size of your coin purse (The Tavern Opens! DLC is also highly recommended). Stealing items, picking locks, attacking caravans and guards all build up "suspicion". Once suspicion reaches 100 you become wanted and guard patrols will actively look for you, You'll need to avoid them or turn in prisoners to jails to reduce your suspicion rating.
There are a lot of quests and random encounters in each region so you’ll have plenty to do. If you rush though the regions you’ll miss a lot of XP and gear, but it’s doable.
All in all, a fun engaging game well worth the price. I rate Wartales 9.5 out of 10.