I know many of you are fans of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and are familiar with the battles in the book. I am not, never having read the books (but one day I'll have to, I think).  The new game Battles of Westros features many of the battles from the books and allows you to create your own.  My question is are these straight-up medieval type battles or is there a fantasy, magical element involved, too?  Would magic be part of this game?  Is magic part of Martin's fantasy world?  (I guess that's three questions, but they're all related...)

SPOILERS

While there is some magic in Martin's books, this magic is rather scarce and not your usual D&D style fireball magic. There's Melisandre with her Asshai shadow-magic (think assassin/rogue), there are mystical creatures (direwolves, dragons), there are the "Others", a magical/undead kind of enemy beyond the Wall, there's some religious magic (like aforementioned Melisandre, but also by other gods, like the god of many faces). And there's alchemy, producing a substance called Wildfire, kind of a magical napalm.

Most battles are fought without the use of magic. 

Thanks.  That's very helpful, and I appreciate it.  It gives me more of a sense of what this new game may offer.

 I really have high hopes for this one. I own BattleLore and it's a good game, but some points may be improved by this new version.

1. Background/Theme, the original uchronia wasn't very thematic for me.

2. Objectives, only counting flags as victory condition in the original game was a little shallow.

3. Campaigns, maybe we will finally get a system.

4. More asymmetric forces/scenarios, the few asymmetric scenarios in the original game were the most interesting, but normally both forces would be nearly the same in most scenarios

5. Less "broken" magic, it is fun to play with the lore cards, but some cards really were slightly overpowered and game turners if you were lucky to get them