Warlord

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Battle-Buffer, military officer material. Swings a weapon in fights, but most of the times a Warlord is shouting hitpoints back into his allies, and giving allies extra shift moves ("no no no, you're doing it wrong, you should be standing over HERE and swinging like THAT...").

Warlords are accomplished and competent battle leaders. They stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand. Warlords know how to rally a team to win a fight.

To quote our good frienemies over at TVTropes:

"A Warlord is a sub-par fighter and a sub-par healer, but grants immense tactical advantages to the rest of the party - bonuses to initiative, extra moves, extra attacks. Great for the strongly teamwork-oriented player, but a poor choice for those who yearn to be The Hero. The saying is: 'A barbarian hits you with his axe; a warlord hits you with his barbarian.'"

Some warlords lean more on their Charisma, while others rely on Intelligence, but Strength is important to every warlord. (Unless you are a dumb Lazylord, at which point your party should realize that you are just shouting commands to them instead of fighting and feed you to some dire weasels)

The two builds in PHB 1 are:

INSPIRING WARLORD

You lead by exhortation, encouragement, and inspiration. Your powers help your allies find new surges of courage and endurance within themselves, helping them heal, shrug off debilitating conditions, and defend themselves from attack. Your attack powers rely on Strength, so that should be your best ability score. The benefits you give your allies, though, depend almost entirely on Charisma, so make that second best. Intelligence is your best third choice, so you can dabble in other warlord powers and to help your Reflex defense. Select powers that make the best use of your high Charisma score.

• Suggested Feat: Inspired Recovery
• Suggested Skills: Athletics, Diplomacy, Heal, History
• Suggested At-Will Powers: commander's strike, furious smash
• Suggested Encounter Power: guarding attack
• Suggested Daily Power: bastion of defense

TACTICAL WARLORD

Your leadership takes the form of quick commands, cunning strategies, and tactical superiority. Your powers guide your allies to extra and more powerful attacks, as well as helping them move quickly in combat situations. You also assist your allies by moving your enemies around or knocking them prone. You use Strength for your attack powers, so make that your best ability score. Intelligence is secondary, because your Intelligence determines just how effective a leader you are. Charisma should be your third best score, so you can dabble in other warlord powers and to improve your Will defense. Select powers that make the best use of your high Intelligence score.

• Suggested Feat: Tactical Assault
• Suggested Skills: Endurance, Heal, History, Intimidate
• Suggested At-Will Powers: viper’s strike, wolf pack tactics
• Suggested Encounter Power: warlord’s favor
• Suggested Daily Power: lead the attack

The warlord's ideal place is front and centre, stabbing the fuck out of the party's enemies. It's a pretty good melee class, but the Warlord's main goal is to give his allies extra moves, attacks and heals. From a pure combat perspective, warlords are kind of like Paladins only more versatile and worse against undead.

The fifth-edition battle master fighter basically killed it and took its stuff, so if you wanna upgrade that's the way to go.