Battle Orders

[SharkBait]

Both Veterans and Wounded Prey both suffer from the problem that they are only useful maybe a third of the time (if we are generous), and they don't come close to paying off sufficiently when they do.

I have to disagree with the premise of this quote here. Not in a mean way, mind you, but my experience (and probably my definitions) tend to conflict with this. Not only are both of these free actions, but they do provide some pretty good buffs to creatures if you put yourself in a position to take advantage of them. Wounded prey amounts to a free marked for death for your animals against anything living. The Johktari has other traits that are useful more often, but saying a free action doesn't "pay off" doesn't really resonate with me. The same can be said with the veterans, except that the restriction is that something else has to die first instead of be injured. +1 melee and +1 armor is huge (favorite one to give those to are either goblin grunts or knights of westlock). Yes, these specifically don't work against solo mages, but solo mages have other problems that mages who actually run creatures can take significant advantage of as well. These abilities basically help you gain control of a game by helping to eliminate the opposing mage's  threats before being beaten down by your larger force.

Food for thought, but I find these abilities to be HIGHLY underrated.

Battle orders, on the other hand, I've had far less success with. I'm still experimenting there and will report back with actual findings once i have them

[Super Sorcerer]

ב"ה
About PvS, I only saw the cards and planned some strategies with them, But as long as I never played with or against post-PvS warlords, I really can't say much about them. 
About bloodwave warlord being the worst mage, I don't argue with that. Yet I believe that the way to make him better is bringing him new cards and not errata.  I really like the way arcane wonders make warlords a bit better with every expansion coming out, and not trying to make a big move that might turn them overpowered. That greatbow promo is also a sign that they try to close the gap between the warlords a little bit. About trying such errata as "House Rules" in your gaming group, they do sound interesting, but I hope arcane wonders wouldn't errata in the warlords' case.

Now about-

They give a better ability, with three choices, one of which is almost always worth something in most scenarios. They are worse, because they cost an action to use, and an always useful minor ability is rarely worth an action. Any Warlord that finds himself with spare actions and/or not enough mana for a 'proper' spell on anything like a routine basis should be playing Meditation Amulet - and many of them do. If you have 1 mana, and an amulet, you will almost always meditate over casting a Battle Order, so really they are only used for books that don't plan on this circumstance, but just occasionally end up in it once in a blue moon. I agree changing Battle Orders to a Ready marker 'free action' would then see them being used.

Meditating is a full action and commands are quick actions, how could you even compare between then?
While meditating warlords usually don't move too much, they often bring the Horn of Gothos and use quickcast to give all soldiers in the arena "Fast" or "Armor +1 and Tough -2" for the round, at least in turns that they bring big creatures/equipment from the Barracks/Battleforge (and turns they save mana to bring big things on the next round).
A non-meditating warlord often use his full action to attack or guard, so on the rounds he want to bring big things from spawnpoints (or the rounds he want to save  mana to bring big things in the next round), a battle order might be the best option in many cases.
It is so rare that I spend my full action casting a quick spell while staying in the same zone outside the first 2 rounds and not under the effect of enfeeble, that I just don't understand what made you compare casting battle orders to meditating (almost every time I use my full action to cast a quick spell, I also move my mage as part of that full action).

[Halewijn]

Kelanen, I agree with almost everything you said, but:

Both Veterans and Wounded Prey both suffer from the problem that they are only useful maybe a third of the time.

And a third of the time is still a lot better then never. I don't think there is any situation you should use a battle order.  The only time I can think of if you completely misplanned both spells and your mage cannot (melee) attack. It is not worth a quick cast, and way less your main action.