Ruin Explorer
Legend
I'm not entirely convinced that's true. Obviously we haven't seen final versions, and my familiarity with the playtest materials is shaky at best, but doesn't the College of Valor bard cover most of this? More melee potential, in terms of equipment; abilities that enhance allies' options in battle; and of course, the bard can wirj with music or oration.
If I see someone on the front line, wearing armor, swinging a sword, and verbally urging his/her allies on to ever greater efforts... That pretty much says 4E warlord to me.
Not if the Alpha is to be believed.
The Valour Bard was drastically nerfed from earlier playtests, and is arguably less helpful in combat than even a 3.XE/PF Bard. He can't really "enhance allies' options" in combat", not when he gets 3-5 x +1d6 (to one person, for one roll!) goes per day, and has to do give that out AS A BONUS ACTION ON HIS TURN (so can't use it in a "clutch" way).
He also has Wizard HP, and no other significant defensive stuff, meaning that him being on the front line or even near it is pretty dangerous. He has two attacks, eventually, but you do NOT want to be meleeing with him if you enjoy being alive (unless you know the DM will ignore you).
So sadly he's very un-Warlord-y.
The Battle Master Fighter has two Warlord abilities - Commander's Strike, which lets you donate an attack to an ally (and he does extra damage), and Rally, which lets you grant THP (small amount, but ranged). That's it. All the other Warlord stuff? Nope. All the White Raven stuff from 3.5E? Nope. All the team-work-type stuff from Pathfinder? Nope. So when you've got those two abilities (which is L3, inexplicably, given Clerics and Wizards get their similar stuff at L1 and L2 respectively), you're as Warlord as you'll ever get.
He's still more Warlord-y than the Bard, at least the Alpha Bard. I am praying that they reverted to a more October Playtest-style Bard before printing, because right now, the best "Warlord" would be to go to 5th as a Fighter, then MC to Cleric and just make sure you cast Bless every fight (easily done after a couple of levels).
Hopefully too, later splatbooks will provide more Warlord options, but given Mearls apparent open contempt for Warlords, we shall see.