Magic items have their own uses. Some provide improved armor or fighting ability, some eliminate the possibility of a unit breaking. Others provide magical attacks, and so on. But, units may only carry as many items as they have experience levels. Those used to games like Warcraft will find that the control interface is radically different.
Units move as units, having to turn in formation, rotate to fire their weapons, etc.
Indeed, the combat model feels a lot like an automated miniatures battle. Selecting units is done by clicking on their banner, each of your units has a unique one. You direct a unit to attack by clicking an enemy banner. It sounds simple, but I found it very frustrating at times and wished for a cleaner mechanism. Everything seemed to move just too fast to adequately control, something aggravated by the lack of speed or difficulty settings.