Warband exists. The project kicked off and by the end of December there's now a playable foundation in place. You can pick a commander, pick a campaign, head into combat and fight waves of orcs. There's a companion system, a game over screen, and the beginnings of a boss fight with an orc troll that can jump, slam, and send shockwaves across the arena.
A good chunk of December went into the stuff you don't see but absolutely need. Pathfinding, spatial grids for performance, a debug system, a weather system, and a lighting engine all went in. Enemy AI got a round of performance work that lets the game handle 300+ enemies on screen without falling over, which felt like a good milestone to hit early.
I also built a sprite converter tool to speed up getting art into GameMaker, and integrated another self-built tool, Lorebox, for localisation so the game can support multiple languages from day one. There's a long way to go, but the core loop is there: fight, survive, repeat.