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[The Fifth Horseman]

Cannot reproduce - running the game on vanilla DOSBox, going through the same steps as you.
May be an issue specific to Windows 8, perhaps. Alternatively, try unpacking the files from the archive again.

MSCDEX: Mounted subdirectory: limited support. Drive D is mounted as CDRom c:\dosgames\WAR2\TOD\

That message is normal and expected. It indicates my mounting script has done its' job and DOSBox has mounted the appropriate subdirectory as a CD-rom drive for the game to load assets from.
After that, you should be getting the following message:
DOS/4GW Professional Protected Mode Run-time Version 1.97
Copyright (c) Rational Systems, Inc. 1990-1994
Then, DosBox should switch to a different graphic mode and display an animation of the old Blizzard Logo.

I see on VOGONS there is some mention of possible issues with the default output mode.
Try to enter output=overlay before running the game and see if that helps.