Doesn’t this say “I want you to tell lord nobunaga”? If I wanted to say “Please tell Lord Nobunaga” couldn’t I just say something like 信長殿にお伝えください？Why is the ‘want’ part not translated?
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Probably because “I want to humbly receive the favor of you telling Lord Nobunaga” sounds strange 
There are always going to be arguments here about whether they should be more natural or more literal in their translations, but I personally am on the natural side.
“I want you to tell Lord Nobunaga” would have a forcefulness in English that is almost the opposite of the intention of the Japanese phrase. It contains none of the honorific or humble sentiment of the Japanese.
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Ah gotcha, funny how a literal translation can carry such a different meaning. Follow up question, how would one then say in Japanese the forceful version? I want you to tell Lord Nobunaga.
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The standard grammar point for “want someone to do something is” ～てほしい, so 伝えてほしい
I would say the literal translation is what I posted. English needs all kinds of extra phrasing to express the ideas of honorific or humble language. And the fact that this is relatively short in Japanese is also a thing to consider when translating.
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Do I need the お in front of 伝えて or can I do without it?
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You can’t put お in front of 伝えて. If you’re going to use ほしい this directly, you wouldn’t be using an honorific form.
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inb4 leebo (?) EDIT: nope, got leebo’d
There are a bunch of increasingly forceful ways
Using 欲しい as an auxiliary verb does mean “I want you to X”, though it’s still pretty polite. (Somebody else knows exactly how polite/direct): 伝えて欲しい
You can use the command form and pretty much order someone to do it: 伝えろ
You can use the command form of 〜くれる and be slightly less commanding, but it’s still very domineering: 伝えてくれ
You can use ~てもらう；伝えてもらう… I think this is technically pretty polite, but it’s often used in a pretty comandeering way basically assuming you’ll recieve this favor… it makes me think of movie bad guys “recieving” things that aren’t willingly given, such as お前は死んでもらう 
Feel free to correct this if I’m wrong about the nuances here!
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Thinking a bit more, I think there can also be a sort of imploring vibe to ~てくれ.
Like 聞いてくれ！ feels to me like “Please hear me out!” or “You’ve got to listen to me!” or similar.
Again, feel free to correct me… nuances of politeness aren’t where I’m the most confident when it comes to Japanese.
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