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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cptg1481" data-source="post: 1179809" data-attributes="member: 5360">Rolling EyesDude, You either accept it or not.....a few examples does not history make.  The heroic kings you mentioned are the exceptions not the rule.  Also first or original source documents written by say the court historian would obviously make the king out to be a hero.  I am not trying to show off but rather to qualify my statements with my credentials…and my personal experiences of combat.  You may do whatever you wish for your game and there is nothing wrong with it at all.  The highest level fighters make good leaders and unless you are using a system that rewards tactical and strategic skills and knowledge any experts would be wasted anyway.  Anyway, having been in combat at the small unit level (SF sniper team in Honduras and Iraq) and a leader of troops in combat (Platoon/Company Commands) and multiple officer positions at BN and BDE level, I can tell you this…  If the commander rushes to the front and either fires away or hacks away at the enemy he will quickly loose touch with all but the very few soldiers near him.  A leader needs to have as broad a sphere of influence as possible, and unless denied this sphere by the enemy this sphere would need to be the entire battlefield - or at least the entire area occupied by his unit if he is a subordinate leader of some type.  A leader engaged in direct combat for his life would have little to no visibility of what his subordinate units are/are not doing – say a sphere about 20-30’ around him in personal melee and line of sight when not.  How, I ask, when decisively engaged would he be able to gather, interpret, make decisions and/or issue any necessary orders for his subordinate leaders to follow?  Who decides where and when to commit the reserve forces when you are up at the front hot dogging and have a limited view of the field?  Who decides what units need to withdraw and when if you can only see the one you are with?  Who decides when and where to commit key resources to tip the tide in your favor if you don’t even know how much of what you have left (since you are busy with hand to hand fighting)?  When you lead your first company/platoon in combat get back to me and let me know how its done....because I had a hard getting a full and complete picture of my platoons and their status even when I wasn't decisively engaged in personal combat.  I know its even more complicated at higher levels....a company has like a 8 man staff, a Brigade....similar to the element in question has about 100 soldiers on staff to make sure the commander has the best information available to make his decisions.  Note: The commander makes these decisions, not the staff; he can not make these decisions if he’s up showing off fighting one on one combat with the enemy. Any commander that becomes decisively engaged in personal combat will soon find that his highly trained army/unit and plans (which never survive first contact) will degenerate into an unorganized mob unable to exploit weaknesses in the enemy’s lines etc. Therefore my friend totally combat ineffective.  The same would apply in modern as it has applied in any army.  In the absence of cohesive leadership and effective orders most units just hold their position at best and retreat at worst.  Now sure a charismatic leader can by a strategic appearance on the front rally the troops and make a recovery from a bad situation in some circumstances, but while he’s there with that one platoon/company the other companies are on their own, fighting, say in the case of a 3000 man cavalry unit, 10 separate battles for their own survival instead of one cohesive one for to win the day. Bottom line is, a huge battle without a qualified leader (not he best sword swinger but one who can make tactical/strategic decisions regarding the employment of units to exploit weaknesses of the enemy) in the rear gathering information, making decisions and relaying supplementary commands to his subordinates is little more than the unorganized grab-ass of a bar fight in large scale.  You can find examples of heroic leadership all day, however, doctrine and theory demand that someone.....usually the units leader must have an overall "view" (not necessarily visual but an informational view anyway) of the battlefield and all of its subordinate parts - fire (artillery, archers), maneuver (fighting units - cavalry, infantry, and such, and support (logistics, intelligence and medical to name a few).  Furthermore he must take that information and make decisions about how to react to the enemy’s movements and exploit any weaknesses.  Now he could delegate this authority to a subordinate, but being responsible for the overall outcome of the battle I'd say that would be rare indeed.  Especially true in a time when failure often lead to the ultimate punishment - death.  A leader who rushes to the front to engage in direct combat at any level above say a platoon is in effect derelict in his duty.  I expect my leaders to lead not to be the best shot.  It’s gravy yes to be good at soldier and individual skills but I’d rather have them qualified and capable to make the key decisions that would guarantee the success of our overall mission.  Captain G.  Last post for me this is tiresome! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" /></blockquote>

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