So I am having a pretty epic campaign right now, on day 210, defeated the first crisis (orc invasion), now dealing with the second crisis (noble house civil war). The random map is very nice overall this time, but somehow they managed to start a war between a noble house with 2 settlements (1 citadel and one tiny village) and 2 noble houses with 20 settlements. Not very balanced, eh... I took a mission from one of the large houses against the small one, but then an agent of the small one offered me to change sides and they'd give me a pretty nice sword (or so I thought). Between that and the desire to help the underdog, I decided to do it, except the "sword" turned out to be a useless flail, but whatever. So now I feel like a real partisan/guerilla fighter, trying to sneak around the 20 settlements of the huge guys, while finding manageable armies to defeat. Just took out 3-4 armies of footmen, billmen, arbalesters, standard bearers, of 15-18 men each, with only 12 on my side. Pretty fun fights.
My current company is structured like this: 4 elite crossbowmen, one bannerman with elite polearm skills, 3 expensive elite backgrounds (one swordmaster, one hedge knight, and one sellsword) for fun builds, and the rest are frontline footmen who can be given a longaxe/pike if more backline is needed.
The footmen are equipped with lamelar armor (95 armor, -10 fatigue) with attachments, and simple metal helmets (105 armor, -5 fatigue), so the combined fatigue cost is 15 and doesn't deduct from Nimble. They all have one handed swords (the most expensive I can get at the time, so starting with falchions and then up to noble swords) and kite shields for extra rdef, since I mostly invest into mdef on levelup. Kite shields (with shield master perk) are also most resistant to being broken by those pesky axemen/hammerers. I invest mostly into mattack, mdef, and either health/fatigue/resolve/rdef as needed. Most of these guys come from cheap backgrounds, but I try to pick stuff with good mdef and mattack. Perkwise, Nimble is a must, these guys are great blocking with shields, but as we all know, sometimes shit gets through, and Nimble is a life-saver then. Other than that, going with Colossus, Gifted, No Head Crits Perk, Shield Mastery, Sword Mastery, Footwork, High Resolve perk, Dodge if possible. These guys are my mainstays, they can tank, deal reasonable damage, back up as pikemen/longaxemen, etc.
The crossbowmen are self-explanatory, and with crossbow mastery perk, rattack in 90+, and heavy crossbows, they can really wreck stuff. They use the same armor as footmen (lamelar) but with mail coifs for head, to avoid vision penalties. Nimble is also good on them, since enemy archers often can hit the backline (too often).
The 3 expensive backgrounds are the most fun. The swordmaster I had to fire 2 of them before getting this one, as their stats sucked. But this one, came with footwork trait (+5 mdef), 2 stars in mdef, and 72 starting attack. I got him a fencing sword, lamelar armor with wolfur, sallet helmet. So at level 11 now, he has 56 mdef (without a shield obviously), and with dodge and 103 Initiative with armor, another 15 mdef/rdef at the start of battle. I got Relentless perk, so only half accumulated fatigue is subtracted from initiative, meaning even at fully topped off fatigue, he will still get +10 mdef/rdef from Dodge. So worst case scenario, 66 mdef, 95 mattack, 66 resolve, 63 health, Nimble, and 120 head armor, 110 body armor. Great mobility with the fencing sword with Lunge, fun ability, though it does burn through fatigue compared to regular attacks. He has Duelist, Nimble, Collosus, Footwork, Sword Mastery, Gifted, No Head Crits, High Resolve, Dodge, Relentless.
The Hedge Knight I am building with heaviest possible armor and Battle Forged and a Great Sword. Right now he has a 320 plate armor piece for the body (you can get a +40 attachment), and I am looking for a full helmet with 300 armor. Great Sword comes with fun abilities, but you need a lot of stamina, defense, etc. Going for Battle Forged, Reach Advantage, Sword Mastery, etc.
The Sellsword I am building with heavy armor and a sword and a heater shield.
So far wrecking stuff, but as we all know with Battle Brother, the battle to wipe you out is always around the corner (I am playing on Ironman of course). Last run I had like this ended on day 300+, when I went into some legendary item dungeon against undead, with something like 30 wiedergangers and 6 fallen heroes and Nachos and other assorted crap. Almost beat them too, but they kept coming back from the dead, until my guys burned through all fatigue and morale. Fucking undead...