Quote Originally Posted by Martok View Post
Second: If your general has any sort of trait which lowers the morale of troops under his command ("Strange", "Good Runner", etc.), that can make a *huge* difference. A 9-star general with all the best combat traits in the world is still worthless if he inflicts a significant morale penalty on his men in battle. A general rule of thumb is that if a commander's traits would lower his troops' morale by more than -2 (or possibly up to -4 if he's exceptionally talented), then you're better off disbanding his unit or retiring him from future battlefield duty. :
Would just add that you should take into account the "net penalty" given by your general.

You of course need to set-off the penalty against any bonus given by your general's V&V (famously brave + strange = no big deal) but also with the moral bonus granted by each couple of stars. Thus a six stars general with "unhinged loon" is fine since the bonus (+3) cancels the penalty (-3). Would be a bit more cautious than Martok when it comes to assessing which general you have to give the bin. A net penalty of -2 seems to be the maximum you can live with in my humble experience and only if you get some troops with a decent morale. A general giving a net penalty of (-1) is a god recipe for disaster if your army is made of vanilla spearmen, CS ... or peasants (but if you actually use peasants in battle there is no redemption for you anyway )