Wow .... my reply to this thread really killed the topic
I was reading this the other day and found it interesting. I also liked your warbands, but have almost no ancient minis.
I was thinking of a similar three tier leadership thing for a game with minimal magic, where you have a leader stat from 1-3, and go through the phases, 3,2,1,soldiers similar to the standard game. But paying different costs for these leader types would allow you some flexibility in the sort of leadership structure you had, eg a warband with a leader 3 and a leader 2 would give you a disciplined, fast to react sort of feel, whereas a band with two or three leader 1s would come across as a bit more of a rabble. But the leader 1s' warband would have more cash to spend on the soldiers (or other power-ups).