You might have heard stories about a general fighting a duel before his army, only for his troops to scatter after he died.
In stories like that, the duel in the first half was made up, but the army scattering was entirely plausible. An army's commander was its backbone and brain. Besides directing the troops, he also had to hold them together and maintain morale.
Successfully ordering around eight hundred or a thousand people was already no easy task. Orders had to reach the troops smoothly, and as far as possible, every soldier had to follow them. The enormous logistical undertaking of feeding the men and horses alone was enough to drive a whole group of people mad.
This was not something an "F2A" command in a game could solve. Getting a group of people to stand at the front of an army and march to their deaths took real ability.
For a commander, being able to lead men into battle was an achievement. Being able to command tens or hundreds of thousands was rarer still.
And that was without even mentioning deserters who might flee in the face of battle. A battlefield changed in an instant. It was far too complicated.
Just like now. Ever since the commander of the Cuckoo Corps died, the corps had lost its backbone. No one could take responsibility for commanding it, and the deputy commander was absent. The Cuckoo Knights were doing well just to keep their own soldiers under control.
In theory, once a third of these several hundred men had been killed, their morale was very likely to collapse and send them fleeing in all directions.
Commonly known as being slaughtered into a rout.
The Cuckoos were seething. It was not as though they had never lost a battle before; the