There could be predefined troops: archers, throwers, HAs, HXs, inv, cav which are kinda balanced against each other in gear and quantity. So they don't have the same gear as you, but you still have yours as the commander of the troop. If they use the same gear as the commander it will be heavily unbalanced. Imaging 10 plated chargers with full plate rolling through the server 
I was more thinking an extra set of stats attached to the account which detail the gear and stats of the troops, so you set things up on the website first, then join a server.
Regarding balance, I was thinking you could still get top tier gear but maybe it would be balanced by a points cap, and each man's gear costs whatever points, so player A could field loads of peasant gear footsoldiers while player B on the same server (and thus the same troop limit per person) fields some plated knights, but can field less because their troops cost more to equip per man.
But predefined troops sounds way more implementable, but less personal!
