[quote=@Polybius]
Large scale battles are great-and there will be plenty of them in this game with opportunities for all. But open warfare with large armies is simply not something that happens all the time (in the world of Mundus or real world history). To break the monotony of war, rest, train, war I want to give a variety of missions, guarding, searching, dungeon delving, assassinating, scouting etc. Small scale simply presents more opportunity for my world and your characters. Does that make sense?[/quote]

I suppose so, yes; but there's also no reason why those kinds of missions can't be done by a few, key handpicked elites from a larger force. I could have, say, my best scout commander and a few men, plus a spy/assassin character go and observe enemy positions or raid a camp, while the rest of the army does something else. 

In the [i]Black Company[/i], there are thousands of individuals within the Company, but only several are actually named and given center-stage in the day-to-day of the story. The same thing can happen here, with hundreds of mercs in the backdrop doing battle, but having a handful of central characters do the heavy lifting in and outside of battle, going on missions, etc.
There are grand battles, but the meat of the story is the small-scale endeavors of a few key characters, who are part of the whole they represent. Yet, without the context of their thousand-strong company and the goings-on of the wider picture, their actions would be meaningless.

Without the greater host of men and the context it provides, you're left with a few brigands or strongmen, which doesn't feel like a true merc company, in my eyes; Just a street gang.