Standard special ability, totally pointless?

[alexti]

Meglobob said:
Then the killer, "morale boosted by standards will be lowered by 1 per round and can never exceed +5", which really makes them utterly pointless does'nt it?

Nope, it just prevents morale accumulation. As long as standard bearer is staying with the troops it effectively gives you +1 morale. Without decay you would have morale of surrounding troops going up to +5. For example, for Jotunheim standards are very useful. They don't have numerous troops, so they're easily covered by standard area and those giants [aware of being so expensive] are pretty cautious and usually try to avoid the battle they could easily win if there's a risk of getting a scratch. Standards help to fix this problem.