[Game mechanics suggestion] As regular units sustain damage, their attack should decrease

I've come across this thought repeatedly while playing since Elemental: WoM.  I could not agree more with this.

It makes perfect sense both from not only a realism point of view, but also a balance point of view.  Because now, trained units wouldn't be SO incredibly over-powered throughout the game (especially later on (as the OP touched on)).  Not to mention this would also encourage players (and AI (hopefully)) to be smarter about how they use their own stacks of henchmen, since their health actually matters now.  Even further, it would add a layer of strategy in regards to taking out enemy stacks.

I think it would only help strengthen the game immensely.

not sure if i understand you guys correctly, but multiple figure units actually lose attack streangth when individual figures die ?! 

a base speaman has 5 x 3 attack when at full health (let's say a fresh spearman unit with 8 x 3 HP) after taking 8 damage, one of the guys is dead, so the unit now only deals 5 x 2 damage instead of 5 x 3.

isn't that exactly the mechanic the OP asked for? if not - what's the difference between what i described (i.e. how the game actually works) and the new suggestion?

Indeed. I thought this is already being done. There is a multiplier into how much damage is done as per the number of troops there are in the unit. Likewise, when you produce a unit with more troop, the associated costs increase as a multiplier of the number of troops in the unit.

It's why the 4 stack of mages is sooooo powerful when equiped with glyph stones out of a Fortress with Heart of Fire enchant.

It is being done. If you don't like your heroes being killed by city militia, make sure you kill a few of them before they get to attack.

I know that as you add more troops the total potential damage a unit can deliver increases, but I didn't think it went in the other direction. That is, as troops sustain damage in combat, their (multiplier) and total attack decreases.

I'm 99% sure that damage decreases as soldiers get killed. It's fairly easy to see that attack is listed as "x 4" or "x 3" or "x 2" or with no multiplier, and this seems to tally up fine with the damage that's actually inflicted.

Pretty sure it has always been this way. At least in FE and FE:LH, don't really remember one way or the other on E:WoM.

Yeah, they are right.  This is already how it works.  It's definitely worth knocking a few members out of those large stacks, even if you can't kill the stack, to weaken their attack.

OK, thanks for the clarification everyone!

And here I thought I had come up with something revolutionary. 

So is LH/FE unique in this regard, or do most modern games function that way?

^ I'd like to know the answer to that as well.

It's really weird I haven't noticed this happening, if it's been there at least for awhile.  I played a lot of E:WoM, and I barely touched FE.  But I still seem to get really strong hits (non-crits) with my henchmen after being cut down to one unit in LH, so I  find it really hard to believe if it's "x 4" or "x 3" or "x 2" as the stack gets killed off.  Seems far more subtle much of the time in my experience (considering I haven't noticed any difference at all).

Perhaps it's a mod I've been using that gets rid of this unbeknownst to me... if that's even a possibility.

Henchmen are only one figure units to begin with.

One Man units (henchmen, champions, sovs) do not usually see a decrease in stats when they are wounded, although there are abilities that tie into this.  Said abilities might give an attack bonus once hit points drop below a certain threshold and similar such.

You certainly could code stuff into the existing abilities (say Blood_Amarian, Blood_Tarth, etc.) that do the opposite (-25% to attack when hit points drop below 50% or whatever), and this is something that could be relatively easily done, via the realm of modding if a modder felt the need.

However, Attack Strength versus Defense is a touchy issue, due the way it is calculated, so any minuses can skew things a lot worse than you might think at first blush.

Minuses to accuracy and/or dodge would be less impactful.  You'd hit less often/get hit more often, but at least you wouldn't be skewing attack versus defense once a hit is made.

This might drag things out further in combat, however, and with swarm bonuses and such already in play I think champs and sovs are already dying fast enough should they get pinned down against multiple enemy units with good attack values.