Yea, that's more or less how I ran it when the PC's were trying to clear out the Cog, a large industrial spire/train from Lure of the Expanse. The overall opposed Command check was boosted by the various PC's contributions of Tactica Imp to plan, Stealth to scout, Tech use to hack doors and find functioning cameras.

Later it became Medicae to keep the casualties down, stealth again to snipe hard targets in the larger bays, tech use to turn some of the heavy machinery against the enemy, and awareness to keep a feel for the overall battles to know where they need reinforcements or where the enemy seemed weak.

For the third act when the overall battle was more or less a foregone conclusion they found that the whispered were setting up a small nuke for the ole "If we can't have it nobody can." They had to go take care of that as the "boss fight" while their forces made the final push around them.

That last bit is another reason why the RT's might not choose to bring lots of soldiers and helpers with them. If you want something done right, do it yourself. The PC's are invariably more skilled and able than their helpers and hirelings.

Sure you could send a couple of platoons of house troopers in to clear out the building, and you'll be able to successfully clear it out, but there might not be much building left once they're done and they might miss the hidden safe containing information on who's the mole in their organization, or set off a trap on the safe destroying the contents, or maybe they'll fail to talk their way through a standoff and wind up killing some NPC's that could be turned to your side.

our GM solves the problem with rolling for the faceless NPCs on d10s instead of d100s (he's using stat bonus ofc). Makes it quite a lot faster when you can resolve a test for all of them at once.

I may steal that D10 idea.

Also consider...

Armsmen and the like are "normals" - of that distinction, one could say they can't deal with the "otherworldly"

I generally treat "normals" as lowly and very human prone to fear, greed, and all manner of contrary aims and or feelings to that of the Command (i.e. the Players).

My general rule of thumb

If its something otherworldly, fantastic, or otherwise Lovecraftian - then you can bring all the troops you like (the more you bring the more they will fumble over each other - figuratively speaking). This is where the players come in and fulfill the role of "hero" or "villain"...

Point is - Players are able to face down and challenge the otherworldly, your servants cannot.

Some will balk, others will muddle plans and resist passive aggressively (f-ing up commands given unto them in lieu of playing it safe), while others will take advantage of the situation - thus providing more complications to the matter at hand!

Doesn't mean its impossible to field "normals" vs (lack of a better term) "monsters" and "magic" (psychics), just means they will do the Players more harm than good in the long run + there's morale to consider...

Fine, you field your buffer of protection - but guess what, after seeing command march them again an again to seeming doom, they begin to form factions within the Dynasty that run contrary to Command (i.e. the Players).

People (i.e the normals) have a history of bias behavior, especially when safeguarding their lives! (especially when no one is looking)

For every advantage in an RPG there should be some sort of balancing foil, in this case its - complications, morale, and the actual troops - Players stand to lose each time they want to field "normals" to do what they should be doing themselves.

It does depend on your play style tho - for me Players should be the ones to do the adventuring while their minions provide support (i.e. a safe camp, food, the ability to remove lowly opposition without having to get the PCs hands dirty, healing, whatever)

It the players who actually go inside that lost temple or go up the mountain where the foe has opened a gateway or etc - minions take care of the light work, they never over shadow or outperform the main characters - aka the Players...