I dress myself and my companions in the elite armor of whatever faction I belong to. Right now Katrin, Borcha and I are dressed as Vaegir nobles riding plain Warhorses and using the voulge. Not that peculiar though.
I use throwing axes as my one-hander, so I spend three and save the last for melee. Won't use anything else unless javelins come along.
I only recruit from towns and villages that I own, so all my units are mercenaries, Nords, and dismounted Khergits.
I use dismounted Khergits even on open plains against looters.
I throw out most food after a few days, with bread lasting a few weeks.
When the enemy is routing en masse I make my men stand in a line and hold their fire. As they watch, I kill the enemy lord's horse and then dismount myself. I duel him, take a few hits to make my men nervous and the enemy more confident, then I kick him and hit him in the face with my last throwing axe. Seeing my men cheering in a line after the spectacle always feels awesome.
I don't attack villagers.
I give archers time to switch to melee before I cut them down.
If the enemy lord is already unconscious, I let one routing man escape from every battle so he can spread the word of what happens when people mess with the Vaegirs.
I horse bump as many routing infantry as I can before my companions kill them.
I only use vaegir troops for garrisoning Ichamur, and that's because I got 200 of them free from the other lords when it was initially captured by them. I never replace them, never upgrade them. When they're exhausted I'll just have to let the Vaegir army recapture Ichamur and garrison it for me again.
There are probably other things but I can't think of them.