Do leader values matter?

[DTomato]

I think I saw on another thread that Leader Mech and Infantry ratings don't affect combat (because a long time ago, Gary disconnected them from the combat routines?).

I may be misunderstanding this. But if it's true, this suggests that assigning leaders to HQs based on combat ratings is a mistake, and that Morale/Initiative/Admin values are important for the game as of now. In general, leaders with good combat ratings tend to have high numbers on Morale/Initiative/Admin.

DT

[Joel Billings]

While we don't think the Mech and Infantry values directly impact firing as they did in earlier games in the series, they still have an impact on the final CV values used to determine the final odds of the battle. So they are still important, just not as important as when they were having a direct impact on shooting.

[AlbertN]

I suspect the leaders that truly do not matter are the air leaders.

[ImperatorAugustus]

In all but a few situations initiative is the king of all leader stats.

Followed by Mech/Inf

How close those two are depends on morale/xp. At higher morale initiative becomes even better.