D&D 5E Hobgoblin Leaders

[Ovinomancer]

Can you point me to the setting where hobgoblins are powerful enough and control a large enough area in a stable enough way that it is remotely possible for them to keep a slave force large enough to actually support the number of hobgoblin soldiers actually encountered and killed/defeated by PCs? These numbers might be fine for their ideal, which you can use in your homebrew world where hobgoblins are at the pinnacle of their power, but in any actual D&D world, it doesn't work out.

Well, as noted, Eberron has a substantially sized Hob nation. Most of my homebrews generally have at least a good Texas county sized area that's mostly under Hob control. I like 'em.

But let's look at numbers. A 200 strong hobgoblin force would need a total population (other hobs and slaves [EDIT: given the confusion below, by this I mean that the total population base includes slaves, as they provide direct support to the tribe, but they would not be mustered. This is essentially counting slaves as the peasant farmer base of most medieval countries that were often, by law and treaty, not allowed to be armed]) of about 1,400. That's a large village/small town's worth, and a number of plantations. Even if we assume that such a warband is a surge effect, representing maybe 30% of the total population, that's still a total population of 700. That's close to 1e numbers, but still a decent sized village. Such an establishment isn't very difficult, and most adventurers don't kill 200 hobs in game.

But what if we want a proper army? Well, that's not too bad, either. A 10,000 strong army, say a core of 7,000 hobs and 3,000 assorted auxillaries (allies) would need a supporting population of 47,000 (assuming the auxillaries aren't directly supported by the hobs, and are hired as needed from surrounding allies). That's a few towns, a bunch of villiages, and maybe a small city for the hobs. If it's marginal land with a total population density of 40/square mile, that's about the size of Luxembourg. If it's decent land, say 80 per square mile, it's slightly bigger than Hong Kong. You can tuck that away in a bunch of places in a fantasy world. For comparison, France's population density in the 14th century was a bit over 100 people/square mile, Germany clocked in at 90, and the British Isles was sparsely populated at 40ish.

Even accounting for a medieval economy and social structure, it's a bit shocking to realize how many people were crowded into such small spaces.

Accounting for the slaves is why I would peg that about 25% of their force could be full-time soldiers rather than 7% as you noted. And no doubt the slaves are forced to do the most denigrating and back-breaking work. But there would still be plenty of "commoner" hobgoblins-- there would simply have to be. Some of them may be working the land-- maybe shepherds or ranchers of some sort, others doing various skilled and educated labor roles that you just aren't going to put in the hands of common goblins who reach maturity at about 10 and generally die before reaching 30.

Eh, economically speaking, even hobs couldn't afford that many full timers. Soldiers were expensive, which is why most armies historically were raised, fought, and disbanded in three months or less. They'd just do it again the next year if it wasn't settled yet. It's very unlikely that even Hobs could muster up 25% of their population (this includes slaves, not just hobs [EDIT: as part of the population base. Slaves would not be mustered, ever]) except under dire circumstances. As for commoner hobgoblins, even they would be trained as footsoliders for the legions, even if most of the time they supervised slaves or, embarrassingly, had to do the labor themselves. Smart ones would be craftsmen, but even they would know the right end of the sword and how to form the shieldwall.

There is still a big difference between a proper soldier and someone with basic training. A peek at what I posit for good hobgoblin racial traits notes that even the least among them likely knows how to use one martial weapon and knows one basic combat maneuver as well as being generally having more stamina than most other people, but contrarily are not going to be nearly as widely skilled or specialized as a human would be.

No doubt. Proper hobgoblin soldiers are the captains. The basic training grunts are the normal ones. Humans can be better, but most aren't, and even the trained ones are on par with the basic hobgoblin. Hobs live and breathe war -- it's their single highest calling. They're steeped in it as a culture. It makes perfect sense that their 'barely trained' is equivalent to a professional human soldier (although not a stupidly powerful and rare PC).

And, again, your comparison to the south fails in two major ways. It first assumes that the hobgoblins would own vast countries where they are the law, have stable control over their lands for generations, have functional trade, cooperate openly with other clans to keep their slaves under control-- again, an ideal no setting allows them to have. Secondly, even in the south plenty of white people were still basic farmers working the land.

No, it doesn't. I covered this above, but it requires very little space. Eberron has a legacy of a Hobgoblin empire, and they're doing alright in the current timeline. Kingdoms of Kalamar has more than one hobgoblin nation. Greyhawk has a number of very large and successful tribes in the lands controlled by Iuz. In the Realms they're not well detailed, but there's plenty of room for a few big tribes out in the wilderness areas.

Instead, we are talking about a people who don't generally cooperate outside their own tribe well, are constantly crushed and scattered by human, elves, dwarves or orcs pretty much any time they grow their societies large enough to be a meaningful threat (probably once a generation) and have little power to impose any sort of laws and cannot at all rely on steady trade forcing them to gather all resources on their own.

Which campaign world are you talking about? I'm not that familiar with all of them, so maybe I'm just missing this crucial piece of lore from somewhere.

You want to create your homebrew world where the hobgoblins are still on top and have all the power, that's fine-- obviously that situation greatly shifts things. But in most settings, it just doesn't jive with what is going on. Maybe in Kingdoms of Kalamar or one country in Eberron-- but even then it seems highly unlikely there are just that they are keeping 7x their own population of other peoples as slaves.

Huh? No idea where you got 7x their numbers in slaves. I said that they could likely muster 7% of their total population (including slaves as part of that population) easily, and 15% most likely given their heavy martially oriented society and slave use, but I certainly didn't say that there's 7 slaves for every hob.

Well, at least in terms of military force we pretty much come to an agreement. Actually, you are making them even more rare than I did.

I like my worlds to make sense.

Did you realize you contradicted yourself here? Whatever happened to the "you never arm slaves"? In fact, assuming they rely on slaves and value their own, why would you ever imagine they would give the slaves the bows and put them at their back? Or that they are going to trust the slaves to lead them through the rough terrain and trust the 13-year old goblin to properly assess the threats that lie ahead and properly devise their strategies? You think they are going to have a slave be the conduit to their god and put it in charge of healing them?

Um, what? I didn't say they armed their slaves as auxiliaries. They don't enslave every goblin tribe or bugbear or ogre. Some they make deals with, for specifically this purpose. They call out the goblin tribes that live under the "protection" of the hobgoblin fist and they work as scouts and archers for the hobs on campaign. Same with bugbears and ogres. Occasionally you make a deal with a troll or 8.

Think about that a lot harder. It is quite clearly incorrect. If you want something done right, if the entire survival of your troops utterly depends on a task being done right-- you are not going to put it in the hands of slaves. And you certainly are not going to give your slaves ranged weapons and open your flank to them. Doesn't matter if you have a couple of your own in there to "control" them-- it just isn't sound military principle.

Maybe in your own homebrew world you are making you can make them a lot of drooling idiots who couldn't win a fight against a wall because all they want is to "git stukk in wit' da boyz" and gleefully give all the most dangerous weapons and safe positions to the rebellious slaves and put those slaves in the positions to do the most harm to their own... but, that just isn't what has ever been suggested by their lore.

Yeah, okay, good thing I didn't say that, then. You've spent a lot of time being aggressively insulting about something you misunderstood. If you really thought that I had so obviously and egregiously contradicted myself, wouldn't have been a bit better to ask if I meant that instead of going on for a few paragraphs arguing how dumb I was to say such a thing when I didn't say that at all? At least for you. I don't mind.

Hobgoblins will be their own archers, their own scouts, their own priests, their own cavalry, their own assassins and saboteurs and so forth. At least any time they want anything done remotely right. Now, the frontline soldiers probably do receive the most accolades and celebration and open respect... But, you know what? That is true of every successful military! You always pin the medals on the people who put themselves in the gravest danger in the war (or at least on their corpses) regardless of whether their efforts actually contributed the most to victory. It is a way to keep up morale and make sure people feel motivated to take up those positions rather than realizing they are being used...

Which, you know-- is totally Lawful Evil.

Hobs, as written, have a clear Roman Legions vibe coming off of them. The Romans didn't do that, and had the most powerful and feared military for many hundreds of years. Citizens were in the legions. The legions didn't scout. The legions weren't archers. The legions were cavalry. The legions weren't skirmishers. They were the premier heavy infantry. For all those other jobs, the Romans hire auxiliaries, who weren't citizens, but were part of the Empire. They weren't slaves, they weren't foreigners, they were those that were part of the empire but not citizens. Much like I suggested that privileged goblin tribes, bugbears, and ogres/trolls would be used by hobgoblins. They aren't members of the tribe (the tribe is the Legion), but they're allies, and useful, and work with as needed in return for the protection of the hobgoblins.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Great analysis, but isn't that roughly what Gygax's entry tells us, i.e. for every 200 hobgoblin combatants there are 600 noncombatants (in lair)?

For every 20 hobgoblins in a group there is a leader (sergeant) and 2 assistants. These hobgoblins will have 9 hit paints each. If 100 or more hobgoblins are encountered there will be the following additional figures with the group: a subchief (armor class 3, 16 hit points, and 1 + 2 damage (3-10 hit points)). These additional hobgoblins fight as 3 hit dice monsters.
If hobgoblins are encountered in their lair there will also be, in addition, a chief and 5-20 bodyguards. Hobgoblin chiefs are armor class 2, 22 hit points, do 2-1 1 hit points of damage, and fight as 4 hit dice monsters. Their bodyguards are the same as those of sub-chiefs. There are females and young in the lair equal to 150% and 300% respectively of the number of males.

Yeah... no. No, he didn't. At least not as of 1st edition monster manual. Maybe 2nd edition.
Like I said... no serious consideration as to how this society could functionally exist and numbers just... random. And... well... yeah... just let that last sentence sink in and consider all its implications.

I'm confused. You just quoted a section of text which backs Hriston up, and then concluded, "No, he didn't." If there are 200 males, then your text says there are 300 females and 600 children, for 900 noncombatants total, which is even more than the 600 noncombatants Hriston mentioned.

 

[Hriston]

For every 20 hobgoblins in a group there is a leader (sergeant) and 2 assistants. These hobgoblins will have 9 hit paints each. If 100 or more hobgoblins are encountered there will be the following additional figures with the group: a subchief (armor class 3, 16 hit points, and 1 + 2 damage (3-10 hit points)). These additional hobgoblins fight as 3 hit dice monsters.
If hobgoblins are encountered in their lair there will also be, in addition, a chief and 5-20 bodyguards. Hobgoblin chiefs are armor class 2, 22 hit points, do 2-1 1 hit points of damage, and fight as 4 hit dice monsters. Their bodyguards are the same as those of sub-chiefs. There are females and young in the lair equal to 150% and 300% respectively of the number of males.

Yeah... no. No, he didn't. At least not as of 1st edition monster manual. Maybe 2nd edition.

Gygax didn't write 2e, but they appear to have used his original text with very little alteration. Of course I was talking about the 1e AD&D Monster Manual, the text you quote above. I missed the word "respectively", so, as Hemlock pointed out, Gygax is talking about the largest hobgoblin settlements being comprised of 200 combatants and 900 noncombatants for a total population of 1100. I forget what your estimate was, but Gygax's 18% doesn't seem too far off.

Like I said... no serious consideration as to how this society could functionally exist and numbers just... random. And... well... yeah... just let that last sentence sink in

That Gygax doesn't show you his work doesn't prove that he didn't consider the functionality of hobgoblin society, or that he was just pulling numbers out of thin air, especially when those numbers are very close to the numbers you came up with after such careful consideration. Where you and Gygax seem to differ is his hobgoblin society features universal adult male conscription whereas you are imagining more equal populations of males and females. These seem like minor details, and I agree that, in 5e, such distinctions between the sexes are unimportant. Suffice it to say that Gygax presents a hobgoblin society in which 18% of the population comprises a fighting force that is supported by the other 72% of the population.

It's important to note that the entry for any humanoid in the Monster Manual, and this goes back to the beginning of D&D, does not represent a typical member of that race, but rather represents that race's typical foot soldier. This is because of D&D's roots as a wargame in which the figures represented have their proper place on the battlefield.

Personally, as to the OP's question, I'd use the Hobgoblin Captain stats for the leader of every 20 hobgoblins and his assistants. For chiefs and subchiefs, I'd use the Warlord stats.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

All Hobs are trained in military matters from when they can talk. Every single one of them has a rank in their army. Lots of them preform other jobs along with being a solider, but they mainly use slaves and conquest to feed themselves.

 

[GreenTengu]

Hobs, as written, have a clear Roman Legions vibe coming off of them. The Romans didn't do that, and had the most powerful and feared military for many hundreds of years. Citizens were in the legions. The legions didn't scout. The legions weren't archers. The legions were cavalry. The legions weren't skirmishers. They were the premier heavy infantry. For all those other jobs, the Romans hire auxiliaries, who weren't citizens, but were part of the Empire. They weren't slaves, they weren't foreigners, they were those that were part of the empire but not citizens. Much like I suggested that privileged goblin tribes, bugbears, and ogres/trolls would be used by hobgoblins. They aren't members of the tribe (the tribe is the Legion), but they're allies, and useful, and work with as needed in return for the protection of the hobgoblins.

Yeah-- that is just monumental garbage based on your own laughable ignorance.

Mod Note: This is monumental rudeness. Unacceptable. Hobgoblin here won't be in the conversation for a little while. ~Umbran

This craziness always comes up whenever someone wants to cite an ancient culture they think of as "warriors". Whether it be Romans, Mongols, Japanese, Norse... people proclaim themselves to be fans of it and 100% buy into this notion that these cultures of 10000s of people were more or less identical clones.

They all looked exactly the same, had exactly the same height, weight and build, they all wore exactly the same outfit in exactly the same manner all the time for generation on end. They all had exactly the same personality traits, exactly the same outlook on life, exactly the same values and morals and political leanings, specialized in exactly the same skills to exactly the same extent and lived each day exactly the same way.
When they went to battle they all had precisely the same equipment and had exactly the same roles and reacted to everything exactly the same way.

It invariably comes up. You hear the story of one particular officer or one particular part of one particular army and then posit that to be the way they all were. But it just has never been true. There has never been a culture that outsourced 90% of the things it needs done and all its skilled positions to foreigners, certainly not servants and slaves.

The fact that you would with all sincerity write that you are fully convinced that it is historically accurate that no person of Roman lineage ever picked up a bow or rode a horse or simply never participated in the Roman legions for any meaningful length of time shows just how out-of-touch you have to be with basic common sense. The Auxilia outnumbered legion 3 to 1. While being in the legion might have been limited to those of Roman blood, nothing stopped them from joining Auxiliary units. Furthermore, most Romans never seriously participated in the legion for any meaningful length of time-- the ability to feed, equip and manage the army precluded this being the case. And once Rome was on the losing side or simply couldn't expand further, the legion melted away in a heartbeat (which is the situation of any hobgoblin in Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, etc.).

I suppose your complete misconception of how human cultures have existed throughout time and what they actually looked like makes it a lot clearer why you would posit such utter nonsense about fictional near-human cultures. But it just does not mathematically work out the way you want it to, which seems to be a desire to make everything as uninteresting and shallow as possible.

A more realistic picture leaves you with a far more interesting society than the clone army nonsense you are positing.

In the more realistic picture...
You have farmers, or at least plantation owners who get lesser races to do the field work and more or less direct the for the most part. You have ranchers and shepherds and hunters. You have horse and dog breeders and trainers (or something equivalent). You have weavers and tanners and dye makers. You have couriers, you have cooks, you have merchants and/or distributors.
You have miners, you have smelters, you have smiths. You have wood cutters, you have carpenters, you have crafters. You have stonecutters, you have masons, you have architects, you have builders. And many have jobs necessary for there to be a functional society that I haven't listed.

For you to have your "proper" hobgoblin soldier in his nice chainmail armor with his red cotton or wool and black leather clothing with his very own shield and spear and short sword, all of those people need to exist. They all need to be doing their jobs and there needs to be more of them than there are that ideal "proper" soldier. Only some of that can be put onto slave labor, but not all that much of it-- at least outside of one kingdom in Eberron, the Kalimar setting and apparently possibly Spelljammer. Otherwise? It is their own people filling those roles.

So while a greater tendency towards keeping slaves may allow them to move more of their own people out of those less savory roles and allow them to field a larger percentage of their own people, it is still not 100%. Nor even all males (and I could have sworn a later edition retconned the idea that females were necessarily not dedicated warriors, you can't just write off one gender any more than you do for humans in the setting).

Can they universally have some basic military drilling? Sure-- in the same way every Dwarf knows a craft and can identify stonework and every High Elf can cast a spell and every Wood Elf can hide effectively in the woods.

Are they going to be on par with the Hobgoblin legionnaires, guards, watchmen, overseers, or outlaws? Certainly not! They are sentient intelligent people who are fully capable of learning skills an those whose roles allow them to focus fully on combat are going to be superior to those whose time is primarily focused on fulfilling the other various jobs necessary for them to function and engage in training only part time.

Hobgobin archers have always been a thing. It really was sort of one of the very first reasons they were created. They need to have scouts for survival, and they aren't going to entrust something that important to a lesser people. Why you would insist they use Ogres and Trolls and Bugbears to scout and patrol their lands based on your misconceptions of the Roman legions... I just got to wonder why...

There is no driving force that would at all prevent some number of those who have "classes" to become Rangers, Bards, and Rogues and too much to be gained through it to think they wouldn't specialize in such ways-- and we can be certain that some number of them are Clerics, after all-- they do have a racial god. And there are almost certainly special chosen of Maglubiyet that could be modeled on the Paladin class. Some waywards, backwater tribes might end up being Barbarians.

One can functionally take any class from the PHB and reason how it could somehow fit into their society, with some being certainly rarer than others. Even those that are Fighters, some are going to specialize in riding, some archery, and some skirmishing even if the stereotype is the legionnaire.

Because the same absolutely WAS true of the Romans. And the Mongols. And the Samurai. And the Cossacks. And the Persians. And... well... any other "warrior" people you want to compare them to. Especially when you considered how fractured and divided the tribes are. Different fighting traditions would inevitably spring up and compete for dominance within their divided societies.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah-- that is just monumental garbage based on your own laughable ignorance.

This craziness always comes up whenever someone wants to cite an ancient culture they think of as "warriors". Whether it be Romans, Mongols, Japanese, Norse... people proclaim themselves to be fans of it and 100% buy into this notion that these cultures of 10000s of people were more or less identical clones.

They all looked exactly the same, had exactly the same height, weight and build, they all wore exactly the same outfit in exactly the same manner all the time for generation on end. They all had exactly the same personality traits, exactly the same outlook on life, exactly the same values and morals and political leanings, specialized in exactly the same skills to exactly the same extent and lived each day exactly the same way.

I've said nothing of the kind. You're skewering a strawman.

When they went to battle they all had precisely the same equipment and had exactly the same roles and reacted to everything exactly the same way.

In regards to the Roman Legions, this is actually largely true. The Legions were very adaptable, but not at the individual level. They gleefully stole effective tactics from their enemies, and effective tools (the gladius, for instance, as the standard Legion sword, was adapted from one of their enemies). But they real strength of the legions were their discipline and training and their superior equipment, which was largely standardized within the Legions.

It invariably comes up. You hear the story of one particular officer or one particular part of one particular army and then posit that to be the way they all were. But it just has never been true. There has never been a culture that outsourced 90% of the things it needs done and all its skilled positions to foreigners, certainly not servants and slaves.

Totally agree, has never happened. The antebellum South peaked at about 50%.

The fact that you would with all sincerity write that you are fully convinced that it is historically accurate that no person of Roman lineage ever picked up a bow or rode a horse or simply never participated in the Roman legions for any meaningful length of time shows just how out-of-touch you have to be with basic common sense. The Auxilia outnumbered legion 3 to 1. While being in the legion might have been limited to those of Roman blood, nothing stopped them from joining Auxiliary units. Furthermore, most Romans never seriously participated in the legion for any meaningful length of time-- the ability to feed, equip and manage the army precluded this being the case. And once Rome was on the losing side or simply couldn't expand further, the legion melted away in a heartbeat (which is the situation of any hobgoblin in Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, etc.).

I didn't say they didn't. I said that the military formations they used were the Legion -the elite heavy infantry drawn exclusively from the citizenry - and the auxilia or auxiliaries - the non-citizen corps the supported the legions. Yes, the auxilia outnumbered the Legions, nothing I said indicates otherwise.

Roman citizens did sometimes join the auxilia, but given that pay was drastically lower than for the legions, the number and reasons for doing so were varied. Typically, a citizen in the auxilia held a higher rank than they would in the legions (offsetting the pay) or were the citizen sons of those that had previously served and won citizenship in doing so (citizenship after duty was often a reward for serving in the auxilia). But the standard rule was the the auxilia were recruited from the non-citizen members of the Republic/Empire.

I suppose your complete misconception of how human cultures have existed throughout time and what they actually looked like makes it a lot clearer why you would posit such utter nonsense about fictional near-human cultures. But it just does not mathematically work out the way you want it to, which seems to be a desire to make everything as uninteresting and shallow as possible.

You know, it's funny you say that, as you've failed, so far, to show my misunderstanding. You've stood up a bunch of strawmen and shown they have no clue, so, um, bravo for that, but I'm sitting here quite humored that your brief wiki reading (and a poor one at that) constitutes actual rebuttal for the things I've said. Especially since the wiki pretty much agrees with me.

A more realistic picture leaves you with a far more interesting society than the clone army nonsense you are positing.

I'm not postulating a clone army. My hobs in my games are terrifying even for mid-leveled characters because they are ruthless, smart, cunning, adaptable, and disciplined. Much like the Legions were in Rome. They also have heavy leavenings of goblin archers/skirmishers, bugbear brute squads, warg calvary, troll specialty teams, etc. They make allies, and use those allies to great effect. Goblins are sneaky and good for scouting and sniping where hobgoblins aren't. Bugbears are strong and powerful but not disciplined, so they use them as shocktroops to soften lines for assault. Trolls are rare, but powerful, and largely uncontrollable, so they use them carefully to cause maximum destruction and carnage while they conduct operations elsewhere. Wargs make excellent light calvary as they're almost as smart as goblins but can be trained to have more discipline. But hobgoblins excel at unit tactics and unshakable discipline, and are some of the hardest lines to crack on the battlefield.

My hobs are anything but cookie cutter.

In the more realistic picture...
You have farmers, or at least plantation owners who get lesser races to do the field work and more or less direct the for the most part. You have ranchers and shepherds and hunters. You have horse and dog breeders and trainers (or something equivalent). You have weavers and tanners and dye makers. You have couriers, you have cooks, you have merchants and/or distributors.
You have miners, you have smelters, you have smiths. You have wood cutters, you have carpenters, you have crafters. You have stonecutters, you have masons, you have architects, you have builders. And many have jobs necessary for there to be a functional society that I haven't listed.

For you to have your "proper" hobgoblin soldier in his nice chainmail armor with his red cotton or wool and black leather clothing with his very own shield and spear and short sword, all of those people need to exist. They all need to be doing their jobs and there needs to be more of them than there are that ideal "proper" soldier. Only some of that can be put onto slave labor, but not all that much of it-- at least outside of one kingdom in Eberron, the Kalimar setting and apparently possibly Spelljammer. Otherwise? It is their own people filling those roles.

So while a greater tendency towards keeping slaves may allow them to move more of their own people out of those less savory roles and allow them to field a larger percentage of their own people, it is still not 100%. Nor even all males (and I could have sworn a later edition retconned the idea that females were necessarily not dedicated warriors, you can't just write off one gender any more than you do for humans in the setting).

Dude. Seriously. Read and understand. I've clearly said that a hobgoblin tribe/nation could only front 15% of it's total population, including slaves, into the field at one time without risking famine. Which part of that implies that there aren't hobgoblins doing those things, or managing slaves to do the same? Yes, I've said that the highest calling is war, and all hobgoblins are trained in those arts as a part of their culture, but past that I've even clearly said that hobgoblins are doing some of the labor, and likely most of the crafts, with the labor part being embarrassing (who wants to be a farmer when going to glorious war is the height of hobgoblinhood? Some do it, but it doesn't mean their proud of their work). There are write-ups of hobgoblins that say they have a caste structure, with warrior on top and workers on the bottom. My analysis, while it doesn't require such a caste system, works with it, just as it supports all of the needed things you say about.

15%. That's the number I fronted. I started with the historical 7%, and upped it because the hobs have such a militaristic bent and seem apt to practice total war. What was implicit in that is that the remaining hobs will be maintaining the homelands.

Once again, you've vented a great deal of spleen over something you've misunderstood and could have resolved much easier with a question.

Can they universally have some basic military drilling? Sure-- in the same way every Dwarf knows a craft and can identify stonework and every High Elf can cast a spell and every Wood Elf can hide effectively in the woods.

Are they going to be on par with the Hobgoblin legionnaires, guards, watchmen, overseers, or outlaws? Certainly not! They are sentient intelligent people who are fully capable of learning skills an those whose roles allow them to focus fully on combat are going to be superior to those whose time is primarily focused on fulfilling the other various jobs necessary for them to function and engage in training only part time.

Hobgobin archers have always been a thing. It really was sort of one of the very first reasons they were created. They need to have scouts for survival, and they aren't going to entrust something that important to a lesser people. Why you would insist they use Ogres and Trolls and Bugbears to scout and patrol their lands based on your misconceptions of the Roman legions... I just got to wonder why...

Goblins. Ogres and trolls and bugbears aren't well suited to scouting. Well, bugbears are good at sneaking, but it's not quite the same thing.

But what you're saying is that a predominately human civilization would be stupid to let halflings help scout their lands because they aren't human. You chew on that while I get back to hobgoblins having a rep for using other goblinoid races.

There is no driving force that would at all prevent some number of those who have "classes" to become Rangers, Bards, and Rogues and too much to be gained through it to think they wouldn't specialize in such ways-- and we can be certain that some number of them are Clerics, after all-- they do have a racial god. And there are almost certainly special chosen of Maglubiyet that could be modeled on the Paladin class. Some waywards, backwater tribes might end up being Barbarians.
One can functionally take any class from the PHB and reason how it could somehow fit into their society, with some being certainly rarer than others. Even those that are Fighters, some are going to specialize in riding, some archery, and some skirmishing even if the stereotype is the legionnaire.

I've never spoken about individuals. I've been on the macro scale the whole time. To whit, one of my all time favorite characters was a hobgoblin fighter/rogue. Individuals can do individual things -- I'm discussing groups as a whole. The vast majority of hobgoblins do not have class levels in anything.

Because the same absolutely WAS true of the Romans. And the Mongols. And the Samurai. And the Cossacks. And the Persians. And... well... any other "warrior" people you want to compare them to. Especially when you considered how fractured and divided the tribes are. Different fighting traditions would inevitably spring up and compete for dominance within their divided societies.

And that's the first reasonable, non-attacking, thing you've said. I'd have zero problem with someone coming up with a different organization for hobs, including a differing fighting style, so long as it maintained their warlike focus and rep for discipline. However, I was under the impression we were talking about the MM hobgoblins.

 

[Hriston]

How large of a tribe of hobgoblins would it take before the leader was a "captain", or a "warlord", type?

I assume there isn't a "correct" answer, but I'd welcome thoughts and opinions.

To answer your question directly, based on Gygax, hobgoblin tribes range in size from 143 to 1221 individuals.

A tribe of 143 hobgoblins is comprised of a warlord, his bodyguard of five captains, a fighting force of 17 regulars overseen by three more captains, 39 adult noncombatants, and 78 juveniles. A similar tribe could have a many as fifteen additional captains if the warlord has a very large bodyguard, bringing the total population up to 158.

A tribe of at least 588 to 671 individuals is comprised of a chief (a warlord), a subchief (another warlord), the chief's bodyguard of 5-20 captains, a fighting force of 85 hobgoblins led by 15 captains (some of whom serve as the subchief's bodyguard), 160-183 adult noncombatants, and 321-366 juveniles.

The largest tribe of hobgoblins has the two warlords, the chief's bodyguard of 20 captains (the maximum), a force of 170 regulars and thirty captains, 333 adult noncombatants, and 666 juveniles.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

All Hobs are trained in military matters from when they can talk. Every single one of them has a rank in their army. Lots of them preform other jobs along with being a solider, but they mainly use slaves and conquest to feed themselves.

I hear that some of them are sanitation workers on Starkiller Base.

 

[Krakenspire]

In my mindhobgoblins are roughly equivalent to Klingons. They might all have different jobs but every one of them is a warrior at heart. There is no such thing as a klingon civilian, hence a misunderstanding between cultures when hobgoblins (Klingon) massacre or enslave entire peoples. They don't understand the idea of civilian, its not part of their culture, there are no non-combatants, everyone should fight whether you are good at it or not. If you don't fight then you are an animal and have to work as an animal (slavery).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm not postulating a clone army. My hobs in my games are terrifying even for mid-leveled characters because they are ruthless, smart, cunning, adaptable, and disciplined. Much like the Legions were in Rome. They also have heavy leavenings of goblin archers/skirmishers, bugbear brute squads, warg calvary, troll specialty teams, etc. They make allies, and use those allies to great effect. Goblins are sneaky and good for scouting and sniping where hobgoblins aren't. Bugbears are strong and powerful but not disciplined, so they use them as shocktroops to soften lines for assault. Trolls are rare, but powerful, and largely uncontrollable, so they use them carefully to cause maximum destruction and carnage while they conduct operations elsewhere. Wargs make excellent light calvary as they're almost as smart as goblins but can be trained to have more discipline. But hobgoblins excel at unit tactics and unshakable discipline, and are some of the hardest lines to crack on the battlefield.

I just have to say that a campaign spent fighting tens of thousands of your hobgoblins sounds far, far more engaging than one spent trying to stop Tiamat from returning to the Prime Material Plane.

My PCs managed to stop an invading hobgoblin army by making an alliance with a vampire. Unfortunately the vampire got killed by a dragon and they then discovered that he'd been secretly turning hobgoblins into vampires. and now instead of 8000 hobgoblin troops they were dealing with 4000 shattered, demoralized hobgoblins and 600 hobgoblin vampires (technically, vampire spawn).

They did at least collect IIRC 40,000 XP for "saving" the capital from the original hobgoblin army, but aside from that, it hasn't been an improvement.