I ended up doing 12 HP with the fortitude ability based on a Con save. It worked pretty well, but no massive fight with tons of mooks ever materialized because the party went the super stealth route and only had to fight a few guards before escaping with the target hogtied and unconscious.
I thought I made my goals here pretty clear in the OP: I want the PCs to feel awesome while mowing down enemies that actually pose a threat (for the brief moment they are alive anyway). The real threat is the General and her Warhorse, but if the PCs ignore the knights they will get cut to...
I have a megadungeon that was the weird science fantasy hollow earthers mining their way to the surface before their magitech went wonky and killed them all (except those preserved in cryo) but the automated systems dug to the surface anyway. I ran a portion of it as a Shadowdark con campaign...
This has turned into an interesting thread. SO many different ways of doing minions, and people seem to be REALLY married to the system they like best.