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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7142138" data-attributes="member: 6787650">The obvious first consideration is "don't make suicidal attacks." 5E's default rules encourage you to make fights that are just big enough to occupy the players' attention for a few minutes, without ever seriously threatening them. A professional anti-adventurer unit obviously has the opposite incentive: they want to use enough force that they can smear the adventurers (and take their stuff) while suffering minimal casualties. "The more you use, the less you lose" should be their mantra, along with "there is no such thing as overkill."It's relatively cheap to equip and support a platoon- or company-sized element of hobgoblins.Other things they can and should do besides acquiring large numbers of hobgoblins:(1) Leverage longbows and skirmish tactics; avoid ever clumping up in Fireball formation to the extent the terrain permits.(2) Always try to get at least one hobgoblin within range of the adventurers so that other hobgoblins get their Martial Advantage damage bonus. That hobgoblin's job is to stay alive, so he should be Dodging for all he's got.(3) Each hobgoblin should be equipped with a bag of caltrops and a jar of flaming oil, to help deal with adversaries with high AC. 5 damage may not sound like a lot, but if the DM allows flaming oil to be thrown as an action and lit as an object interaction in the same round (I let my players do this so I'd let my monsters do it too), it is very reliable damage.(4) When taking missile fire, lie prone except when you're firing back. This helps alleviate the Sharpshooter problem, since Sharpshooter does not eliminate disadvantage against prone targets.(5) Practice luring attacks. I mentioned the importance of terrain above, right? A dozen hobgoblins firing at long range against PCs and ducking back under total coverage--that can be the first group of hobgoblins. Adventurers take it seriously and shoot some arrows back, but they can't fireball (too spread out), and if the hobgoblins take three or four casualties (stabilizing them and bandaging them of course, out of view of the PCs--perhaps they aren't even really down to 0 HP in the first place) and then pull back, the PCs will smell blood and want to finish them off so they can't keep harrassing. So the hobgoblins retreat behind total cover, say into a courtyard with statues in it that they can hide behind, and when the PCs send in the Barbarian and the Paladin to finish them off... wham! Now the hobgoblins hiding in the courtyard close and lock the gates while 38 more hobgoblins fire down from elevated positions at the Barbarian and Paladin who are isolated from the rest of the PCs.</blockquote>

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