The Hobgoblin Never Fights Alone
The hobgoblin’s stat line is unremarkable until you read its Phalanx talent. While within close range of another hobgoblin, it gains +1 to attacks and to armor class. On paper that is a single point. In practice it stacks across the formation, because every hobgoblin in the line qualifies for it at once. A lone hobgoblin sits at AC 15. Three standing together are AC 16 and hitting more often, and they earned that for free by not wandering off.
The failure is procedural, not tactical. Parties tend to engage the nearest enemy and let the rest hold their ground, which is precisely the arrangement Phalanx rewards. Fight them piecemeal and you are fighting them at their best. The bonus is conditional, and the condition is the whole point: it exists only while the formation holds.
So break the formation. Area effects, forced movement, and terrain that separates one hobgoblin from its neighbors all strip the +1 the moment close range lapses. Isolation does the same work with a single target. Neither requires you to out-roll them, only to change where they are standing.
At the table: Drop a fireball or a caltrop line down the center of the rank so at least one hobgoblin ends its turn out of close range and loses Phalanx.
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