Hobgoblin 2
Hobgoblin 2 — The Encounter
Drill-Hardened Warrior of the Goblin Camp · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Hobgoblin 2
They call him a hobgoblin, but the word undersells the discipline. Where common goblins scatter and shriek, this one was forged in the muster-yards of the Goblin Camp, where the warband sergeants beat formation into bone. He stands where he is told to stand, marches where he is marched, and kills with the patient economy of a soldier who has buried more comrades than he can name. His armor is scavenged plate-leather, restitched a hundred times, each scar in it a battle survived. He fights shoulder to shoulder, trading reach for the wedge, knowing that a goblinoid alone is meat but a goblinoid in rank is a wall of edges. Loyalty he reserves for the line beside him; mercy he was never issued. Break the formation and you break him, but so long as a brother stands within a spear's length, he will hold, and he will make you pay in blood for every step.
Run Hobgoblin 2 in Sixty Seconds
- Never alone. Always run two or more adjacent so Pack Drill adds 2d6 every turn; a lone hobgoblin loses its entire edge.
- Open with the wedge. Close into a knot, then have the front blade hammer whichever PC stands next to another enemy.
- Kill-priority. Strike the target adjacent to one of your own allies first, that is where your bonus damage triggers.
- When bloodied, use Shielding Shove to keep a brother upright, the formation breaks the moment it loses Martial Discipline's anchor.
- Three ways to run it: a drilled square that turtles a chokepoint, a mobile wedge that crashes one flank, or scattered skirmishers throwing javelins, the last is the weakest.
Hobgoblin 2
Medium humanoid (goblinoid), lawful evil
CR 2 · 450 XP · GUIDELINEMartial Discipline. The hobgoblin has advantage on saving throws against being frightened while it can see a friendly creature within 30 feet of it.
Pack Drill. Once per turn, the hobgoblin deals an extra 7 (2d6) damage to a creature it hits with a weapon attack if that creature is within 5 feet of an ally of the hobgoblin that isn't incapacitated. This is the signature edge of a camp-drilled warrior who fights as a wedge, never alone.
Actions
Multiattack. The hobgoblin makes two melee attacks, or two attacks with its javelins.
Heavy Blade. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d10+3) slashing damage.
Javelin. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Shielding Shove. Reaction, when an ally the hobgoblin can see within 5 feet is hit by a melee attack: the hobgoblin shoves the attacker, imposing disadvantage on that attack's damage roll (the attacker rerolls the damage and takes the lower total).
A broad-shouldered goblinoid in studded leather and a stitched battle-skirt, drilled to hold the line, plant a foot, and drive a heavy blade through whatever the camp points him at.
Hobgoblin 2, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEHold the Line (signature). While Hobgoblin 2 is within 5 feet of you, you both gain a +1 bonus to AC and have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Actions
Spear. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage.
Reactions
Covering Step. When you are hit by an attack, Hobgoblin 2 steps in to cover you, granting you resistance to that attack's damage.
A younger camp-recruit who learned the drill from your blade; he keeps to your shoulder and dies before he breaks rank.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open by closing into a knot of two or three hobgoblins so Pack Drill triggers every turn. Kill-priority is the PC standing nearest your own allies, because that's the one your bonus dice punish hardest. Pair these with a flagship goblinoid captain or shaman; in numbers they are a meat-grinder, alone they fold.
Run them as the disciplined core of a larger warband: front rank shoves the casters off allies with Shielding Shove while spears stack on the wedge. Focus the squishiest target adjacent to your line. They support a tier-appropriate boss; do not field them solo.
Deploy as elite drill-veterans inside a lair fight, anchoring chokepoints so the real threat can flank. Open with javelin volleys, then collapse into melee where Pack Drill bonus dice land. Pair with a bigger threat such as a goblinoid warlord or fiend-bound champion; these are the wall, not the centerpiece.
Put Hobgoblin 2 on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Hobgoblin 2?
Its native build is CR 2 (450 XP), a tier-1 add-on tuned for level 1-4 parties: AC 14, 45 HP, +5 to hit, save DC 13. Scaled stat lines for tier-2 (levels 5-10) and tier-3 (levels 11-15) fights are provided in the tiers block so you can drop it into a higher-level warband without rebuilding it.
Can Hobgoblin 2 be a companion or ally?
Yes. The companion sidebar gives Drillmate, Bound, a lighter goblinoid recruit (AC 13, 27 HP) who buffs AC and fear saves while adjacent and can soak a hit for you with Covering Step. Use it for a defector hobgoblin, a sworn bodyguard, or a sidekick-style ally that fights as part of your line.
Is Hobgoblin 2 a solo boss?
No. It is an add-on built to fight in ranks beside a flagship threat, not a centerpiece. Its whole kit, Pack Drill, Martial Discipline, and Shielding Shove, rewards fighting shoulder to shoulder, so a four-PC party will out-act a single one. Field two to six of them, or one alongside a stronger captain.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
Played Hobgoblin 2 at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
Log in to comment