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Hey folks!
I created a little compendium of new troop types. HERE IT IS.
Tarondor, have you played any of these troops in a game? I have been designing my own troop units, I need to design more, and I am interested in your insights.
PF2 Bestiary 3 has 7 troop units of Paizo's design: City Guard Squadron creature 5, Hellknight Cavalry Brigade creature 8, Nightmarchers creature 14, Rancorous Priesthood creature 11, Skeleton Infantry creature 11, Shambler Troop creature 4, and Terra-Cotta Garrison creature 13.
Their special troop mechanics are Troop Defenses with Hit Point Thresholds, Form Up, Troop Movement, weaknesses to splash and area damage, and area attacks replacing direct weapon attacks. The Rancorous Priesthood has troop spellcasting.
I am converting Ironfang Invasion adventure path to PF2, and troops fit great in the Ironfang Legion. I love how troops add verisimilitude. I do not like replacing the standard Hobgoblin Soldiers creature 1 and Ironfang Heavy Troopers creature 2 of the 1st module with more powerful individuals such as Ironfang Forest Soldiers creature 3 in the 2nd module and Hobgoblin Lieutenants creature 4 and Ironfang Sharpshooters creature 6 in the 3rd module. If the higher-level hobgoblin warriors were available, then why didn't they show up in the 1st module? Using troops is a more believable method.
The 3rd module used one Hobgoblin Troop creature 6 and a few Hobgoblin Phalanx Troops creature 10. I created a Hobgoblin Troop creature 5 based to act like 4 Hobgoblin Soldiers working together. I introduced them when the party was 6th level and used them instead of Hobgoblin Lieutenants. Then the party reached 9th level, I tried to develop a 20-foot-by-20-foot Hobgoblin Formation creature 9 acting like 16 Hobgoblin Soldiers. I tried out the mechanics from the new troops in Bestiary 3.
Alas, Form Up requires representing the troop with 16 separate tokens. I found that to be too inconvenient. I tried the Troop Defenses with its Thresholds and it seemed more disappointing than distinctive: "You dealt 24 damage to the troop, but it was 2 points above its threshold, so it instead lost 2 hit points and shrunk to 12 squares." Troop Defenses would probably have felt more significant if I had kept the Form-Up ability to reshape.
The Ironfang army currently surrounding the city of Longshadow in my campaign originally consisted of 24 Hobgoblin Formations creature 9, 5 Goblin Wolfrider Cavalry creature 9, 1 Minotaur Squad, and 4 individuals. The defenders of Longshadow consist of 6 Longshadow Archery Squads creature 8, 5 Smuggler Teams creature 7, 2 Ballista Teams, at least 3 Townsfolk Throngs (I create more as needed), 7 individual NPCs, and 7 player characters. I have not yet created stats for the Minotaur Squad and the Townsfolk Crowds.
I have used troops (though not these ones I've created) and I find they work well. The secret, in my opinion, is not to share the mechanics with your players, but describe how they're cutting through swathes of the enemy. Use troops to make your PCs into badasses who can handle hordes of mooks Fellowship-style.
In your example, I would have scored the 2 points of damage, shrunk the size of the whole force and narrated the awful devastation the PCs were wreaking on the enemy. They don't need to know it was only 2 hit points!
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ps: Facing enemies neither they don't know nor they could have possibly seen among the bestiary, did you also manage to let them do a few more recall knowledge to better understand their strength and weaknesses ?
My players frequently use Recall Knowledge against foes. On the mission where the party encountered their first 3 Hobgoblin Formations, they used Recall Knowledge against a Melody on the Wind, an Alchemical Golem, and a Nuckelavee. They also Recalled Knowledge to identify the alchemical bombs in an alchemical lab.
But I don't recall a Recall Knowledge against the Hobgoblin Formation. I told them that they saw a square troop unit of 16 Hobgoblin Soldiers. They knew Hobgoblin Soldiers, having been fighting them throughout the 1st module and fighting them in a troop unit of 4 in the 2nd module. I tried to make the Hobgoblin Formation feel like a formation of 16 Hobgoblin Soldiers that was balanced as a 9th-level creature (the same xp as 16 1st-level creatures). The formation even had Attack of Opportunity like the individual soldiers. I did give them a few surprises, such as Tortoise Formation where they could raise their shields over their heads to gain a +3 circumstance bonus to AC against aerial attacks (9th-level creatures need defenses against fliers).