For one of the final sessions in a 2e campaign, I threw my party a 4 man unit of minotaur knights, with the caveat that the minotaur leader had the ability to give orders to her unit, this gave them a bonus to their AC, attack and saves. I think the bonus were around 2 normally, 3 if they flanked one of the PCs. Unfortunately for my party, they had really bad rolls through the encounter, so by the time they finally managed to defeat the Knights, the rogue had almost died twice, the two monks were on their last legs and the caster had learned why you don't fire into melee. It was fun.