SuStel:

I think the difference is that paq'batlh is talking about the quantity of Klingons,
while you are using a number of as a synonym for some. A number of is English idiom,
and you're trying to literally translate the idiom. What paq'batlh translates is not an idiom but literal.

ok, don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to argue. I'm genuinely
trying to understand..

The original sentence was:
{tugh, Hargh SuvwI'pu'vam mI'}
soon, a number of these warriors will fight

When I wrote this sentence, I had in mind "soon, some (i.e. an unknown
quantity) of these warriors will fight".

I just can't see the difference between my sentence, and the paq'batlh
one; is the difference that the paq'batlh sentence specifies the
quantity, by saying "an equal number" ?

Anyway, I'm not trying to say that my original sentence is correct; in
fact in the first message of this thread, I wrote "I feel that they
are wrong, but I can't understand why".

And I'm perfectly happy to be writing {'op SuvwI'vam} or {'op
SuvwI'pu'vam} for "some of these warriors".

But I just can't see, how the paq'batlh sentence and the one I wrote,
are actually any different.

mI' doesn't mean an unknown number. It means number.

In the paq'batlh sentence, lutlhej tlhInganpu' Hem mI' nIb, the key difference is the presence of nIb. Without it, the sentence means the number of proud Klingons accompany him — whatever that means. You're not saying some in any way.

If you wanted to say an unknown number, and you didn't want to use 'op for some reason, you could say tugh Hargh SuvwI'pu'vam mI' Sovbe'lu'bogh Soon an unknown number of these warriors will fight a major fight. But that sounds to me like you're making a point that you don't know how many warriors there will be, rather than just being vague about their numbers.

-- 
SuStel
http://trimboli.name