Help Making An Orchish Horde

[Gorfang113]

So I need help making an orcish horde for my PCs to stop (or considering their track record, help....). They are assulting an elvish tree village.

What I Have So Far:

The Green Tide:
[spoiler]I already have the horde leader and his advisor made (Warlord Grishank: Barbarian 6/Eye Of Gruumsh 2/ Frenzied Bezerker 4 and Shaman Wazog: Cleric of Gruumsh 9). At the least the players will fight them. I would like them to be able to fight a decent amount of the horde following them. The horde will probably be about 1000ish strong, made up of 4 distinct tribes (One is Grishanks which has the other clerics of gruumsh and the most diehard barbarians and bezerkers. One will be led by a orcish wizard or sorcerer and have most of the hordes arcane casters in its ranks. The third will just be a orcish tribe with some of the most defended orcs (lots of heavy armor, leader is suposed to be the best tank he can be). The last will be a generic orc tribe, with a mix of those other things, with your typical orcish leader. In addition there are 100 odd goblins, bugbears, hobbos and other such goblinoids fighting as mercenries. I havent decided what leads them yet. They also have a forest giant following along with them. She will probably end up using throw rocks to be heavy artillery for the horde.[spoiler]

The Elvish Defenders:
[spoiler]The village itself is about 450-500 in population. Of those about 300 can or are willing to fight. This includes their leader, Magelord Caelir ( Wizard 11). They also have two elite corps, the Mages (most are npc arcane casters) and The Duskblades (exactly what it sounds like). They also have about 10 clerics of corellon larethian, but all are low level (the highest one is level 5) and will probably just heal casualties. Most of the defendings elves are npc warriors with either bows or spear/shield. The village itself is halfway in the trees and half on the ground. Most of the frequented buildings are on the ground (guildhouses, trading posts, markets, ...) while the residential and other such things are in the trees. The village has a deep, fast flowing river on the side that the invaders are coming from (the direction of a major trade road. There is one bridge, and some points where it is a little slower and could be ferried or even swam across.[spoiler]

The PC's:

Human Knight 12
Elven Scout 12
Dwarven Fighter 7/ dwarven defender 5 (fixed version that i made for him)
Human Wizard 12
Human Sorcerer 7/ Cleric 1/ Fleshwarper 4
Human (?) Barbarian 12
Maug Fighter ? (cant remember the exact # of fighter levels after the muag la and hd are added)

I need advice on how to run these battles (there will be at least 2, one for the bridge and one for the town). Also, the non-stated orcish leaders need to be made, along with the undecided goblinoid leader. I would do these myself, but i want to bring some other peoples ideas in to make it a little more varied, so go ahead and name/make them, i will choose the best. I would like tactics for use on both sides of the battle, for the elven leaders to suggest to the pcs, and the orcs to react with. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Also, assume the orcs and elves are exactly like they are in the standard background for this.

Edit 2: Forgot, but please dont use Tome of Battle classes for the npc leaders. Not because I don't like it, but because I have no way to get access to it (i dont have it, nor do any of my players).

[Tvtyrant]

What level is the party? If you use the mob template you can shorten the battle and make it more dangerous by making the Orcs mob up and attack as CR 10-14 groups. If the party is between 8-10 I suggest small mobs or have the party focus on killing the enemy captains, because 1000 orcs is really boring to fight in PnP.

[Saintheart]

This handbook is nice for crunch on unit-based bulldozing. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4963.0)

More thoughts later, but where are your fliers? Height advantage is useful for a bunch of archers. Need to give aerial cover to your orc troops as they attack. Manticores, Chimaeras, for example?

EDIT: In terms of elven tactics, the elves are in trees and plants. Entangle is your friend. Volleys of tanglefoot bags are a thought, too.

If the Wizard's got access to level 6 spells, he could summon a Bralani for free healing, wind wall, etc, etc.

EDIT THE SECOND: Link is fixed. :)

[Silva Stormrage]

This handbook is nice for crunch on unit-based bulldozing. (http://http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4963.0)

More thoughts later, but where are your fliers? Height advantage is useful for a bunch of archers. Need to give aerial cover to your orc troops as they attack. Manticores, Chimaeras, for example?

Your link has an extra http:// in it and is broken because of it. Nice handbook though.

To contribute... the orcs are attacking a TREE. Bring fire? A lot of fire? Like have 20 mages with every spell fire? All the orcs should have torches as well. Light the thing on fire and watch them all burn to death.

[RedWarrior0]

The undecided goblinoid needs to be a Fire Hobgoblin Warblade of White Raven Everything. Because Hobbos have tactics, while "Tactics" for an ork orc is "More dakka soldiers!". And White Raven Everything, for a melee horde, is incredible and vicious and shatters the action economy like a GAU-8 Avenger shatters a window.

The Orcs, when confronted with a river, are most likely going to try and charge across the bridge/river. For their tactics, I suggest the short story "Leiningen versus the Ants" (http://www.daily-pulp.com/adventure/leiningen-versus-the-ants-by-carl-stephenson/). The hobbos, when confronted with the river, are going to tear down the entire forest (It's elves. There's a forest. Yes, even then.) and use it to build their own bridge(s).

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

First I would crack open a copy of Races of Faerun, flip to page #184 and look at the Orc Warlord PrC. If you still have a leader slot to fill I would suggest that.

Also the opening shots fired from your Orc rangers should do area of effect damage or something. Like first rank fires arrows with oil flasks attached (or some-such) and the second rank fires fire arrows to set the town ablaze. It needn't be powerful but if you can bust ranks of the Elves your Orcs will instill greater fear. (Also the use of fire is historically an effective opening tactic.)

[TwylyghT]

The Horde might have a few elite squads lead by a Warchief from the miniatures handbook.

The "fodder" can be a lot scarier in combat if they are not attacking directly. Goblins mixed into the ranks of orcs with whips, nets, and spears focused on impeding movement and making aid other rolls to assist the attacks of harder hitting units able to power attack with penalties offset by aid bonuses. Also packs of goblins with Swarmfighting can be challenging while dealing with other threats.

On the elf/pc side, battlefield control can go along way. Finding or making a chokepoint, and plugging it with things like Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Blade Barrier, etc. Unless the horde fodder is seriously advanced, cloudkill can decimate swaths of a horde.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Goblinoid leader is a hobgoblin warblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060802a&page=2). Tanky tank orc leader is a warblade w/ Armor Proficiency: Heavy. Generic orc leader is a barbarian. Levels are 8-13.

Elven tactics: The clerics should all prepare Bless. With 300 attacks, that's an extra 15 hits each round, the ones that can use 3rd level spells should prepare Magic Circle Against Evil. The mages should prepare Grease in their 1st level spell slots, (assuming they can cast these) Web in their 2nd level spell slots if they're fighting in dense forest (and they really should do raids in that manner) or Summon Swarm (bats or spiders, not rats unless it's a raid on the orcs and the orcs won't reach the main area until the filth fever has had time to take effect) if they aren't, Fireball and Lightning Bolt in their 3rd level spell slots, Polymorph or Evard's Black Tentacles in their 4th level spell slots (no breath weapon from Polymorph, but transforming into a medium-sized dragon still makes you a melee brute with a fast fly speed), Cloudkill and Cone of Cold for 5th level spell slots, and the leader should prepare Acid Fog in his 6th level spell slots. They should also prepare Lesser Globe of Invulnerability and Globe of Invulnerability for dealing with the casting tribe. They should raid the orcs at night.

Orc tactics: similar to the elves. They should also chop down trees to make bridges. Giant should throw rocks.

[McQ]

So that this isn't input, just a question on the subject. You mentioned Mob Template? Recently I've been faced with wanting to put up a higher level party against a group of lower CR creatures, but felt that even increasing the number available doesn't necessarily effect their ability to hit, and I don't exactly want to increase their HD.

To clarify, I mean if I'm tossing 1/3 CR creatures at a party, just increasing the number of the 1/3 CR creatures might increase the CR, but doesn't really mean any of them will even hit with their Attacks, and likely all will be Hit. I'm hoping this Mob Template will help.

For Fluff purposes I want to keep the creatures I'm using, but don't want it to be a slaughter for the party, and don't want to have time eaten up by dice rolling for monster turns.