A cost efficient army

[Randomguy]

So you're a level 20 character of any (official) class, and you want to raise an army for whatever purpose. What's the most cost efficient way to get the largest and strongest possible army?

Do you make simulacra of Mindcrafters of Thoon, getting you an encounter level 9 group of 3 constructs a day /500gp and 1000 xp?
Do you craft constructs for yourself?
Do you get yourself a load of corpses and start animating dead at 50gp/hd, growing your army by only a few every day?
Do you set up a huge number of enemy transformation fields, each linked to a mass summoning spell like Abyssal Army, for an expensive but self replenishing army?
Or do you do something else?

It would be nice if you could include a Encounter Level/gp and xp cost.

[Gavinfoxx]

Infect a bunch of people with lycanthropy from werebears. Lo, a whole population becomes lawful good and competent militarily!

[dantiesilva]

Take 20 levels of the god homebrew class become a greater god and create your own army that is all level 19 characters.

[Tvtyrant]

Get a quite advanced summoning ooze (summon monster V level) and split it up into dozens of its kind, using Ooze Puppet on each one? Then you can have hundreds of summons around at all times.

[Morithias]

Thrallherd loop? That's the first thing that came to mind.

[Randomguy]

Thrallherd loop? That's the first thing that came to mind.

I know about Thrallheard, but what's the thrallherd loop?

[Malroth]

Thrallherd with a caster friend, caster uses invisible spell, energy sub cold and fell animate on a permanent wall of fire. Fanatics show up, die from the invisible freezing flames, and rise as cold immune undead only to be replaced by new fanatics.

[Jack_Simth]

So you're a level 20 character of any (official) class, and you want to raise an army for whatever purpose. What's the most cost efficient way to get the largest and strongest possible army?

Do you make simulacra of Mindcrafters of Thoon, getting you an encounter level 9 group of 3 constructs a day /500gp and 1000 xp?
Do you craft constructs for yourself?
Do you get yourself a load of corpses and start animating dead at 50gp/hd, growing your army by only a few every day?
Do you set up a huge number of enemy transformation fields, each linked to a mass summoning spell like Abyssal Army, for an expensive but self replenishing army?
Or do you do something else?

It would be nice if you could include a Encounter Level/gp and xp cost.
Depends.

1) Are you OK with mass murder?
2) Is time a factor?
3) Are you OK with a very real risk of losing control of the army?
4) Do you have at least eight levels of Rebuking, and a way to deal negative levels?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above, then have I got a deal for you!
Apply a negative level to a commoner-1. Wait a day, and Command the Wight that rises. Feed commoner-1's to the wight. Order the wight to order all of it's spawn to obey you.

Arbitrarily large army (limited by how many commoners you can feed it), but if your first Wight goes away, you lose the entire army, all at once. No XP or GP Needed!

If that's not your cup of tea, then:
1) Are you willing to be an obscure race?
2) Are you OK with waiting a long time to have your massive army?

If so, then have I got a deal for you! The Phaerimm (Lost Empires of Phaerun) cast Sorcerer spells as spell-like abilities, and are playable! The lowliest one has only +2 LA, and has only one racial hit die (which goes away when you take a class level). So at ECL 20, you can have a full 18 levels of Sorcerer! Wish up as many Simulacrums every day as you have 9th level spell slots! Craft a few the old fashioned way! No XP or GP needed! No actual need to get a piece of the original, even! These critters can technically even have up to 36 hit dice when you're done with them (and there are tricks to get them higher)!

If that's not your cup of tea, then:
1) Are you willing to take a prestige class out of a web enhancement?
2) Are you willing to sacrifice a single caster level?
3) Are you willing to wait an exceptionally long time to get your army?

If so, then have I got a deal for you! The Complete Divine Web Enhancement includes an updated version of the Dweomerkeeper, which has the ability to cast a limited number of spells as Supernatural Abilities ... which don't have components! Which means you can duplicate Simulacrum a few times per day via Wish or Miracle (depending on what route you choose) and get yourself simulacrums of arbitrary creatures!

If you don't like those, there are a few other options...
... but everything here is capped only by how much you put into it, and none of it is based around GP or XP.

[Fable Wright]

For cost efficient meaning meaning the best price on the best soldiers, I would find 3 Mindflayers, Mindrape them into believing that I'm the reincarnated form of their Elder Brain, use the Psionic Sandwich trick to take over one of them and then create the Emerald Legion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101587) with them. The cost for the magic items can be a bit expensive, but if you keep it to the basic units, it's basically a small downpayment for a massive army of CR 21 indestructible units that you can act through using your 20th level psionic powers.

[Flickerdart]

Become an undead, get yourself spell-stitched, now you can cast Animate Dead and Create Undead a bunch of times per day, and since it's an SLA you don't pay any money. Then get the undead you make spell-stitched too, and have them animate more undead for you. Every instance of spell-stitching costs some XP, but you can always mindrape some random people into doing it for you.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In before leadership.

The most cost efficient way for a 20th level caster to get the largest, strongest army around isn't to raise it himself. It's to find out who already has the largest, strongest army and manipulate him/her/them into using the army for his purposes instead of their own. I.E. be a 20th level bard and diplomance the appropriate autocrat/oligarchy into being your bestest friend ever.

I suppose you could throw that suggestion out on the basis that a skillfully played expert or aristocrat could do the same thing with the right gear appropriate to an NPC's WBL.

In that case, the old undead minion chain is probably the cheapest. You control as many of a given spawning undead as your spell/turning ability allows and use them as the generals of your undead army composed of their spawn. Fairly minimal cost, but might be a touch unstable since the loss of a general means the loss of a significant portion of the army.

My next best guess is probably homonculi. There's no actual limit on how many you can have, but they're not cheap at 2000gp per unit minimum. Unfortunately, the resultant homonculi all have only 1HD and small or smaller. They're at least intelligent though.

Psionic dominate can result in a group more than a hundred members strong for the price of not having any PP until you're ready to relinquish your army at somewhere around level 11.

[ericgrau]

Thrallherd with a caster friend, caster uses invisible spell, energy sub cold and fell animate on a permanent wall of fire. Fanatics show up, die from the invisible freezing flames, and rise as cold immune undead only to be replaced by new fanatics.

To create them fine, but to actually control them isn't that capped by the animate dead limit?

[Mithril Leaf]

I like Outsider Malconvokers using binding and crazy high charisma to get a bunch of strong minions for dirt cheap. It takes some gold to boost your charisma check, but other than that there's no expenditure besides spell slots and time spent in negotiation.

[Morithias]

I know about Thrallheard, but what's the thrallherd loop?

You have a thrallherd. Then you make your thralls thrallherds, then you make THEIR thralls thrallherds. Until you reach a thrall that's too low of level to have levels in thrallherd.

[Rejakor]

The most cost efficient army is a single 8th level ranger/fighter archer leading a couple hundred peasants with crossbows and the Missile Volley teamwork benefit from Miniatures Handbook.

They all always hit. It costs essentially nothing other than 3gp/day for 300 peasants and whatever it costs to have a ranger lead them.



As for effectiveness, emerald legion is the strongest. Hard to get, though.

There's various other tactics involving weak npcs that you can use to make very cheap and efficient army.

But what do you want an army for, is the main question. Because which kind of army is most efficient really depends on what you want to use it for.

EDIT: also there is a way to have your psycrystal have a psycrystal that is stronger than your initial psycrystal and so forth and so on forever. That costs you level 1 in a psionic class and a feat.

[DeusMortuusEst]

In the long run I do believe that the Emerald Legion is most cost effective as well. You'll never lose a single one, no matter how many fights you send them into.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Doesn't the emerald legion also take either at least one lifetime or some sort of time manipulation to actually produce?

[Slipperychicken]

Chain-gating is another way to do it. Of course, you'll wind up as a plaything of the universes cruelest tormentors, people usually gloss over that bit.

You can just find the King whose daughter you keep saving and call in a favor with him.

Mindrape as many people as you can, including world leaders. Before we start whining about alignment, let's be real here. You're starting a war. Casting a few [Evil] spells isn't exactly the end of the world when you're commanding thousands of people, plus countless innocents, to painfully die of violence and/or starvation.

[nedz]

Shadows or Wights.
So long as they don't lose you should end up with more that you started with.
Oh and you don't need to feed or pay them.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Shadows or Wights.
So long as they don't lose you should end up with more that you started with.
Oh and you don't need to feed or pay them.

The biggest problem with the undead minion chain army is what the devil do you do with them when the war's over?

They're not exactly a friendly face for civil authority work.

[molten_dragon]

I like chaining undead control. Just find an undead critter that can create more of itself, control it, and have it make more of itself, which will be under control of their creators, which will allow you to control them all.

Wights are the easiest to do it with, but for a 20th level character, I prefer vampires. They're more powerful since anything with more than five levels/HD gets to keep them, and the create spawn works on humanoids and monstrous humanoids.

Another fun option would be to combine your own demi-plane with an extremely fast time trait, some method of living for an extremely long time, and numerous thought bottles to create as many constructs as you desire.

[Randomguy]

I'm actually not so much of a fan of the self replicating undead thing: If a wight (or vampire) with 10 wights under its control dies, then those 10 wights are now free, right? And they've each got their own wights under their control, which are also free. Not to mention that one first keystone wight, and if he dies then you've basically gone from having a huge army to having caused a huge apocalypse.

I like the thrallherd loop (the second one), since that gives you a huge but finite army. Would anyone care to calculate how many believers you could get, in total?

The emerald legion certainly is powerful, but too hard to pull off, I think: It would probably take years to succeed, and that's a huge time frame for someone to thwart your evil plan.

So far dweomerkeeper seems like one of the best ideas, since it can be used to get free wishes, which can be used to get free Energy Transformation Fields and free Simulacra. If you make the simulacra Madcrafters of Thoon and the energy transformation fields linked to mass summoning spells, then you get your self an army of robots as well as an army of demons/devils/angels that stays the same size no matter how many are killed.

[Morithias]

I like the thrallherd loop (the second one), since that gives you a huge but finite army. Would anyone care to calculate how many believers you could get, in total?


Well let's see. Your first character is level 20, for the sake of argument we'll say he has a charisma score high enough to reach leadership of 25.

That gives you.

25 or higher - 17th 135 13 7 4 2 2

Two level 17 thralls, and 163 followers.
Then your two level 17, we'll say they use elite and have charisma scores of 18 or something for 21.

21 15th 60 6 3 2 1 1 = 146

You can enter thrallherd at level 5, so the level 17 are high enough level to have 2 thralls each at level 15.

Level 15 with elite stats would have 15 charisma +4, for 18 charisma and 19 score.

19 13th 40 4 2 1 1 * 4 = 192

Level 15 is again high enough to have two thralls each.

(And I need to go. Sorry people. I'll try to complete this later)

[Jack_Simth]

In the long run I do believe that the Emerald Legion is most cost effective as well. You'll never lose a single one, no matter how many fights you send them into.Actually, you will. They do have ways they can be perma-killed. Some of them are spelled out in the first post of the Emerald Legion, for that matter.

Doesn't the emerald legion also take either at least one lifetime or some sort of time manipulation to actually produce?
Yes & no.

It takes a couple of generations to do... but they're troll generations. Depending on what race you pick, that may not be a big deal.

[Coidzor]

My next best guess is probably homonculi. There's no actual limit on how many you can have, but they're not cheap at 2000gp per unit minimum. Unfortunately, the resultant homonculi all have only 1HD and small or smaller. They're at least intelligent though.

Default SRD/MM1 homunculi have 2 HD, actually, and you can't get them to go further than 1500 feet from you, so a mere 300 or so squares/cubes. Probably really vulnerable to them getting hit by an AoE effect that doesn't even need to directly affect the creator in order to kill the master. Maybe Improved Homunculus can give evasion to mitigate that somewhat, I can't recall offhand.

MM3/Eberron Homunculi are a bit tougher than that, but there's still the problem where killing a bunch of them will end up with the creator taking damage and dying.



Animate Dread Warrior is great for creating champion-types, but they're really hard of hearing/stupid even if you buff their intelligence or pick a super intelligent creature to begin with, so they don't make very good commanders despite retaining all of their class abilities, and it's a bit slow to make a lot of them because it basically requires spell-stitching and a rate of production of one per day per spell-stitched undead.

[DeusMortuusEst]

Actually, you will. They do have ways they can be perma-killed. Some of them are spelled out in the first post of the Emerald Legion, for that matter.

Ah, true. I should perhaps have said that producing one Emerald Legionnaire is more cost effective compared to pretty much anything else, since they're more likely to survive for basically forever. Sure, some things can kill them, but anything that can kill them can kill hundreds, or thousands of regular troops.

[Randomguy]

Well let's see. Your first character is level 20, for the sake of argument we'll say he has a charisma score high enough to reach leadership of 25.

That gives you.

25 or higher - 17th 135 13 7 4 2 2

Two level 17 thralls, and 163 followers.
Then your two level 17, we'll say they use elite and have charisma scores of 18 or something for 21.

21 15th 60 6 3 2 1 1 = 146

You can enter thrallherd at level 5, so the level 17 are high enough level to have 2 thralls each at level 15.

Level 15 with elite stats would have 15 charisma +4, for 18 charisma and 19 score.

19 13th 40 4 2 1 1 * 4 = 192

Level 15 is again high enough to have two thralls each.

(And I need to go. Sorry people. I'll try to complete this later)

I think your math is a bit off: A level 15 character (psion 5/Thrallherd 10), even with 10 charisma, has a thrallherd score of 25, since thrallherd levels are counted twice (thrallherd score and leadership score aren't the same). So all your thralls that are level 15+ have the same amount of believers as you. Incidently, these are also the ones with 2 thralls, which might make the math a bit easier.

I'd do the math myself, but no time at the moment.

[Silva Stormrage]

Animate Dread Warrior is great for creating champion-types, but they're really hard of hearing/stupid even if you buff their intelligence or pick a super intelligent creature to begin with, so they don't make very good commanders despite retaining all of their class abilities, and it's a bit slow to make a lot of them because it basically requires spell-stitching and a rate of production of one per day per spell-stitched undead.

Isn't there an ability that removes an extraordinary ability? I remember it being used to remove regeneration and such from a creature. Could it be used to remove the Dread Warrior's inability to follow orders and general stupidity?

[Coidzor]

Isn't there an ability that removes an extraordinary ability? I remember it being used to remove regeneration and such from a creature. Could it be used to remove the Dread Warrior's inability to follow orders and general stupidity?

...Good question. I'm not sure where I've heard of such a thing aside from Sarruhks making Pun-Pun though. :smallconfused:

[hex0]

Here's a mundane way: Orc Warlord (Races of Faerun), gets lots of bonus followers. If you are a Dragon Shaman/Dragon Lord (or your cohort is), you'll have a good army of Orcs.

[Randomguy]

Okay, I found some time so here's the thrallherd math:
Assuming all thralls have +2 cha, then all thralls of level 14+ have a thrallherd score of 25 or higher.

A level 13 thrall has a level 12 thrall, who has a level 11 thrall, and so on until you get to a level 5 thrall, who isn't a thrallherd and can't take leadership. Since this list pops up a few times, let's call that chain of thralls X.
To make a kind of graph of the thralls, which is easier than describing it:

20 - 17 -16 -15 -14 -X
\ \ \ X
\ 14-X
15-14-X
\X
And you've got another level 17 thrall with all the same thralls and thralls of thralls. So, including you, that's 15 people with the max number of believers +10*X.
The max number of believers is 150, so that's 2250 believers + 10*X.
Since each lower level has a leadership score of 2 lower, X = # of thralls with a leadership score of 23 + 21 + 19 and so on. Which is...

110+73+48+35+23+11+6+1=307, plus the 13 actual thrallherds = 320.
320*10+2250 = 5450. Plus the 7 other thrallherds themselves = 5457.
Times two, from your other level 17 thrall = 10900. :eek:

And your believers can be any NPC class, which means while most of them are just warriors but you can have adepts and experts in there to craft you armour and weapons, and healing and some magical support, not to mention all those powerful psion cohorts.

[Silva Stormrage]

Okay, I found some time so here's the thrallherd math:
Assuming all thralls have +2 cha, then all thralls of level 14+ have a thrallherd score of 25 or higher.

A level 13 thrall has a level 12 thrall, who has a level 11 thrall, and so on until you get to a level 5 thrall, who isn't a thrallherd and can't take leadership. Since this list pops up a few times, let's call that chain of thralls X.
To make a kind of graph of the thralls, which is easier than describing it:

20 - 17 -16 -15 -14 -X
\ \ \ X
\ 14-X
15-14-X
\X
And you've got another level 17 thrall with all the same thralls and thralls of thralls. So, including you, that's 15 people with the max number of believers +10*X.
The max number of believers is 150, so that's 2250 believers + 10*X.
Since each lower level has a leadership score of 2 lower, X = # of thralls with a leadership score of 23 + 21 + 19 and so on. Which is...

110+73+48+35+23+11+6+1=307, plus the 13 actual thrallherds = 320.
320*10+2250 = 5450. Plus the 7 other thrallherds themselves = 5457.
Times two, from your other level 17 thrall = 10900. :eek:

And your believers can be any NPC class, which means while most of them are just warriors but you can have adepts and experts in there to craft you armour and weapons, and healing and some magical support, not to mention all those powerful psion cohorts.

Actually its worse than that. The Belivers do NOT have to be an npc class. Thats only in the 3.0 version of leadership. In the 3.5 there is no such clause and as such they can be ANY class. Have fun with your 10900 wizards that refresh themselves everyday!

[Ingus]

For cost effectiveness, nothing better than Artificer.
Speaking in terms of Theorical Optimization, you can craft constructs with 0% of XP cost and less than 4% of GP cost.
Providing you've plentry of wealth at 20th level, you may put up some nasty, nasty stuff.

In terms of practical optimization, you may just craft a Mirror of Opposition, attract enemies that hate you and then team up with the opposite that come out of the mirror.
Potentially, you can produce as many soldiers as many enemies you have.
Bonus point: if you run out of supply, you win. :smallbiggrin:

[dwlc2000]

here's how to cost effectively gear up an army:
Step 1: Get the feat Craft Magic Arms and Armor
Step 2: Look in the book of vile darkness, find liquid pain. Liquid pain is a substance the gives xp for crafting. 50gp worth is 25xp
Step 3: Gain the ability to cast Major Creation
Step 4: Cast Major Creation to make Liquid Pain
Step 5: Enjoy being able to get magic items for half price!:smallsmile:

[nedz]

The biggest problem with the undead minion chain army is what the devil do you do with them when the war's over?

They're not exactly a friendly face for civil authority work.

They are probably best used for a diversionary attack, because otherwise: after the war your next task is to clean up the mess.

[hex0]

Have fun with your 10900 wizards that refresh themselves everyday!

Magic Missles? 109000d4 damage?

[TuggyNE]

Chain-gating is another way to do it. Of course, you'll wind up as a plaything of the universes cruelest tormentors, people usually gloss over that bit.

Explain? If you're chain-gating solars I'm not sure where this comes in.

[molten_dragon]

I'm actually not so much of a fan of the self replicating undead thing: If a wight (or vampire) with 10 wights under its control dies, then those 10 wights are now free, right? And they've each got their own wights under their control, which are also free. Not to mention that one first keystone wight, and if he dies then you've basically gone from having a huge army to having caused a huge apocalypse.

That can be mitigated for the most part. For one, you can have multiple keystone creatures, all under your direct control. That way if something happens to one, you don't lose your whole army, and the rest of it should be big enough to destroy the parts that are loose.

The other way to avoide that is is that you simply use intelligent undead and make sure that the creatures making up your army are treated well enough and are disciplined enough that they will continue to follow orders when not magically compelled to do so (so really no different than any non-undead or non-magically-compelled army). And all of the undead that I know of that can pull off the creation chain (wights, wraiths, shadows, vampires) are intelligent.

[Randomguy]

That can be mitigated for the most part. For one, you can have multiple keystone creatures, all under your direct control. That way if something happens to one, you don't lose your whole army, and the rest of it should be big enough to destroy the parts that are loose.

The other way to avoide that is is that you simply use intelligent undead and make sure that the creatures making up your army are treated well enough and are disciplined enough that they will continue to follow orders when not magically compelled to do so (so really no different than any non-undead or non-magically-compelled army). And all of the undead that I know of that can pull off the creation chain (wights, wraiths, shadows, vampires) are intelligent.

I'm not sure that this is possible: No matter how well you treat the spawn, you're still magically compelling them to fight for you without any real compensation other than victims.

Also, vampires, wraiths and spectres (which you forgot to mention) are all powerless in daylight, which makes them pretty bad army material. Shadows aren't very smart, and are always CE, so they'd probably be more inclined to go off and do their own thing than to fight for you.
You might be able to pull it off with wights though, since they're Lawful Evil and as smart as humans are, plus they love killing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That can be mitigated for the most part. For one, you can have multiple keystone creatures, all under your direct control. That way if something happens to one, you don't lose your whole army, and the rest of it should be big enough to destroy the parts that are loose.

The other way to avoide that is is that you simply use intelligent undead and make sure that the creatures making up your army are treated well enough and are disciplined enough that they will continue to follow orders when not magically compelled to do so (so really no different than any non-undead or non-magically-compelled army). And all of the undead that I know of that can pull off the creation chain (wights, wraiths, shadows, vampires) are intelligent.

I'd go with either the wights or the vampires. Wights are 4hd which means a 20th level caster can control 20 of them directly. This, in turn, means that if 5% of his army gets cut loose by the loss of a keystone, he's still got the other 95% to quickly shut the problem down. Probably more like 97.5% V 2.5% since he can take control of one of the lost wight's direct underlings. Worst case, they're like 16-ish points of cr below him and he can wipe them out as they come back for vengeance himself.

Vampires on the other hand are a bit tougher to work with, and much more dangerous, but ultimately much more durable in both the short and long-term. They're also generally civil enough that good treatment under a well built organization can largely prevent the loss of a keystone from being anything more than a temporary annoyance as some of the foot-soldiers on the low end get uppity.

Nothing's really fool-proof in this endeavor though. Even constructs can be given free-will, at least temporarily, or otherwise have their control wrestled away from their creator.

It's generally best to skip the whole army thing and use your own, personal power at that level. You only really need an army to hold territory, you can take territory by yourself.

Btw, somebody mentioned getting an artificer's construct crafting down to 4% listed gp and 0 xp. Can anyone elaborate on that or provide a link? My curiosity is piqued.

[Morithias]

Btw, somebody mentioned getting an artificer's construct crafting down to 4% listed gp and 0 xp. Can anyone elaborate on that or provide a link? My curiosity is piqued.

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7274.0

Yo

[Kelb_Panthera]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7274.0

Yo

Thank you sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

Edit after skimming: ............. wow. :smalleek: I really don't know what else to say.

[karkus]

The most cost efficient way for a 20th level caster to get the largest, strongest army around isn't to raise it himself. It's to find out who already has the largest, strongest army and manipulate him/her/them into using the army for his purposes instead of their own. I.E. be a 20th level bard and diplomance the appropriate autocrat/oligarchy into being your bestest friend ever.

SERIOUSLY. THIS. ^^^^^

I cannot explain to you how overpowered Diplomacy is. You don't even have to have that many ranks in it. Maximum, cross-class ranks or a few class ranks will work just fine.

[Fable Wright]

Here's a mundane way: Orc Warlord (Races of Faerun), gets lots of bonus followers. If you are a Dragon Shaman/Dragon Lord (or your cohort is), you'll have a good army of Orcs.

That reminds me. One of the Magical Events in the DMG II basically grants you a refilling horde of thousands of warriors (potentially including powerful races, such as Giants) for minimal investment, so long as the horde kills a thousand or so people per month. It's pretty much free to get, the stock soldiers are better than the stock soldiers of most kingdoms (Water Orc Warrior 1 vs. Human Warrior 1), it has better war engines (Storm Giants, anyone? Control Weater 2/day/Giant, Rock Throwing, 50ft base land speed, etc), and it doesn't take much time at all to get it started.

[Doc_Pippin]

You= Thrallherd/mindbender build

1st thrall= Dread Necro build (leadership/undead with improved cohort/ extra followers/ ect)

1st Cohort= (Living) Conjuration wizard
2nd Cohort= (Undead) DracoLich

2nd Thrall= Bard (leadership/undead with improved cohort/ extra followers/ ect) Make sure to max out diplo and bluff to make many many many fanatics and powerful allies.

3rd Cohort= (Living) Orc Warlord (leadership/ might makes right with improved cohort/ extra followers/ ect)
X-y amount of cohorts who are also Orc warlords for the endless orc Hoard

4th Cohort= (Undead) Necropolitian Dread Necro OR Lich with(leadership/undead with improved cohort/ extra followers/ ect)
with X-Y more following the same pattern for undead

This allows you to have a living fortress of believers and followers protected by a huge hoard of undead with a forward attack force of orcs. The key is that they all arrive with basic equipment for their level. In case of all out attack the Dracolich makes a "oh crap" moment as does a sudden swarm of summoned elemental monoliths. You have an unbeleavable amount of fodder undead to put between the valuable high level followers/believers/cohorts/thralls and the enemy force so they can sling summons and spells in to the fray. Extra points if you get mass Neg energy attacks to heal your army while destroying theirs.

[Diovid]

Here's a mundane way: Orc Warlord (Races of Faerun), gets lots of bonus followers. If you are a Dragon Shaman/Dragon Lord (or your cohort is), you'll have a good army of Orcs.
What you want is something like 1 level of the Master base class (Dragonlance: War of the Lance) + x* + 3 levels of Orc Warlord + 10 levels of Dread Pirate + the Extra Followers feat + the Assemble the Horde feat + the Undead Leadership feat.
*Where x is probably some combination of Dragon Shaman, Dragon Lord, Marshal, Legendary Captain and Legendary Leader.

[Rejakor]

That sounds like a lot of levels invested to get a whole bunch of useless followers

[Diovid]

That sounds like a lot of levels invested to get a whole bunch of useless followers
Indeed. Such is the fate of non-magical (or non-psionic or whatever) characters. I was just trying to make a mundane leader with the biggest army as possible.

[Rejakor]

Well, a diplomancer gets more than that.

I suppose if you were like 'how does a fighter get an army', that's the kind of thing they'd have to do, other than that plot mechanic 'go on a quest' sort of thing.