How big is a horde of Orcs?

[The Vagabond]

As listed in the title: How big is a giant horde of orcs? I'm making a character that is, essentially, the dark ruler for a giant herd of Orc Accountants, and I need to figure out how big the army should be to function as an actual army- One that would make the second-largest metropolis on a continent cower in terror.

[martixy]

Between 50 and 99 orcs.

[Keltest]

depends on how wide an area you want them to control, and for how long you want them to rampage. A horde could be anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands, depending on their target and how long they stay unified.

The biggest enemy to the orc horde is logistics, because unless they do what the mongols did and just continually sweep across the continent, pillaging as they go, until they hit ocean, then they probably aren't going to say unified (or fed) for very long. Smaller hordes can stay in an area longer because they can survive longer off the pillage, and possibly keep some of the infrastructure going, either via slavery or doing it themselves.

[Hackulator]

As listed in the title: How big is a giant horde of orcs? I'm making a character that is, essentially, the dark ruler for a giant herd of Orc Accountants, and I need to figure out how big the army should be to function as an actual army- One that would make the second-largest metropolis on a continent cower in terror.

lolwut?

I would say the answer is thousands, but it really depends on what your world is like.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

This differs a lot from place to place and time to time, so it depends on your setting. I think on average populations in D&D worlds are relatively small. As a flexible upper limit I think we can place the roughly 180.000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_China) Mongolian soldiers needed to keep conquering Chinese cities. Those are the sort of numbers that any empire in world history would have had trouble with, given that those 180.000 are well trained and/or otherwise dangerous fighters, like say they have a lot of horse archers in their ranks, or they're all big strong orcs.

[Reathin]

I'm making a character that is, essentially, the dark ruler for a giant herd of Orc Accountants

I'm sorry, WHAT? Also, why and how? Like, the Sums of Sauron? Mordor Mathematics? Do they slash prices more literally than the rest of us? Really enthusiastic about hostile takeovers? My brain demands answers!

Also, hundreds, I guess? Ballpark it from 500-1006? Enough to qualify as a serious threat, but not enough that you couldn't destroy them with the right response and a lot of troops.

[Afgncaap5]

Yeah, horde isn't a well-established term. The biggest unit of orcs in the monster manual is a "band", and is listed as containing 30-100 (so, like, [1d8+2] * 10) regular level 1 orc warriors plus 150% noncombatants plus one 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, five 5th-level lieutenants, and three 7th-level captains. I'd say that if you start with a group that size, you've probably got a decent "horde" that would make most cities worried about what would be happening. Make it bigger or smaller depending on what you need and how they're operating and I think no player would really debate the word usage. Too much larger than that, and have a few established answers ready for how on earth they're getting water to all the members (even if it's as simple as using water sources from other places that they're conquering.)

[johnbragg]

NApoleon I's armies topped out at 685,000 men.

Sherman had about 60,000 men on his MArch to the Sea.

The Spanish-and-German-and-Italian army that sacked Rome in 1527 numbered about 20,000.

The North Korean Army is somewhere north of a million.

Wikipedia gives, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, 3 million Germans and 3.2 million Russians in theater.

So you've got options in how many orcs you need your PCs to scrounge up grain, water, leather armor and cheap liquor for.

[Gildedragon]

How many accountants does it take to strike fear in a city: 3 (gotta have them in 3s so they stay honest) out of a pool of 80 K. (Roughly the size of the IRS)... Which actually is a reasonable approximation of the strength of the Mongol armies when they invaded Europe

[Fouredged Sword]

Also another valid consideration is why is the city quaking in fear? The horde doesn't need to TAKE the city. The horde can blow though AROUND the city and still wreck their year by tearing up farms, murdering farmers, killing livestock, burning homes, and otherwise making it impossible for the city to feed itself for years. You can do this with FAR fewer troops and far worse equipped troops than the city has. This is doubly true if the orcs are highly mobile forces and the city lacks adequate mounted troops to sally and confront them. If they strike at the right time of year you are looking at a choice between consolidating your forces and giving up that year's harvest or allowing groups of farmers to be slaughtered piecemeal as they try desperately to haul food into defensible locations.

[Karl Aegis]

Bro, just make a 1500 or an 1800 point list and send em out.

[Darrin]

Based on the Orc Warlord PrC (Races of Faerun p. 185), the size of the horde is determined by the number of followers you'd normally have from the Leadership feat. Levels in Orc Warlord applies a multiplier to the number of followers, either x1.5 or x2.0. Based on the possible number of followers in the DMG, an Orc Warlord's "Horde" would consist of somewhere between 7 to 270 1st-level orcs.

Hmm. That number seems kinda low... particularly when you look at historical examples of the Mongols, or how many troops a medieval monarch could levy with a little preparation.

However, numbers aside... if you want to strike fear into your enemies, you don't want orc accountants. You want orc auditors. I'd say 2d6 x 1000 sounds like a good number for a "horde".

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think the second largest city of the continent would cower before anything less than the acute threat of destruction. After all, such a city has its pride and strength and dignity to uphold. If you want the city scared enough to surrender before fighting, you need a fearsome reputation for burning cities and salting the earth, and at least enough troops to overrun the city's defenses without prolonged siege (which might bring relief). I'm not sure how much that is, but you probably need at least twice as much as it takes to defeat the city garrison in pitched battle. It is important that you are seen to have that strength: a crack team of seventeenth-level characters can take a city, but they are not so obviously an acute threat, so they must be recognized as such--perhaps by strategically exposing them at a parley.

[Fouredged Sword]

Based on the Orc Warlord PrC (Races of Faerun p. 185), the size of the horde is determined by the number of followers you'd normally have from the Leadership feat. Levels in Orc Warlord applies a multiplier to the number of followers, either x1.5 or x2.0. Based on the possible number of followers in the DMG, an Orc Warlord's "Horde" would consist of somewhere between 7 to 270 1st-level orcs.

Hmm. That number seems kinda low... particularly when you look at historical examples of the Mongols, or how many troops a medieval monarch could levy with a little preparation.

However, numbers aside... if you want to strike fear into your enemies, you don't want orc accountants. You want orc auditors. I'd say 2d6 x 1000 sounds like a good number for a "horde".

The mongols are the exception. It is kinda their meme. That said, each group wasn't that large. Multiple warlords under a single leader each leading his or her particular clan into battle sounds right.

[Grod_The_Giant]

NApoleon I's armies topped out at 685,000 men.

Sherman had about 60,000 men on his MArch to the Sea.

The Spanish-and-German-and-Italian army that sacked Rome in 1527 numbered about 20,000.

The North Korean Army is somewhere north of a million.

Wikipedia gives, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, 3 million Germans and 3.2 million Russians in theater.

So you've got options in how many orcs you need your PCs to scrounge up grain, water, leather armor and cheap liquor for.
The more modern the army, the more modern its logistics and the bigger the base population. 20th century armies aren't very useful metrics for ancient ones. It's hard to tell for the ancient world, since the few sources that do exist vary and tend to exaggerate wildly, but 30-50,000 soldiers would generally have a pretty impressive army.

[InvisibleBison]

"Second largest metropolis" to me suggests a very large city - upper tens of thousands at least. Let's say 100,000 people - big, but not outside real-world historical precedent. There's going to be lots more people living in the area around the city, mostly in small farming villages. The 3.5 DMG suggests 10 to 15 times as many people outside cities as inside them, which seems plausible to me. So say there's between 1 million and 1.5 million people living in the hinterlands around this metropolis. Let's say that 1 in 100 people is able to serve in the army. That would mean the army has between 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers. To be really terrifying, the orcs need to seriously outnumber the defenders - so say 30,000 to 50,000 orcs as a minimum. That lets them be numerous enough to easily defeat the defenders in a field battle and to plausibly be able to take the city if the entire army tries to defend it.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

For an example from medieval Europe, which might approach the organizatorial skills of orcs better: John of Brabant apparently brought about 1500 knights to the Battle of Worringen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Worringen) and won it quite handily. John was hardly the scourge of Europe, nor was he alone at this battle, but if a horde had the ability to deliver that sort of fighting strength to any part of the continent and regrow their numbers between major battles, attracting small orc clans, human bandits and other supplementary troops along the way, they could become quite a problem. So let's say 3000 mounted knights, which roughly equals 30,000 random human infantrymen, or maybe 9000 or so well trained proud warrior race soldiers like orcs (in my last estimate I put the orcs on equal footing with a mostly cavalry army, that may have been giving them a bit much credit).

But that's against a divided continent made up of city states, not a huge empire. So it really depends on the setting.

[johnbragg]

The more modern the army, the more modern its logistics and the bigger the base population. 20th century armies aren't very useful metrics for ancient ones. It's hard to tell for the ancient world, since the few sources that do exist vary and tend to exaggerate wildly, but 30-50,000 soldiers would generally have a pretty impressive army.

Very true. IF you're doing anything like "realism" for pre-modern armies, 100,000 is a max, the probably exaggerated Persian host that invaded Greece.

But if you're going for a fantasy Horde, that a great city (with the DMG allotment of spellcasters) would tremble before, "realism" may not be the way to go.

Wikipedia gives the numbers for the Fourth Crusade (sack of Constantinople) at 10,000 Crusaders and 10,000 Venetians. First and Third Crusades, anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 Crusaders. (Not sure if that count is who started out, or who actually made it to the Middle East.)

[CharonsHelper]

Very true. IF you're doing anything like "realism" for pre-modern armies, 100,000 is a max, the probably exaggerated Persian host that invaded Greece.


Didn't the Greeks actually exaggerate up to a million? (Though that likely included camp followers & historians think a couple hundred thousand was more likely.)

[johnbragg]

Didn't the Greeks actually exaggerate up to a million? (Though that likely included camp followers & historians think a couple hundred thousand was more likely.)

Yes, I confused the "probable actual number of Persian soldiers given by modern historians" with "Herotodus' probably exaggerated account." Herotodus has them over 1,000,000.

[Bavarian itP]

Between 50 and 99 orcs.

I get it! Heroes of Might and Magic

[Elkad]

General rule is attackers need a 3-1 advantage for a decisive victory. (Assuming equal power)

Vs a fortified position, more like 10-1.

So count the combatants in your city and multiply.

[Keltest]

I think its worth pointing out that the orcs don't actually need to level the city for them to be an intimidating horde. If they destroy all the farms and block trade for six months, the city will be devastated in the long term even if the people and buildings inside the walls survive and the orcs don't.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I think its worth pointing out that the orcs don't actually need to level the city for them to be an intimidating horde. If they destroy all the farms and block trade for six months, the city will be devastated in the long term even if the people and buildings inside the walls survive and the orcs don't.
The OP specified "cower in terror", so just "intimidating" is too modest a goal here :smalltongue:.

I don't think that the city would cower for a band of orcs that scours the surroundings without the ability to assault the walls (much less in a D&D world, where magical food creation is a thing, but even ignoring that). The people wouldn't go outside for fear of orcs, and they wouldn't be happy about it, but cowering is quite specifically "sitting in fear, afraid to act", and means the city is beyond fighting back, paralyzed. To achieve that, the orcs don't need to level the city, but they need to appear to be able to, and quite easily.

[Thurbane]

A gang of Orcs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/orc.htm) is 2-4, a squad 11-20 (plus sergeants and a leader), and a band is 30-100 (plus noncombatants, sergeants, lieutenants and captains).

Presumably a horde is more than 100?

The Avatar of the Horde magic event (DMG II p.114) has some rules about gathering hordes of mixed humanoids, monstrous humanoids and giants under an individual's control.


The exact numbers of each type of creature available to the Avatar of the Horde are determined by the DM, but a reasonable estimate is somewhere around one hundred individual creatures per Hit Die of the Avatar.

[Godskook]

The Red Hand of Doom, everyone's favorite module, had 3040 Infantry, 100 clerics, 200 mounted cavalry, 120 ogres, roughly 100 "notable" monsters, an attached mercenary unit of powerful undead, 7 warpriests and 9 warriors of legend.

[Dimers]

Three thousand, eight hundred seventy-two. (https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8455/7980404616_ca53551ac7_b.jpg)

[King of Nowhere]

You should also consider the role of high level people and how they affect the balance. If your city has just one high level wizard willing to help its defence, he can dominate the orc leaders into fighting for him and slay the rest with summoned monsters or area spells. I estimate he should kill about a few thousands every day before running out of spells. That's unless the orc horde has wizards of its own and that kind of stuff. You can answer the question of how magic and high levels will impact the horde in many ways, but you have to address it somehow.
In my campaign world, the last horde of orcs was 150000 strong, and it managed to kill 9 people before being routed. that's what high levels and magic will do to an horde of underequipped mooks without magic support.

[Jormengand]

A squad of orcs in Fields of Blood (one of the mass combat rules for 3.5) is 100 of them. A squad of orcs straight out of the MM costs, assuming they're regular troops (combat trained but not elite) and are counted as light infantry with light armour and heavy weapons, 40,000 GP, though a Barbaric realm can buy them for 30,000 instead. The metropolis, if captured, would produce around 375,000 GP every season (this depends on the terrain it's in). Therefore to take the metropolis you should send 1,250 orcs for every season you expect to hold it. If you can't take it with that many, you shouldn't bother.

Even I don't know how serious I'm being.

[TheBeggarDwarf]

At Cannae, the largest army the Roman Republic ever put into the field numbered about 80,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Hardly typical, and the army wasn't expected to stay together in field for an extended period, but it's safe to say that this would be what a powerful, ancient empire would consider a vast army.

For another (perhaps closer) example, consider the Helvetii, a Gaulish tribe whose mass migration led to the first of Julius Caesar's campaigns in Gaul. By estimation (probably exaggerated, but we have no other numbers to go with other than Caesar's, and his officers were well-connected men who would certainly exposed any major whoppers), 368,000 people were on the move, around 25% of them men of combat age, so 92,000 potential combatants. They didn't move as a single cohesive unit, but rather as disparate groups that tended to cluster at natural bottlenecks.

I guess I'm saying it depends on the nature of your horde, but I thought I'd add some examples.

[Martin Greywolf]

For medieval tech level, largest army you can field with basic organization is about 40 000. You can have a lot more than that, but you won't be able to keep them in one place because you'll run out of food.

If you have superb organization for the time, you can double that to about 80 000, Roman empire was capable of this (good roads and logistical organization), as were the Mongols (highly mobile mostly horsemen army), but even then there are problems. that 80 000 Mongol army was split by Subutai into two, one part going to Poland, the other into Hungary, and they remained heavily dispersed even then for most of the time, each having just one major battle (Legnica and Sajo, respectively).

If the circumstances are really, really in your favour, you can go as high as 100 000, this is the estimated number of Cao Cao's troops at Red Cliff, but he had both great logistics and a major river to use for transporting supplies in and waste out.

[Pugwampy]

If you mean vs half a dozen hero players ? 20 of same level plus a few boss orcs .

[Zanos]

One that would make the second-largest metropolis on a continent cower in terror.
Probably no number, because 100,000 third level orc warriors aren't worth a level 15 wizard. Or even an appropriately equipped 15th level fighter, really.

In Faerun at least the "big" cities tended to have populations have 100k-200k. The demographics calculator says that about 90% of those people are commoners, so if your Orc horde has a similar level split to the town, you'd need an army of 10,000-20,000 to match the amount of combat capable people the city can field. But they also have fortifications and commoners can be armed if necessary, so realistically I think you'd need about twice the cities fighting population to make it "cower in tower".

Level split is important though. In a city of 100,000 I think the demographics say that around 100 people are between level 10-20.

[Eldan]

The more modern the army, the more modern its logistics and the bigger the base population. 20th century armies aren't very useful metrics for ancient ones. It's hard to tell for the ancient world, since the few sources that do exist vary and tend to exaggerate wildly, but 30-50,000 soldiers would generally have a pretty impressive army.

Those seem to be the numbers for the larger Roman armies, too.

[Bucky]

The smallest you can get away with threatening a major city with is probably about a Roman legion, roughly 5000 assuming the rank-and-file accountants can do double duty on logistics. Your orcs had better have a level advantage over the defenders, though.

[Thurbane]

Some illustrations of "orc hordes":

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/rof_gallery/49737.jpg

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/leof_gallery/86705.jpg

I don't have the full module handy, but does Sons of Gruumsh (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060418a) make any mention of Orcish hordes?

I was also looking to see if any specific numbers are mentioned in LotR, but numbers seem to vary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_armies_and_hosts

[Blackhawk748]

Twice the size of the enemy army, preferably triple

[The Glyphstone]

3,872 orcs. They get +6 vs. Dwarves due to ancient grudges.

[hamishspence]

3,872 orcs. They get +6 vs. Dwarves due to ancient grudges.

Dimers was first to make that Munchkin reference :


Three thousand, eight hundred seventy-two. (https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8455/7980404616_ca53551ac7_b.jpg)

[Goaty14]

I'm sorry, WHAT? Also, why and how? Like, the Sums of Sauron? Mordor Mathematics? Do they slash prices more literally than the rest of us? Really enthusiastic about hostile takeovers? My brain demands answers!

Also, hundreds, I guess? Ballpark it from 500-1006? Enough to qualify as a serious threat, but not enough that you couldn't destroy them with the right response and a lot of troops.

can I sig this?

[nintendoh]

Bro, just make a 1500 or an 1800 point list and send em out.

This system does not support deffdreds

[Karl Aegis]

This system does not support deffdreds

Nah, just use the points costs for like the Harbingers miniatures set or something.

Cleric of Gruumsh - 21 points
Orc Warrior x 9 - 27 points
Orc Spearfighter x 4 - 20 points
Orc Archer x 3 - 24 points
Orc Berserker - 8 points

There is a hundred point list for you.

(Although a few deffdreds wouldn't hurt)

[Blackhawk748]

This system does not support deffdreds

Well then this systems fails. :smalltongue: