Heh, the massive horde idea was actually what I was thinking of. Provides a nice place for the wizards to really show off their stuff (once they get around to it). Rather than super lairs though, I was using goblin attack along with cannon fodder, just to make things particularly swarmy.
And no, I've never seen that many grunts running around before. God damn. And yes, they do a number on pretty much anything.
EDIT: Shoot, forgot to mention... sirboomalot did actually get into the game. Not as a wizard, but as a dwarf. You didn't really the time to do much of anything beyond visit an inn and then start trundling off towards the promise of massive piles of gold.