I ran an encounter with 6 PC's (level 8) versus a small bandit army as follows:
Encounter #1: as PC's advance towards the heart of the enemy encampment they are met by 2 squads of elite soldiers (each squad comprised of 8 men). They were basically there to slow down the advance of the PC's.
Encounter #2: while the PC's were bogged down by the elite soldiers, the army leader's lieutenants buffed up and summarily engaged the PC's. This force was comprised of 6 NPC's with class levels and NPC WBL.
Encounter #3: fight with the BBEG (antipaladin) and his companion plus 2 shock troops (babau demons iirc).
The main bulk of the army was just fodder and was described as simply being cut down by the PC's or fleeing from them as they approached. The army was just descriptive text to set the mood rather than a real force to be reckoned with. The real threats were the 3 encounters.
Good luck!
It would be a shame to ignore the rest of the army like that. Much of the encounter ought to involve preventing the thousands of orc mooks from overrunning the valley while the more powerful ones are giving the PCs a hard time. Otherwise it's just the same-old, same-old.
This is likely to mean that the casters are rushing about doing lots of Summoning and AoE spells while the mundanes do the actual fighting without their usual support.
The problem is, 6000 mooks will kill the party as listed. The archers/warslingers/adepts/etc will do it from range. They only have to hit one in 20. That means if even only 300 can get a ranged attack at a time, then that's 15 per round hitting the PCs. Even with area effect attacks, you're not going to take out enough of them (since they'll spread out). And the guys at 500 feet have the same chance of hitting as the guys at 20 feet (needing a 20). The adepts with magic missile will just hit each round. The grunts can throw tangle foot bags, flasks of alchemist fire, and acid flasks and get 1d6 per grunt per round. 100 guys will kill half the party. It just doesn't work without the author on the side of the 6, or without the 6 being so far above the 6000 that it's the difference between a mage and a swarm of beetles.
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In addition to something similar to what Dosgamer presented, I would suggest including encounters that allowed you to deal with large groups of mooks without taking them head-on. Examples include capturing a significant post, such as a high ridge providing nice cover, or creating an artificial bottleneck. They could station their own troops in such locations to deal with the bulk of the opposing army in the background of the game, while the PCs dealt with the commanding officers. You could also send them to destroy provisions, cut off a supply line, sabotage siege weapons, etc.
I think this is a great opportunity to let the party feel really strong.
Put in a few encounters where almost all the enemies are mooks. But don't make those pure combat encounters. These are where the party shows up to halt an attack on a village, or hold a bridge or ford. Within a round or two, the enemy should be breaking and fleeing.
After a couple of those encounters, the word will have gotten around, and mooks will flee immediately unless bolstered by their own champions (and flee as soon those champions go down).
Basically, most of the orc army is no direct threat to the PCs, but since the PCs want to save the humans in the valley, you should keep them running ragged. Their forces are outnumbered at least 10 to 1, possibly 60 to 1. So you need to get the villagers to safety; find some highly defensible position the 100 soldiers can hold against an overwhelming force (a narrow cave, for example).
In the first phase of this, the party and the bulk of their soldiers are scrambling to find a safe location and evacuate the human population to there. The party will mostly be fighting mooks and raiders (worg-mounted orcs is cliche, but appropriate), and have an easy time, but they'll have no chance to rest, and might even end up fatigued. They'll have to talk villagers and farmers into fleeing, into leaving behind their heavy valuables and herds.
Once all (or almost all) the humans are gotten to safety (or dead or captured - and if captured, that's a plot hook; perhaps the orcs are trying to capture the humans alive to kill all together in some ritual, maybe to restore their god to life), the adventure moves on to a second phase. By this point, the mooks are going to be running away when they catch sight of the PCs. The soldiers are tied up guarding the safe location. Perhaps give the PCs a scare here with a unit of orcs who fight "smart" (mass use of alchemist's fire, and similar; attacks which go for touch AC instead of regular). Don't do that too much; yes, it's a way for low-level characters to be a huge threat to high-level characters en-masse, but it's also probably not something many soldiers would be trained or equipped for. First, there's a rest. Let the party recover in the safe location while the soldiers hold the line. In fact, make sure they're fatigued by the time they get there; at least one day with no chance to rest unless they want to give up a village or three.
After the rest, the party needs to head back out and break the army. Sure, the mooks won't face them without threats from above, but there are too many for the party to destroy before supplies in the safe location will run out. The best way to disperse the army is to eliminate its leaders. (And any captured humans may need rescue.) So now they sally out and engage a couple of elite groups, followed by the warlord & shaman who lead the army. (During this, just describe the mooks fleeing in terror, with perhaps a flask of alchemist's fire per round going at a random target; a couple of mooks have the guts and the tools to be a threat, but most don't. You can use mooks to create difficult terrain, at this point.) Once the warlord is down, the army will be broken; their leadership is gone, their strongest are gone. Either call that success, or walk the party through mopping up (which will mostly be handwaved encounters with fleeing mooks, but a fight or two with a champion.)
Summary:
Phase 1: run the PCs all over the valley, holding back the advance orc forces and talking the locals into fleeing (most people are stubborn and optimistic/stupid; they may think the orcs will just pass by, or flat out not believe that orcs will be coming). Let the party massacre some mooks for that heady sense of power. But also tire them out. Most combat encounters have fairly low threat, but an objective beyond "kill all enemies".
Phase 2: After the PCs have rested, they go back out to eliminate the orc leader. Mooks are fleeing automatically, but there are champions worth say 3 actual fights, with the warlord and his shaman in the final battle.
Phase 3 (Optional): Mop up; travel around quickly again, slaughtering mooks and the occasional champion.
Sudden idea: let the shaman have a companion who is a very young red dragon, or perhaps a wyrmling with a few class levels. Instead of just slaughtering the humans, the orcs want to round them up and kill them in a ritual that will transform this dragon into their new god. (Or the dragon companion is just a spawn of their god, but will direct the ritual to resurrect the god).
Stopping arrows is not hard, protection of arrows 2nd level spell. As for magic missiles shield first level spell will do they trick you might have some trouble if you have people that can't cast it for themselves sense the range is personal. With preparation destroying an army is easy. The trick is getting DR. Make sure you bring alot of dice to do all the rolling at the same time.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I did something similar to this in which the PCs had to hold a 20' wide stone bridge to prevent the escape of an enemy human army while friendly longbowmen destroyed it. The PCs were about 8th level and had a couple of NPCs, including their "heavy artillery," an 8th-level pyrokineticist.
I suggest running the PCs against waves. Initial waves can be small-to-mid-sized groups of mook orcs (10-20). These will be easily defeated, but may provoke the PCs into spending resources better saved.
As the orcs realize the threat the PCs pose, they will send larger waves. When the PCs destroy the larger waves, the orcs will send their elite forces. Raging orc barbarians make good elites. Half-orc pyromancers (cross-blooded red dragon/orc sorcs) can dish out mega fire damage, but because of this should probably be used sparingly. Orc adepts make good shamans. The orcs might have clerics, oracles, or druids, but such spellcasters should probably be low level and maybe toss out some low-grade battlefield control spells like fog cloud instead of trying to spell duel with PC spellcasters.
For fun, beef up the orcs with some orc drummers (orc bard 5 using inspire courage +2). Elite waves could have an elite drummer (orc bard 8 using inspire courage +2, haste, and good hope). Smart players will realize that the waves get much easier if the orcs aren't buffed and will take out the drummers first.
Also, you can plan a couple different locations and switch based on the PCs' relative success in various waves. If they do particularly well in a wave, they manage to take a key location with particularly defensible terrain that they can use for cover and concealment. This is especially good if they manage to take that location from orcs who are using it for their own protection--perhaps orc archers or spellcasters.
Since they're orcs, some waves will have better morale than others. You might have in mind that mook orcs in an initial wave will flee if more than half are killed. Later waves of raging orc barbarians might never break morale. You can also add some additional beneficial effects if the PCs manage to exploit their victories--by which I mean kill more orcs than the number required to make the rest flee. For instance, if they wipe out a wave of mook orcs entirely, it might reduce the numbers of mook orcs in later waves by 10% since they aren't whipping them back into the fight.
Give them in advance some area effect spell scrolls that can help level the numerical disparity. This encourages smart resource management.
Ultimately, the PCs will probably want to go back on the offensive. Maybe the orcs are retreating; maybe they are holding, but taking out the orc leadership would cause a full-on rout. Either way, the PCs should get a chance to face the leaders of the horde. And it should be a tough, risky choice, because the PCs will be tired, wounded, and nearly out of spells, while the orc leaders will be fresh to the fight--but if they can do it, the orcs will be broken for a long time.
Seriously, though, it is way fun at that level to kill massive hordes of 1HD mooks.