What animals are available and in the area, first of all?
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AC as in Animal Companion?
Purpose of Animal Companion is to have a Pseudo-Fighter on your side. Yeah you can get special companions to do set tasks like a bird scout that is non combative...but most Druids use them as Combatants or Mounts for the most part. I like to use Big Cats, Alligators, Giant Mantis, bears and Giant Frogs.
Each has its own special abilities...
Cats have Pounce, Grab, and Rake.
Gator has Deathroll which is a grappling move
Mantis has Sudden Strike, lunge, and 3 speeds: Flight, Climb, and Base movement.
Bear is just a solid Tank with good damage output and scent.
Frogs have a tongue grab and swallow whole (Medium or smaller creatures) as well as a swim speed.
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If your Looking for a brutal encounter for a BBEG lvl 12 druid then I recommend the fight going something like this:
First Daily the boss casts Hr/level buffs....Greater Magic fang on AC, Barkskin on both, ext ext....you make the spell list you can determine how much daily buffing the BBEG does.
If the BBEG knows they are coming he casts: Animal growth on his AC is a good one...so is resinous skin. If the BBEG has any info on the group maybe a resist energy for the main blasters type of energy.
On first round or Surprise round he will cast: Solid Fog or ash storm and Hit the group with it also ordering his AC to attack the group. he will also shape change and fly up out of reach of any melee and also moving a safe distance.
After first round will Summon more creatures into the fight with Summon natures ally or Rain of Frogs or a Swarm of some sort.
3rd round he can conjure either more animals or make a blast barrier to catch anyone coming out of the Fog effect. The Blast barrier is a concentration effect so once someone triggers it you can then cast something else like Entangle on them...be creative here.
All the time your Big bad AC is ripping the party a new one with scent ability and his new found strength. Also remember the more creatures you summon the harder the fight becomes...if you want the possibility of a TPK then just keep summoning and eventually they will be so overwhelmed that they wont know which animal is you and which are summoned...they will eventually fall to superior numbers.
On another note... Can an AC of a12th level druid with int 3 (the AC, not the druid...) gain leadership and have it's own followers?
Interesting idea. Having a well trained pack of hounds could present at least some problem for the players (at least with proper back up from the druid). Maybe make them more along the lines of wolves or riding dogs so they can have the trip ability on their bites, which could go a long way towards making them more of a threat (a dozen bites, each with a trip? One of them is going to roll a 20 and knock someone down)
Something you should think about though: leadership is more of a feat for players to gain GM like control over an NPC. If you are the GM...feel free to fudge with things like this. You are more than invited to add various other creatures in to help boost the encounter. It is like how other villains do not need to heed the wealth by level restrictions when it comes down to making their fortresses.
Of course, that is not to say that an animal companion does not have advantages that these thrown in animals lack. An animal companion has the link ability, which means that the druid can command it as a free action. And if her effective druid level for it is level 9, the wolf also gains the multiattack ability, allowing it a second use of its bite attack with a -5 bonus (so it is basically an iterative).
You could also make it the strongest out of all the pack (to show how much her rearing has improved it) and maybe make it the alpha, serving as the link through which she commands the pack. That would mean that even if the druid does not have to spend her own actions to command the pack (although, if she trained them, she could), her AC would be spending them, and her commands would have to wait until its turns to come into effect.
I'd recommend a Bird of some type too, maybe a Roc. If this Druid is high level (9th or higher), consider that she may have cast Awaken on a few more animals granting her intelligent allies who could help her Animal Companion in these insidious raids against the city.