Wait, is this right? Undead army at level 1?

[CrimsonDeath]

Reminds me of the time I faced the PCs with a level draining cetacean.

The rare and elusive wight whale.

Did he at least bite off somebody's leg?  Or was that the guy who gave them the quest?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Reminds me of the time I faced the PCs with a level draining cetacean.

The rare and elusive wight whale.

Did he at least bite off somebody's leg?  Or was that the guy who gave them the quest?

Nah, the quest giver was an old gnome, completely covered with scars, scars gained being bitten by every carnivorous fish in the ocean.

Call him fishmeal.

The fight itself was hit-and-run combat through the city (IMC, wights are incorporeal), and it went pretty well - the whale did manage a max damage crit with its tail attack, but I think that was a bit of a fluke. 

[Bozwevial]

Hopefully the player on the receiving end of the crit took it in stride. I hate it when they blubber.

[awaken DM golem]

... wights are incorporeal ... the whale did manage a max damage crit with its tail attack, but I think that was a bit of a fluke ... 

  ... 

[Da Craw]

I'm not sure this works the way you think it does (or maybe my DM is just a hardarse on these kind of things). Command undead does not actually give you control over the undead in question:

Friendly attitude is defined as:

Friendly [|] Wishes you well [|] Chat, advise, offer limited
help, advocate

And according to Charm Person:

Thus you would need to actually convince the wight to go and cause the wight apocalypse . This shouldn't be too hard - it's arguably something the wight would 'ordinarily do' and thus not subject to a save - but still, you can't expect to have any control whatsoever over the unholy hordes you unleash on the world.

Oh, and you can't order it (directly) to fail its save, that requires dominate person. You have to re-command the wight every {level} days, though you could tell it that it has no reason to fear the spells you are casting on it, and that they are not hostile (though that last one would require you to convince your DM).