Yesterday our DM wanted to show us how pissed he is with the CR15 monsters he had been pulling against us. We had a sort-of mechanism to just request an encounter on the spot, a card we have to play, and we did it twice in order to get a level up, and got two CR15 one-rounders, which did basically no damage against us. So we chose to do it a third time (because we could still no level), and he wanted to annoy us, I guess, so he pulled out the Wild Hunt. He later said it was just a pseudo-encounter, and rolled back to before the encounter, but whatever. We got the Master and two Hounds. They have ACs in the 40s, DR, and a manageable number of HP, as well as SR, which was unbeatable for our casters in that situation.
Well, we each got ready-actions off initially, but they didn't do much. Then I got one good charge in on the Master, which did about a 180 damage (before DR), and punted him into a hound and tripped him. (I was asked not to get a valorous weapon, hence the low damage.) The hounds were pretty bad, however, they quite easily spring-attacked me and the DMPC and really chewed us up - even with one attack, 70+damage. We were, as usually, tired, so I forgot that the master should not have been able to hit me due to being out of reach and prone, well, whatever, the DM said he stays prone and just beats us, and basically killed my character and put another character near death. We stopped playing at that point, and rolled back.
My DM seems to think that the group is too strong. I don't think that's the case. The reason for his problems is that he wants to take monsters out of the books, ideally single monsters, and give us interesting encounters like that. I keep telling him that won't work, but he says he just doesn't have any more time. But that's just an aside.
Now, I am interested, what kind of group of Lvl 12 Chars (ideally a diverse group) can beat the Wild Hunt without losing more than one or two PCs, with just the master and two hounds, and as they were presented to us? There were five of us, so I guess there should be five again. Any WoTC material is allowed, but it should be strictly practical optimization, i.e. no infinite loops, no wish farming, etc. For the sake of identical conditions, no valorous weapon multipouncers, either, because I was asked not to do that. (I.e. no Hood, unfortunately.) Normal pouncing without multipliers is fine.
Our group, who didn't make it, were:
DMPC: A Stalwart Battlesorc/AbCha gish
An illusionist with basically ZERO defensive capabilities, but good DCs on his spells
A Hellfire Warlock
A WoC Bard/SubChord with a nice +10 IC
And my no-instagib charger/AoOer with Knockback and Thicket.
The arena is open desert, and the critters appear basically where you want them, but you have no control over the exact placement, i.e. one or all could appear 100ft in the air, so no putting them in Forcecages or traps. You can ready one standard action before they appear, and all the usual buffs you would have up for a four-encounter day, plus, if necessary, Fly or equivalent, if you have it.