DarrkPhoenix: So funnily enough no sooner did I offer that previous bit of advice than I got a chance to test it out myself, as the last opponent on the shard I was on also had a guard of ogres in his demesne. Won it going in rather unprepared with a lvl 24 archer, decent but non-exceptional gear, and no particularly useful spells. Lost 3 tier-1 units running interference against the ogres when they got close, but my archer and tier-2 units came out of it intact. If I'd been able to pop off a mass slow at the start, or if the terrain had been more accommodating (swamps or forests rather than open plains) it would have been a one-sided slaughter. So the archer strategy definitely does work, even without putting lots of groundwork into it.
Yes i forgot to mention i killed those ogres with archer myself after warrior failing badly..
And since archer owned 6ogres im thinking archer is op too.. so.. kind of want to try him out more often. I just dont have mass slow spells yet.. But i do recruit him as early as possible for scouting those awesome item shops and for leveling up a bit. :)