interesting question!
how C'tis is to stand up against the blessed woodsmen with W9F9 in a low research setting ?
I don't know the answer at all (still newbie), but I couldn't resist thinking of what I would try.
if expecting a woodsman F9W9 i could be tempted for the heck of it to ****er with a molock W9F9 (and terrible scales) but serpent dancers with base defense 16 should now be able to standup to the woodsmans beating for a while and doing some damage in return. but they are (as i remember) capital only.
Good scales and maybe starting with severe patrools could give an gp advantage on more than 50%, adding up to have more than 5 troops for each woodsman. (until jotun outgrows c'tis). But how to damage them as ther water blessing makes them hard to hit.
A combination with a water 9 pretender and scales for the rest. For fodder and serpent dancers, might be a solution.
With the setup for c'tis D9N4 that is asked for here i can not really comes around anything. Except trying to gamble with battle setups. And offcause take the heat to the opponent , but without a stealthy priest thats not working.
with machaka i would have tried the nation spell starting spell blind. Would terror work ? If time and space for a few lost battles Could it work to curse them ? (should be in research range)