[PhilD]

Sure, if you can field 3 Ogres, the Legendmakers will have a hard time. But by the time you've got them (even with the 1.10 price), the Legendmakers are all over the place, and there are Gardeners on Gnome cities, meaning the ones with the money to field the Ogres are actually the Gnomes.

Remember - LM only costs 3 cities if they have Gardeners in them. Plus, as you can buy multiple LMs from a single city if you have the gold, you can afford to leave Gardeners on cities.

The main Gnome weakness is, they have no damage ability while expanding, since they're usually using Gardeners. Rush them and kill some, or force them to buy some other units - this will slow them down. Of course, Orcs have the best tier 1 unit in the game (huge HPs, poison, and actually cheap while expanding), so that's how you can beat Gnomes.

As for using Archmages as a strategy to kill Legendmakers... the thing is, LM always get first shot since they move on the turn you buy them. After that, AM is not fully healed anymore - so what you need is AM plus Apprentice, and by then you're dealing with extra high costs.