good races for/against newbies.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hey there. I'm going to be playing in a highly competitive, yet low-skill dom2 game soon. I really, really want to win. =)

I think I've got a good shot, but I'm working hard to study up, and find the right race.

The race I enjoy playing most is Jotunheim with the Neifelheim option.

But then again, I also liked Ulm -- and a search of the forums showed me that they're generally not well-regarded for advanced play.

So my questions are:
1) Are there any races and/or playing styles that will tend to beat down novice-to-intermediate players? I feel like solid military/brute-force strategies would work well, and this is where my strengths lie, but I'm open to adapting.

2) I'm really familiar with Jotunheim, and tend to use a heavily expansionistic, pure military, castle-building strategy, mostly forgoing magic (other than some construction.) My biggest enemy in the upcoming game is savvy enough to counter illwinter, so I no longer want to invest the resources in it... Is this a decent approach, or is the race or strategy a bad idea for some reason?

And for what it's worth, I expect my toughest enemy to be using some sort of witty magic-based approach. In our last two games, that's been his general approach, and I wouldn't mind having a strategy/setup that could deal w/ that kind of thing easily.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Hiro_Antagonoist