Marverni

[Renojustin]

Don't be TOO hasty to discount slingers entirely, especially Fir Bolgs (ESPECIALLY Fir Bolgs), Marverni, and Mictlan slingers who wield shields.

Slingers can be a pretty nice chassis for battlefield enchantments like Flame Arrows, Wind Guide, etc. Slingers with shields, especially, can run right up to opposing archers and start laying down the law, without having to deal with their intervening screen. Added to this, they're cheap both in resources and gold... they can be an effective counter to a lot of things, and put out some pretty nice dpt.