The most comfortable and uncomfortable opponents for the Stronghold.

I agree with Major Whirlwind, but still... 1) It all depends on which hero the opponent chooses! And it's necessary to know the size of the map! If the map is medium or slightly smaller, it's an advantage for the dwarves. If he takes Hegesh, I would rather take Ingvar; he has many mountain defenders (which only take 50% damage from arrows), then I would cast Chaos magic and attack with machines...
2) If it were Argat (I don't remember the name exactly), I would rather take a mage, namely Hafiz (the master of gremlins). It's pleasant to clear the map with him, and in general, he is a very strong opponent. If you develop him properly and put the Wizard's Sign on the gremlins, you can create not 1, but 2 phantoms!!! Plus, that's not all! You can place traps that deal 210 damage and remove the rage from the orcs.

I think that rushing against orcs is difficult because their special defense doesn't require any buildings (for example, like the mages (artifact forge), humans (training halls), dwarves (rune school), or forest alliance (ranger guilds)). Personally, I would play as dwarves because they can become quite good mages by level 15.

Most likely, the game will be long, and I don't think anyone will rush, because the stakes are high! Probably, everything will be decided in one battle, the final one, somewhere around level 15-17.

P.S. They say that Ibby can block the centaur archers with her bears, but in my opinion, this is on the verge of fantasy!