I don't understand the irony here.
1) Angels are easily defeated on the first turn.
2) There could have been 22 Elves without upgrades; this is achieved by losing 2-3 Marks, 5 Copppers, and a Griffin.

Don't be afraid of archers. 20 Elves are just 20 creatures of level 3.

1) The fact that they are easily defeated on the first turn in SOD is not a given; at most, it happens in the 1st game out of 5, and even then, only with top players. Even average players are unlikely to achieve this (or only with extremely favorable conditions, such as all crypts being at their maximum, gnomes not being demoralized in the dwarven mines, etc.).

As for archers, I'm not particularly afraid of them, especially after reading about grand armies on the 1st turn, defeating them with only level 1-4 units from the Conflux with minimal losses (I think I saw this a couple of times with Vikka). There was a time when I defeated them (archers) with lamas:smile02:.