Well, the strongest and most reliable is always Arrow Fend. That knocks out 3/4 of the arrow fire in general. Rain doesn’t really stop Fire Arrows unless you manage to cast Rain before the fire mage can cast fire arrows, and happens to be low-powered enough that it would push him over the fatigue limit on spells/gems. (ie, a 2F caster scripted to go Pheonix Power, Fire Arrows, with 4 or 5 gems in his inventory).
Fire Resist, obviously. Storm also reduces arrow accuracy, which only helps if they’re far away. I like lots of flying material to force the Archers into melee, like 1N insect swarms ect.
The tricky part about fire resist thugs is that people forget the Arrow part of fire arrows, and a hundred plain crossbow bolts are still going to hurt whether they have fire resist or not.
Most of Marignon’s casters are vulnerable to Mind Duel, as well. It’s unlikely you’d get one off before he got off the Fire Arrows, but you might still be able to kill the caster.
Of course, as Nick said, assassination is an excellent way to kill Marignon’s fire…power /cough.
One thing themed races can do (like Neifelheim, ect), is stick it right back to them. If you’re army is Lightning Immune or Fire Immune, cast one of the Battlefield wide Lightning or Fire spells, and watch the holocaust. Some of the more powerful death spells, like Shadow Blast, can really wipe out Marignons’ weak archers.
A really, really, really nasty counter to Marignon’s hordes is available to any of the Man/Tuatha nations; flying Vine Ogres. Cast a battlefield wide flying spell, and your hundreds of Ogres fly to smack the archers in their face, and vine Ogres have plenty of hitpoints, and once you have a Vine Ogre economy rolling, practically free. Combine with Arrow Fend for the full Marginon smackdown.
