Archer help (in General)

Ive got a single mage right now and he can do pretty good at a 50% challenge bonus. But have you seen those archers? They are freaking powerful! So now I want to change my mage to an archer. And I have no clue how. I was thinking of selling my AG's (+12) for an axbow and getting a ToA. Training my base stats is where I get completely lost though. And also what should be the axbow stats I trade my AG's for?
please help.

If you can't overcome evasion with a high enough PTH, and/or can't overcome an AOI with a Mageseeker there's no point becoming a singleton Archer IMO.

Better to keep the mage a mage and add a second minion who can deal damage as an archer. From there you'll want BG's, training archery, and a HoC. Anything else you add is nice (armor, AoM, BoM, MS, etc,...) too. I.E. You need lots of money.

The archery skill doesn't work with crossbows. Bows do.

For all Tanks you roughly want equal HP, ST, DX, take into account of the ToA. It gives 50% of its level to ST but only 33% to DX. That's okay though, because the inherited PTH is massive, and you probably wont need that much DX. I've seen that ToA tanks just train HP and BL/Archery and that's it, because the ToA can take care of the rest.