If your mages have decent agility, learning sharpen and sharpening some of the melee weapons that have no strength requirement is a good approach.
I've never had a bow that works as well as a shortsword or other wimpy melee weapon after it has been sharpened 5-6 times (note 1.45 requires high agility for multiple sharpening weapons to be used).
So my mages may be bloodied, but they are unbowed.
