That post above about resources is a bad joke. One of henchmen at lvl1 is a very nicely built Fire/Earth Wizard, and it costs very little money to hire her. So you don't need to play one yourself at all.
Generally, you can play anyone you want to play, as you can always fill the gaps with henchmen, don't have to pick up default companions at all.
If you start with your preferred build, a Ranger and a Knight (which is very nice and very much doable), you just hire Jahan, the air/water Wizard, and then that henchman that I mentioned above to cover earth/fire schools.
- My tip for your 2H guy, as he's going to be a crafter and a blacksmith, would be cool to give him Crossbows in addition to swords. He'll be the kind of an engineering type, the sort that dwarves are in games that have them. Don't hesitate to drop all sorts of buff spells on him, this is the guy you want hastened, armored, boosted in damage most of the time.
- My tip for your Ranger, take a look at Scoundrel skills, admittedly a lot of them are for dagger types. But not all! You have Haste there, you have Invisibility there, both right at start. And both based on DEX just like your standard archery skills. Since Guerilla talent works with bows (and doubles damage when attacking from sneak), you can make a very sneaky sniper type here.
