A quick question here. Does the range increase from Archery currently work against NPC towns and valleys?

The reason I ask is because I've been farming a level 7 site that contains nothing but archers. I assumed that with my Archery at level 9, I would destroy them without losses.

My first attack, I sent 22k archers with a 107 attack hero. The fight lasted 1 round and I took 68 casualties against a few hundred archers.

Is it possible for a level 7 valley to have level 9 or better archery?
If not, how did the defending archers even manage to fire?