@electricdawn Yeah the portal is a given. I haven't explored whatever continent/island it's on but if there's meadows I'll build my portal in the border with the swamps.
My idea was to bow it down like I do with abominations. Hit it with fire arrows, move around without wasting stamina while fire dot expires and refresh it with another arrow while I keep kiting. But I think I'll play it safe with the iron armour.

@blankitosonic I'm convinced, yeah, I won't take the risk. I'm not rushing it's just that I hate swamps. Everything about them. But seeing the recommendations I might just delay the incursion and look for more iron north which I haven't explored too much yet. Maybe I get lucky there. I just want the wishbone because I've already been to the mountains without problems with the troll armour during the day. Only dungeons are a bit hard because it's harder to avoid damage and the "kill everything through walls" strategy doesn't work there.

@Nascarman I think (or thought, rather) I'd be able to skip iron if I kill him with the bow. If I build iron armour I don't have iron for the mace and viceversa. I explored my immediate vicinity and after spending some iron already (iron sledgehammer, hunter's bow and a few structures) I have 50 iron left and no more crypts (so I'll have to sail far anyway, either towards bonemass or another swamp). I can take on any single enemy with the bow and troll armour, even wolves and fenrirs, but boss + possible mobs worry me more.

Don't get me wrong, I know there's plenty of iron on the map somewhere, but I don't want to use the map tool on this world yet and I don't like swamps at all. But I'm worried because in the last world I was in this same situation: spent a lot of time stuck in the swamp "phase" and Bonemass was quite far away. Ended up too close to the plains and got soft stuck due to a couple of mistakes.

Thanks for the advice and your time, guys. I think I'll farm some more somewhere else.