Once you name the meadhall, you shouldn't get bogeymen attacking you when you're inside at night. Why not just use companions though? Much faster, and drunks will follow you whatever your reputation (almost always).
Yeah that didn't work for me, I named it something an still got attacked.
You can also get entertainers with much less legwork than becoming heroic enough to recruit an army the normal way.
If you can get access to the caverns *cough-no-hell-layer-volcano-tube-glitch-cough* then you don't get attacked by anything while down inside of them, it's one of my favorite parts of building down there besides the silly shit that results from playing around with water, ice, magma, and lumber.
What sort of glitch is that? Sounds like a good idea with the recruits though
the key here is the word inside, bogeymen don't spawn when your 'inside' which is cause by being under a building or solid construction, which is where my advice of building a roof first comes to play.
usually getting a 2 log wall+ floor above design works, or finding a hill to attach a floor to if you only have 1 hour til night kicks in.
you don't need to turn the site into a meadhall that's for retiring.
you could also just avoid bogeyman attacks all together by being a spider-person which while doesn't stop them spawning does stop them from murdering you, just that you probably stuck doing bard stuff and poetry reading til the sun rises with bogeymen if you didn't build a roof in time.