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Author Topic: deadliness of undead horses?  (Read 558 times)

blutack

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deadliness of undead horses?
« on: October 24, 2012, 12:10:38 pm »

there is an ambushing necromancer near my fortress

i have
4 master miners and 4 picks
9 untrained, unarmoured, unarmed other dwarves
vs
1 horse skeleton
1 rotten horse corpse

do i have a chance against them, considering any dead will be raised by that invisible necromancer?
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walberg

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2012, 12:43:10 pm »

Are you sure it's a necromancer? They usually come in force (tens if not hundreds of various corpses). With only two, I would suspect that your map includes part of an evil region that has a re-animation feature. If that's the case, and you have any part of your embark that is not evil, try to lure them into that area before you put them down, or they'll just be back again...
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blutack

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2012, 01:13:03 pm »

im pretty sure as the horses where on the oposite sides of the map, until the skeleton chased a fishery worker to the rotten corpse, which then reanimated when they got near
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AutomataKittay

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2012, 01:14:26 pm »

Even living horses are dangerous with melee, in my experience. Well, any hooved animals seems to be.

You have a chance, but I'd say just cagetrap them!
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blutack

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2012, 01:43:11 pm »

i would but i have no stone or mechanisms  :(.
i dont like pools so generally i embark on tundra, normally enemies dont arrive until later.
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Patchy

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2012, 02:41:33 pm »

I find large hooved animals dead or alive, are very dangerous without at least a decent helmet. They tend to charge and knock over dwarves easily and then stomp the head in, but since you got a mob of dwarves to hit them with.... maybe, depends on if you get them to charge as a unit and not solo lemming rush the horses. And this is provided they aren't reanimated again when they die, and since you believe it is a necromancer, I'll say you're probably best off not to engage them and simply wall them out till you can get a real military going.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2012, 02:44:19 pm by Patchy »
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Dunamisdeos

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2012, 02:43:29 pm »

If you send a horde of untrained dwarves at anything whatsoever, you are going to lose 2-3 as you take it down, barring a lucky oneshot kill.
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Strife26

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2012, 06:41:09 pm »

If they're not actively beating at your gate, I'd say settle down and wait for some caravan guards to roll through. Baring that, if you wanna risk three of your miners and take them on individually, I'd rate fairly high probability of success, unless mining-soldierly got nerfed and no one told me.
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katana

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2012, 06:55:49 pm »

Miners fight with their mining skill, so I'd say make every important person a miner, and keep digging. They'll be able to parry the undead horses' hooves and enemy arrows too.

Your miners definitely have a chance, just be careful if you decide to organize a military. The mining labor and military equipment don't play well together.
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Hans Lemurson

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2012, 06:37:55 am »

Getting miners to fight with their picks though can be a bit of a challenge.  In my experience, they drop their picks on the spot whenever the "call to arms" is sounded.
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goblolo

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2012, 06:46:44 am »

Getting miners to fight with their picks though can be a bit of a challenge.  In my experience, they drop their picks on the spot whenever the "call to arms" is sounded.
because these picks are 'linked' to the mining labour. You can remove mining labour from dwarves, or, what is much easier, assign picks to them in military screen. This will 'unlink' picks from mining and bring them to militar use. However, one must remove picks from dwarves in military screen so them can mine with em later.
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I am Leo

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Re: deadliness of undead horses?
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2012, 07:38:14 am »

Put your miners in a squad, arm and armour them, then send them outside, lock the door and make sure they are not on duty and not following any orders. The undead horses will chase them and they will run away. If you've locked the door behind them they (hopefully) won't be able to get themselves cornered, giving them a decent chance. As they scatter across your map they have a chance of bumping into your necromancer chum. Kill him before going anywhere near those horses. They'll only get back up again.
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