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[Eddis]

Hi,

I have a growing family of Grizzlies, Leopards and Jaguars which I got from the elf merchants. The original breed stock was tame on purchase, and their offspring are also tame.

I have been training the bears for war, and the kitties for hunting - but am unsure how to properly put them to use...

My idea is to assign a couple cats to my hunter to assist in running down animals for food. The war bears would be used as internal security within the fortress or possibly as fodder vs a FB that has certain dangerous traits...

Any tips on how to assign the hunting animals? Or perhaps some advice on effective use of these beasts...

[Edmus]

All I can offer is this bit of advice: against armoured opponents, war animals are useless.
Provided you have a solid breeding stock to replace the casualties, using them to supplement your troops against forgotten beasts is a good idea. I can only provide anecdotal evidence for  that though.

[Aseaheru]

As for assigning them...
Do what you do for changing there labors but hit "e" instead of the last key (dont remember it right now...)
This will give you the option to assign animals, war OR hunting. I think...

[Larix]

Personally assigned work animals are currently bugged - the dwarf seems to derive no happy thoughts from having them, but will suffer the negative thoughts of losing a pet when they die. Worse, their corpses must be disposed of especially, because they will not be buried and their former master will get unhappy thoughts for seeing their rotten corpses.

My preferred usage of war animals is to 'station' them in places where a bunch of bodies can be useful to you, e.g. in or near chokepoints. Simply set up a pasture there and assign a bunch of animals. War animals won't run away from hostiles, but they'll probably still leave the pasture in a fight, so restricting access or deleting the pasture once the fighting starts can save civilian lives.

[Aseaheru]

Or get some small rooms over your entrance with TONS of them in them, then open the floor when invaders come.

[VerdantSF]

All I can offer is this bit of advice: against armoured opponents, war animals are useless.

Growth is currently bugged in DF for fortress-born creatures.  War grizzlies basically stay the size of cubs and get obliterated in combat.  LazyNewbPack r18 includes a fix, which makes a big difference.  At the proper size, war grizzlies can take a lot more hits AND their bites can often penetrate iron armor .

[Babylon]

All I can offer is this bit of advice: against armoured opponents, war animals are useless.
Provided you have a solid breeding stock to replace the casualties, using them to supplement your troops against forgotten beasts is a good idea. I can only provide anecdotal evidence for  that though.

Not useless, they don't hurt them, but they do serve as meat shields that keep them from hurting your dwarves while yuor dwarves hurt them.

[Graknorke]

Tie them up in your entryway to catch intruders and at least hold them a while before the militia arrive.

[Garath]

some war animals are very deadly. The reason for the general "useless" opinion is most likely the bug mentioned before. A collection of elf bought animals I used was extremely effective in stomping things - they were full grown. They could take out thieves in seconds and did real damage to an ambush. My most prized was a named (after 10 kills he definately earned that) Giant Monitor Lizard. Yes, they have a hard time killing armored things, but usually their only armor is helmet and breastplate, leaving arms and legs free to be chewed on. And if they are full grown, giant stuff has a lot of muscle and fat to cut through before they can be harmed. If only I could get the doctors to work on animals I'd be happy.

The most effective was a rhino (removed grazing tag just to keep him... or her, meh). Not in killing, but it used the horn to gore and break arms and legs very efficiently. Most common was "rhino breaks legs, lizard bites arms off, victim bleeds to death, lizard gets the credit". Though the giant king cobra got a good few poisonings in, the victims didn't survive long enough in general to see much effect.

[Eddis]

All I can offer is this bit of advice: against armoured opponents, war animals are useless.

Growth is currently bugged in DF for fortress-born creatures.  War grizzlies basically stay the size of cubs and get obliterated in combat.  LazyNewbPack r18 includes a fix, which makes a big difference.  At the proper size, war grizzlies can take a lot more hits AND their bites can often penetrate iron armor .

Great, thanks all.

I am using LNP which was downloaded only a few weeks ago. Does this include the update r18 mentioned?

A side note on the grizzlies - they have already produced 8 offspring and 4 of these are grown already. If I look at them will their description reflect the bug if it exists?

[Lielac]

A side note on the grizzlies - they have already produced 8 offspring and 4 of these are grown already. If I look at them will their description reflect the bug if it exists?

Unfortunately not.

[VerdantSF]

Download r18 to be sure.  You can then copy the save from your current game.  The great thing is that it isn't a workaround, it's a full cure.  It will correct the size of any mini-animals you already have.