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[JerryvonKramer]

So I was running a pretty successful fort. I'd got military up and running with three squads decked out in full armour. One set of axe dwarves, one set of crossbowers, and one set of mace dwarves.

My fortress was a work of mechanical efficiency. I'd even got both an ashery-->potash / ashery -->charcoal system going on with an endless supply of logs provided by trade.

I'd minted silver coins. I'd successfully bred a massive colony of peacocks and peahens who were providing 100s of eggs. Farms and food systems all good. I'd set up guard posts and patrols. I'd managed to seal off most of the map with a massive wall so that I essentially controlled anyone's route into the fortress.

I was sitting pretty.

It just so happened that a pack of coyotes had emerged and I thought I'd give my military a bit of a killing exercise, stretch the legs a bit. So they all abandoned their posts to go and kill a bit of canine. As it turned out this may have been quite fortuitous.

Just as my soldiers had set off up the mountain after these coyotes I received a startling message.
 

A DRAGON. A massive firebreathing dragon attacked my fortress front on. I mean it emerged on the map right next to entrance.

I'd set up two war jaguars at the outer most wall as a first line of defence. The Dragon just blasted these poor creatures out of the way. Instant kebab both of them.

I hurridly went about triggering my alarms pulling the lever to pull up my bridges to ensure the safety of most of my population.

I called back the soliders from their hunt. What followed was brutal. Luckily most of my chaps had shields on them, but it still took out 9 or 10 of them before they brought it down.

The scene in my front yard was carnage. Ash and smoke and dead bodies absolutely everywhere. It was like a scene after the apocalypse.

Nevermind, I lost some of my top men but they died heroes and now it's okay, it's fine, I can relax. So I released the bridges and was just about to get back to business as usual when ...

The GOBLINS attacked. And they didn't just attack, this was a full-scale invasion. Maybe 30 goblins in all. I retracted the bridges again. My beleaguered forces where caught in the eye of a storm and it was virtually a massacre.

Luckily, a couple of my marksmen were on the inside of my fort and I'd set up an overhead fortification for sniping opportunities. They were able to take out a few of the goblins.

Strangely, the goblins decided to give up and left. They'd taken some losses too and maybe they figured there was no way in and no point standing there taking bolts.

All-in-all the damage was not too bad. Out of 136, 100 survived and of the 36 who died about 27 were military (3 left!) and the others just caught gathering wood or whatever.

Still, this was VERY dramatic when it all happened.

I can't recall a time when the goblins had ever picked such a bad time to attack, right slap bang in the aftermath of a dragon attack.

If you have any similar stories, do share them.

[Hamsmagoo]

Back when I was very new to the game, my livestock were being harassed by this honey badger and I didn't know what to do about it.  A human caravan comes by and I noticed one of the pikemen kill the honey badger in the battle report.  I'm like, "oh good."

Just then, the honey badger comes back to life and kills the pikeman.  Now the pikeman comes back to life and I'm like, "wtf?"  Moments later, my fort is surrounded by zombies.  I go on the forum, and learn it's a necromancer attack.  I lock my dwarves in the fort and wait for it to blow over.

A tantrum spiral is already going on but, luckily they have a chance to calm down because the necromancers disappear to give up and disburse.  I breathe a sigh of relief and lower the front drawbridge to be greeted by a hairy fire-breathing pterosaur with knobby antennae!

The end.

[matskuman5]

Once, I decided to build a roof above the entrance to my fortress. It was a really big entrance,
and I had masons making blocks and placing them 24/7.

Then, just as the final piece was being put in place, a goddamn roc appears.
My first megabeast. I didn't have a great military at that time, 7 decent warriors.
Then the cursed bird dives through the one tiny hole in the roof and kills most of my dwarves.

During the destruction, the roc grabbed a miner, threw it in a stairway, the dwarf landed on my mayors head and killed him.
Later, the ghost of the mayor killed the miners wife and one of his kids. Talk about revenge huh? The miner went insane and jumped in magma.

The funny thing is that I forgot about the hole, and never filled it in until the inevitable destruction of my fortress.

[CaptainLambcake]

30 goblins isn't a full scale invasion.  wait until you get 100

[JerryvonKramer]

I enjoy reading these stories, more people!

30 goblins isn't a full scale invasion.  wait until you get 100

I checked the account of the battle with the Legends utility, and apparently there were 56 goblins. They couldn't have all been on my screen.

I feel ready to take on 100, but hope they don't turn up before I can get a new military ready. I have my fort capped at 120 dwarves, so am counting on just one or two new intakes of immigrants to have good military stats. Or there'll be a lot of locking up and hiding going on.

[Loud Whispers]

Strangely, the goblins decided to give up and left. They'd taken some losses too and maybe they figured there was no way in and no point standing there taking bolts.

Art of war, Dorf. You don't need to to win to defeat your enemy, only make winning for them far too costly to be worth it.

[Bludulukus]

First fortress

Exclusive planting of plump helmets leads to overflowing of dwarven wine. Dwarves get 'tired of drinking the same old booze' and subsequently stop drinking it altogether.
River in the surface serves as relief valve and prevents dwarven dehydration. Overseer remains oblivious to the lack of booze diversification problem and mass plump helmet farming continues!

A vile force of darkness arrives, catching over 40 dwarves drinking by the river. Painful decision to shut off the fortress is made, and the dwarven wine rejectionists are slain by the goblinoid army, massive tantrum spiral is unleashed and the fortress falls apart.

[weenog]

All-in-all the damage was not too bad. Out of 136, 100 survived and of the 36 who died about 27 were military (3 left!) and the others just caught gathering wood or whatever.

I say give each of these surviving veterans leadership of their own squad and have them train new recruits up to their level.  It will be extremely slow going, at first, but as they gain Teacher and Leader skill, they'll speed up.

[JerryvonKramer]

First fortress

Exclusive planting of plump helmets leads to overflowing of dwarven wine. Dwarves get 'tired of drinking the same old booze' and subsequently stop drinking it altogether.
River in the surface serves as relief valve and prevents dwarven dehydration. Overseer remains oblivious to the lack of booze diversification problem and mass plump helmet farming continues!

A vile force of darkness arrives, catching over 40 dwarves drinking by the river. Painful decision to shut off the fortress is made, and the dwarven wine rejectionists are slain by the goblinoid army, massive tantrum spiral is unleashed and the fortress falls apart.

"Dwarven wine rejectionists" 

All-in-all the damage was not too bad. Out of 136, 100 survived and of the 36 who died about 27 were military (3 left!) and the others just caught gathering wood or whatever.

I say give each of these surviving veterans leadership of their own squad and have them train new recruits up to their level.  It will be extremely slow going, at first, but as they gain Teacher and Leader skill, they'll speed up.

I had a bit of luck on this front as the new batch of migrants seemed to be all "adequate" axes dwarfs with some skills in armour, shield, dodging etc.

I was able to rekit them and get a new axe squad up and running pretty quickly.

Also, checking with Dwarf Therapist, unbeknownest to me about 5 of my dwarves had been going on sly hunting expeditions and were now all "Proficient" marksmen or better. So I had the best part of that squad up and running too.

One of the very few survivors was a Macedwarf who was at level 15 (or more). A total beast of a dwarf with dozens of kills to his name. I made him my champion and he was able to train a few more for the mace squad.

So far I've been able to deal with subsequent invasions, forgotten beasts, ogres, uninvited guests etc. pretty easily.

I think what really caught me here was the devastating one-two of the dragon + the big goblin invasion one after the other. As is so often the case in DF, the bridge saved the day.

[weenog]

Aye, multiple simultaneous arrivals can be pretty nasty.  I had the dwarven trade caravan, a goblin siege and a titan all show up at pretty much the same time, once.

"Yeah no, fuck that, seal the gates.  Y'all sort that out amongst yourselves."

[Veylon]

Oh, geez. I once had a dragon get about half-killed in the middle of the traps leading to my fort. He lay there, intermittently conscious, and slew a goblin invasion, a were-lizard, and about half a caravan.

Or there was that time the goblins and necromancers fought an epic battle around my fortress. Later on in the same fort, a necromancer got at my corpse pile, raised an army and had another epic battle against a bile-spewing demon disguised as a human diplomat in my pantry. Events overtaking each other is a part of what makes this game great.