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[Zara]

So, I am finally building that large dwarven fort in the legendary location, where an evil biome, in which corpses rise from the dead, only covers A PART of the map. I do have some difficulties setting up my underground zombie training pit, though.

For testing, I designated a garbage dump underground in the evil zombie biome, and had a dwarf haul a gorlak skeleton there, with two axe-dwarves standing by. At first, it worked as espected. The skeleton become undead, and my axe-dwarves started attacking it and chopping off its teeth and other pieces. However, they were not able to put it down again, and when some haulers came to pick up the loose teeth and body parts, the started to attack the skeleton, too, without being able to destroy it. Then the gorlak's arm, which had been chopped off, also became undead.

For levelling various combat skills this of course is useful, but before I can continue this, I need to figure out, how to destroy an undead skeleton.. after all, I can't have half my fortress punching against an animated undead skull. As far as I understand it, a body part needs to be "mangled" or "mangled beyond recognition" so that it dies ultimately and cannot be raised from the dead. I thought battle axes would work for this, as they also have a blunt attack, but they apparently don't. Would warhammers work? Then I can equip a squad with them, and have them clean up after the other dwarves had enough training.     

[Dragonunion]

I think warhammers are the best against the undeads as close combat weapons. Their you don't get endless new parts and mangle the bodies.
But your soldiers should be good trained. They often don't hit the head because they break fingers or legs.

And maces could work too with their blunt damage.
Overall, your hammerdwarf will get a good train

[Fleeting Frames]

Once the undead is small enough, you can't hit it with weapons (wonder if whips could, with contact area 1, never heard of any tests...But doubt it).

This means you need to use cage traps, cave-ins, encasing or (for sufficiently small creatures) atom-smashing (or dfhack exterminate him/her/it), and of course all but first will kill the creature.
Cage traps + civilian alert with your military turned to civilians can work for separation, but not always, and not for visitors anyway. For 100% reliability in stopping draining you should use a retracting bridge, preferably linked to overseer-controlled pressure plate, over carpet-cage-trapped floor for area to fight in. Afterwards, build the cage and unassign dwarf to free them.

When it comes to weapons, I've heard recommendation of maces over warhammers for giving more force total (though less concentrated, as double weight weapon won't hit twice as hard). Half the point of blunt versus reanimating undead is however preventing so small pieces in happening in the first place (the other half being mangling). For non-reanimating part of embark, axes will be superior.

[Zara]

As I said, this is an undead training room, smth. like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQvb-NVnGmI Separated body parts that re-animate aren't really an issue, because I can control how many bodies become undead in the first place. A few more undead body parts are actually useful for training, as long as I can destroy them eventually. Cave-ins, etc. are not useful for that, since my dwarves, who are to be trained, are in close combat with them. So I probably have to try hammerdwarves, and if that doesn't work, I might have to consider a layout with a retractable bridge as training area directly above some cage traps.

Or I need to turn the corpses into undead before they turn into skeletons. Against zombies, Axedwarves work quite well, that's how I ended up with the goblin bodies in the first place. 

[Sanctume]

Axe are the best against "learned" undead since the code change that only biting and grasping parts will re-animate. 

Learned undead as in husks of thralls that retains and gains military skills.

Barring the un-hit-able reanimated head skin bug, axe is better than hammer because undead do not feel pain due to crushing joints or bones that hammers do.  Axe will decapitate them. 

Maces are suppose to pulp more, this preventing more cut-off body parts (biting and grasping) to reanimate.  But I don't often start with mace squads to notice increase in pulping. 

Edit/Add: I was thinking of Bloody Hells how ineffective other weapons were until the axe comes into play.

[Zara]

Found this accidentally by googling 'dwarf fortress zombie training': http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=9496 So first thing I will do is to try something else than a Gorlak, to see if axedwarves can destroy that. 

[anewaname]

Consider going to 'o'rders, 'F'orbid, and set them all to "Forbid". The teeth will be forbidden automatically and this will stop civilians from going to haul them (until you are ready with a 'd' 'b' 'd' in the training room).

It also prevents these common and tragic events:
- a new area of caverns are opened up and 20 dwarfs run to collect teeth from under the feet of an undead draltha
- a military dwarf ignores a burrow alert to equip one of the newly available cloaks from under the feet of an undead draltha
- a dwarf manages to haul a dead blind cave ogre halfway through the fort before it animates
- a dwarf corpse that reanimated has been mangled, but now the dwarfs repeatedly haul the body back and forth between the coffin and the refuse pile (this is a bug, where they refuse to put reanimated dwarf remains into the coffin)

Changing those settings does mean you will need to 'd' 'b' 'c' over every fight location inside the fort or there will be miasma. And old age deaths also leave a mess, so fewer pets is better.

It is best to use only dwarf-sized or smaller creatures for animating training dummies, as larger undead creatures tend to cripple or kill dwarfs through armor with sheer impact force and the tearing of connective tissue. I also avoid crundles since their scales can become unkillable.

Found this accidentally by googling 'dwarf fortress zombie training': http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=9496 So first thing I will do is to try something else than a Gorlak, to see if axedwarves can destroy that. 

In 43.05, I ran a butchery/barracks and the "unkillable" bug was mostly effecting hair/wool/scale/skin animations. I am not sure if I have seen an unkillable small head since earlier versions of DF.

[Flintfakeer]

  After training you can destroy undead with magma.
  As for best blunt weapon proper I prefer maces as they pulp better and damage more area at once. You can use a war hammer to go through a helm or breastplate better and it is far more likely to mangle bones but a war hammer breaks a few ribs and sends them into the lungs whereas a mace breaks All the ribs and bruises the lungs.
  So maces cause, overall, more tissue damage and pain but war hammers wreck what they hit with far more regularity. I don't want to break A bone I want to break the whole body and so I prefer the mace. Well really I prefer the morning-star but mace is a good second.