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[Grahar]

Hi,
I currently use version 40.24, with a world that has been around since 40.4.  Right now, an undead army laid siege on my fortress. More or less. They are led by a living goblin maceman, and apparently no Necromancer (Though there might be a necromances that has not yet revived anything).

This army of about 40 to 50 undead goblins is lurking around the map edge, doing nothing, just as described in this bug. A short look in the error log reveals spamming of "guard army unattached from parent army".

However, the linked bug is marked as resolved, so they should at least try to get into my fortress. I suppose they don't because this world or this fort was generated before the bugfix (40.7). Is there a way to get those undead moving?

[Baffler]

Unfortunately, the fix for that bug (and several others) require a regenned world to fully squish. There might be workarounds, but I'm not aware of any off the top of my head.

[Skullsploder]

You could always just send your military to them. So long as you have more legendary fighters than they have zombies, that is.

[Grahar]

I have five legendary fighters, and fifteen fighters in total (two of them are marksdwarves). They have high-quality steel equipment, but on the other side are 40 armed(!) undead goblins (4 crossbowmen).
They are stronger than living goblins and they know no pain. I doubt my military could take them down. Right now, I'm thinking about releasing a nasty forgotten beast on them (one that has killed at least to other forgotten beasts). Sadly, its deadly dust may be not very effective on undead, and its teeth are gone.
If I get rid of this army, will the next army be buggy as well? Is there maybe a dfhack (yes, I am desperate) script or command that attaches this "guard army" to a dummy army so that it works again?

[Detros]

If they do not want to come closer and have no necromancer with them, just bombard them with siege weapons for few monts.

Meanwhile put a grid of cage traps between them and your fort. To make sure enemies will path that way, remove nearby [d]-[z] ramps or assign some (war) animals to nearby pen (on the side to your fort).

Beside all that, try separating just few of them each time with bridges before engaging in close range combat.

[Authority2]

Flood them with magma.

[Sadrice]

Try luring them with animals released from access hatches dug into the soil, or just a sacrificial cheesemaker in his own squad.

[Grahar]

But... I like cheese. Besides, knowing my dwarves he would flee in any direction, just not to the traps.

Magma would work, but it takes a lot of time. It is now late autumn, and I want this siege gone by spring, so I the elven traders arrive and hopefully bring me a male giant tiger for my breeding project.

Setting up more traps might also work, but I need a lot of traps, and in the time I set them up, a cat will lure the zombies to my legendary mechanics. I think this will be my fallback plan.

Right now, I try to use a cat as bait to lure the forgotten beast above ground. With a bit luck it will notice the zombies and maybe at least kill some of them. If it kills all of them (I think this is unlikely), I might have a new problem.

[Detros]

Right now, I try to use a cat as bait to lure the forgotten beast above ground. With a bit luck it will notice the zombies and maybe at least kill some of them. If it kills all of them (I think this is unlikely), I might have a new problem.

Zombie-ed forgotten beast with extra muscles.

[TheHossofMoss]

Flood them with magma.

+1

[Grahar]

This bloody beast does not take my cat as bait. It was the fattest cat in the fortress, but the beast completely ignored it.

I have a high master siege engineer, but no siege operator better than novice. My attempt to build lots of cage traps near a in a new-dug tunnel is failing right now.

A Cyclops has come and did not even manage to kill one of them. I was hoping he would be able to kill the leader of the group (maybe the undead are able to roam around if there is no leader anymore), but he just dodged a few arrows, pushed the leader (a living macegoblin) back into the saftey of his undead peers and was struck down.

I will engrave him a memorial. It is late winter now, and I think I have to wait another year for my giant tigers...

Edit: Oh great. Now they killed my cat-bait for the forgotten beast.

[Thom293]

Of course you realize that you now keep us updated.   

[Sadrice]

Minecart based artillery is significantly more effective and accurate than proper siege weapons.  Send a minecart loaded with something plentiful but deadly towards them and smash it into a 1 Z tall wall.  The contents will fly towards them, exiting the cart at Z+1.  Adjust placement of the wall and cart speed and height until you can hit them from a safe range (making a gantry above the ground is good for protecting your cart recovery dwarves.  Use bridges instead of constructed track for straight parts, they're cheaper and faster to build and count as track, but are not self supporting, so be cautious during construction).  Blocks are good, but weapons or trap components are better, since they actually use relevant  attacks when they hit.  Try menacing spikes for the FB.  You can make a lot of them from wood (or metal, if you have plenty) and they should have decent performance against large creatures, but blocks will work better against the undead.  Boulders are much much heavier than blocks, but you can only fit 5 in a cart.  If you are launching bins (of blocks or weapons) or cages, you will need to crash them against a second wall 1 z higher than the first to eject their contents (collisions of containers, be they cart or cage or bin, are handled similarly).  This is a bit of a nuisance, but allows you to put a lot more stuff in a cart, and can even allow nonsense like aerial bombardment with cave crocodiles or giant sperm whales (the heaviest possible projectile in the game).

[Grahar]

They finally noticed the giant hole in the ground. They did not notice the cage traps. Most of them got caught. Some did not, and are now slaughtering my elite soldiers, who attack them one after the other. Then my marksdwarves ran out of bolts and got slaughtered, too. Their leader fled, meaning the undead are now out of control (finally). Unfortunately, they do not know fear, so I guess my next line of cage traps has to do the job.
Update: the last ones got killed by my weapon traps, and the single last survivor (can undead 'survive'?) is now in a fight with my military. It is the 8th granite, so I can hope the elven traders will come this year.
Update II: Was it worth it? Hell, no. For legendary fighters are dead, two marksdwarves, a legendary miner, a dog and a peregrine falcon. All this to get rid of the undead before the elven traders come. Here they come. What did they bring? A buttload of wood logs, wooden toys and wooden armor and weapons. Oh, and clay. Seriously? Not even a peregrine falcon? What about those giant tigers you brought a few years ago? The giant cassowaries? The giant lions? Nothing? Just empty cages?