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[Rotten]

Post your most awesome military stories.

My favorite is in my current fort. I drafted a lye maker immigrant, and he immediately ran for the barracks. Gained a single point in wrestling, then dashed for the river and single-handedly wrestled to death the named carp who had killed my legendary miner and woodcutter, without a scratch. The day after, every surviving fish (all of whom were unnamed) left the river in disgrace.

[slink]

It isn't awesome, but it's the only special story I have.

I habitually use marksdwarves for defense of my fortresses.  They were never getting very good because eventually they would run down the stairs from the fortifications on top of the wall during a seige, and run out to do battle with their crossbows and no bolts.  This was possible because I only used a trapped area to defend the entrance.  I had metal bolts stacked behind them on top of the walls, but once they got a fix on some enemy they always ignored those.

Eventually I decided to try orcs.  Orcs don't fall for traps, so I had to defend the fortress entrance with a moat and a pair of drawbridges.  This prevented my two marksdwarves from rushing down to do battle melee style when they ran out of bolts, so they started refilling their quivers.  In a relatively short time I had the first champions I had ever had in my fortresses.  It made me feel really good. 

These two champions would also sometimes go into a battle fixation and refuse to pick up fresh bolts, but I was able to stop that by making them patrol the ramparts.  The inner drawbridge stopped them from committing suicide before the patrol route moved them to a place where they could notice the new ammunition instead of the nasty orc below the wall.   

[Lord Dakoth]

I was trying to do the hermit challenge, so I drafted six dwarves and sent them towards the river. After seeing his only friends in the world die, a recruit somehow got eight kills before dodging into the water and drowning.

*epic jawdrop*

[Canadark]

I had something like that happen once slink.

I was playing dig deeper with the orcs unmodded. I had a system where they walked into a corridor and floodgates came up on either end and marksdwarfs then appeared from above. First time I did this I had no metal, but I had tons of wood and bone bolts.

My marksdwarfs pumped tons of bolts into those orcs, who were wearing steel armour. It took ages for them all to die and I imagine by the end they were just crawling and snarling around on the ground with black-blood covered bolts sticking out of gaps in their armour. My marksdwarfs registered plenty of kills, and I made sure to melt down some hematite for the next wave.

[Diablous]

In one of my forts, a goblin ambush struck. The layout of the fort was a long hallway with rooms branching off of it. At the end was a back door I used to access a forest on the other side of the mountain my dorf call home. The came in through the unprotected back door. My only defense was some war dogs, and 2 champion wrestlers. They had no armor or weapons.

When I deployed them, one turned around to get something to eat, the other went on by himself. The goblin force was strong, a human guard with a pike, a goblin with a hammer, a goblin archer, and a few goblin wrestlers. He took them on. He dodged their attacks easily at first, grabbed one of their iron boot, tore off the foot and killed a few of them with it, just wrestlers, but soon he took some hits from the hammergoblin and archer(the guard stayed outside) and soon had some bad wounds. Then, guess who finished eating? The other champion came and killed the archer and hammer goblin, scaring the rest of them off.

In another fort, an ambush came and reached my fort and got in. Only two of my soldiers actually fought. 2 others slept, and the last 2 waited for them to wake up. The 2 that fought were slaughtered, and the goblins entered the fort. Then, I put the entire civilian population into a single squad and had them rush the invaders. Each goblin was killed. I noticed afterward that a miner who was still working like nothing happened, had a horrible injury. His left lung was mangled. He was still working despite this wound. I found my new sheriff.

[starburst98]

i was so busy building i completely neglected any real defence as i had only had to deal with a few kobold thieves. well when a goblin seige rolled in i naturally started freaking out and ordering all my dwarfs to run inside and cower until the end times. when a macedwarf i had in the fortress guard ran out there, a DABBLING macedwarf i might add, and then the moment she got one square away from the whole group she entered a martial trance and absolutely TORE into them, and after enough died that they started retreating she chased any that could not run fast enough and killed them too and after no living goblin was left on the map she just went and got a beer. i nicknamed her Sgt. badass.

shot all the way up to proficient from those kills as well.

anyway after that i did nothing but defensive measures for a while cause i won't bet on that happening again.

[Jacob/Lee]

After creating a huge wall of stone traps and crap like that I forgot only one  entrance to the fortress that was still usable. My archery range is outside to preven cave adaption. Basically my entire 10 dwarf archery team was training when a goblin ambush 7+ was bumped into by a mason. As the ambush charged they were BURIED in +Turtle bone bolts+ and +Alpaca bone bolts+

[Skorpion]

Last siege, my hammerdwarves knocked a goblin about 30 tiles, clearing a murky pool entirely, and stopping only upon hitting another goblin.
And smacked one a similar distance into a wall.

A horse wandered into my entrance. Someone smashed it into the wall so hard it's head, tail, and all four legs fell off.

I sent a blind, brain-damaged champion off to hunt wolves. He killed two, the third tore his throat out.

[wagawaga]

If I ever got a blind dwarf I would make him/her a marksdwarf. Just for the sake of seeing bolts flying in completely random directions.

Getting eye wounds is so damn hard though.

[Lord Dakoth]

That's the thing. If you're trying to get your dwarves eye-wounded, it won't happen.

On the other hand, if you want to preserve your dwarves' vision, they're bound to come up with some stupid contest like, "Hey, let's see who can get closest to the magma without blinking."

[warhammer651]

I once had a fortress by the name of tatlogeshack (sp?) which roughly translated as "fish-bait"

anyways, the site consisted om a mountain on one edge, a MASSIVE swamp of pools with an average of one space between them for movement covering 90% of the area and a brook cutting through the middle of the map.

so I settle down and start building the fort into the mountain. a few seasons later, migrants show up, and start trekking through the swamp. 1 in 3 survive the trek.

turns out the swamp was FILLED with carp. I immediately begin drafting an army to purge the abominations from the area.

Now, I was new to dwarf fortress, so i thought that melee would be fine. after all, they had only killed civillians, and didn't do a very good job at that. so a squad of wrestlers and a swordsdwarf charge into the swamps..... and get annihilated.

Then I began training a small army of marksdwarves, arm them, and send them into the swamp. They then proceeded to re-enact the scene in Aliens where most of the marines die.

Thus began a massive series of skirmishes, scraps, and fights to reclaim the swamp. in the end I only managed to clear roughly half the pools before a siege caught me unawares.

[Beanchubbs]

My favourite military encounter was the first time I used my air drop system.
I drew in a squad of orcs right in front of my gates, right under some hatches I had soldiers placed on. I pulled the lever and the dwarves dropped on top of the orcs. While they were stunned, 4 of the ten got torn apart by the axemen, but the other six were able to drive them off with the help of my lone crossbowdwarf.
The second test was a bit more successful because I had the archer firing before the dwarves dropped.

[MoonLightBird]

In my latest fort I had a female sword-dwarf that had a baby. I put 10 wardogs on her to protect the baby. A kolbold baby-snatcher snuck in while she was sleeping an killed all ten dogs! I was shocked because it was just one kolbold! Anyway, he then took the sword-dwarfs baby while she was sleeping. The second he walked out of the room she was in she woke up. She ran up to the kolbold and took off his arm that was holding the baby. The baby falls to the ground and starts to crawl away. The mom leaves the kolbold to escape to find her baby. He got away but before he did I named him Gimpy. I wonder if he is still alive, it has been 2 years now and I have not seen another baby-snatcher. I still have the arrows I made from his arm.