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[Jimmy]

My entire fortress is engaged in attacking this horse. In fact, they've been hitting it for well over most of the season. Unfortunately it will not die, and my fortress will probably crumble as most of my units starve to death.

Has anyone developed a successful strategy to combat undead?

[RebelZhouYuWu]

Your problem is the fact the marksdwarves do almost nothing against undead, you probably have a better shot at using swords or axes to cleave off the head.

[Demonic Spoon]

You're silly! The answer should be obvious to any true dwarf, apply magma! 

[forsaken1111]

Perhaps the answer here is to...

wait for it...

stop beating a dead horse!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Trigonous]

The answer is that undead cannot currently be killed in combat.  Your only option (and I'm not being sarcastic this time) is magma, or possibly a cave-in.  Any creature made of non-living materials (like elementals and bronze colossi) seem to be invulnerable to death of any kind from combat, and some even from magma.

[Soadreqm]

Yeah. The horse has probably lost all its limbs by now, so it should be safe to only have one dwarf beating it to keep it from slithering away. Then, dig a tunnel under the horse, and ramp the tile under it to make it fall down. Then build walls to contain it forever and keep your dwarves from being frightened and distracted by it.

Depending on the area, it might actually be easier to just have your dwarves retreat and build walls around the horse.

Next, take precautions against future attacks by unkillable horses. Build some walls around the fortress and a lever-operated access airlock, with a retracting bridge floor for dealing with any undead who wander in.

[mrbobbyg]

Are your dorfs gaining exp from beating this horse?  Because that's awesome.

[shadow_archmagi]

I can't help but notice you're only using blunt weapons. Try cutting it up; I think that works on zombies.

Skeletons are still immortal though.

[Safe-Keeper]

Sure it's not a combat bug? I had a bone carver go berserk and my military of 8 dwarves engaged him, and didn't kill him. At one point they just seemed to stop fighting - no damage was dealt at all, neither by my militia or the berserker, and two of them even reversed their orders to "watch sparring in barracks" or whatever. One was wounded and immobilized and spammed several pages of "cancels rest, interrupted by etc. etc. etc.". They did move around a bit, seemed like, but damned if any damage was done, and all the dwarves in the fortress went to Idle while it was going on. Eventually I tired and just abandoned the fort.

[100killer9]

Try having militaries entirely of axedwarves. Axes seem to be cutting off limbs a lot more...

[Jimmy]

I can confirm that these here horses are pretty much unkillable. I released some HFS which decided to attack it, and four of them couldn't kill it.

[Rumrusher]

what about an atom smasher?
just smash the zombie horse with it and go back to taming witches I heard cave traps made of sugar works.

[Quatch]

I killed two zombie raccoons, lost 8 to starving during the process though. Most successful was tunneling under it, building a cage trap, then digging a ramp under the coon so it dropped right beside the trap and chased the miner in.

Wrestling and crossbows-as-maces don't do much. You need something edged, or a lot of luck.