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[Stargazer]

Well, I just had a massive goblin siege not too long ago. Amidst a group of goblins was a single Master Blowgunner. I had my marksdwarves up on the walls behind their fortifications like I do for every siege. I hadn't lost a single one of my marksdwarves since my fortress walls were first built. This blowgunner, however, sniped no less than FOUR of them from about 10 squares away, on the other side of a three tile wide moat. They were all on the same Z-level, but my fortifications didn't seem to do squat against stopping his projectiles.

Is it simply because he was a Master? I thought fortifications were supposed to provide better protection to those standing behind them from arrow fire and the like?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Weapon masters basically ignore fortifications when firing through them.

[Nigma]

Thats really good to know.. Is that meant to be like that?

[Urist Imiknorris]

It's a factor of skill, so I would assume yes.

[Nigma]

Is it then save to assume with a master blow-gunner being able to shoot through a tiny fortification hole, that my master archers should be able to kill him back with the same precision?
I mean i know archery itself is still kinda flimsy but is there any way to get the advantage over invaders if the fortifications don't mean anything anymore?

[shibdib]

Is it then save to assume with a master blow-gunner being able to shoot through a tiny fortification hole, that my master archers should be able to kill him back with the same precision?
I mean i know archery itself is still kinda flimsy but is there any way to get the advantage over invaders if the fortifications don't mean anything anymore?

Modify crossbows to have longer range?

[darkflagrance]

Is it then save to assume with a master blow-gunner being able to shoot through a tiny fortification hole, that my master archers should be able to kill him back with the same precision?
I mean i know archery itself is still kinda flimsy but is there any way to get the advantage over invaders if the fortifications don't mean anything anymore?

You could park a legion of steel-armored dwarves with shields on top of your master archers for the purposes of soaking up the blowgun master's darts.

[Nigma]

Aah yes a Master shield uses is pretty much impervious to any ranged attack, i forgot about that.
Still kind of odd a little sheet of metal is better than a stone wall..

Maybe fortifications need to be made from steel bars by a master metalsmith.

[Arekis]

You could also train up your marksdwarves in shields via the danger room or training them as melee militia first.  You definitely get benefits from fortifications: regular archers will not fire at the fortifications so you only need to worry about elites.

[Psieye]

How to deal with goblin ranged attackers: make a pit full of useless tame animals. Goblins waste all their ammo shooting at them before they come to your siege defences.

[Arekis]

Along the same lines, if you're lucky (unlucky?) enough to have zombie/skeletal creatures roaming your map, the creatures will reveal ambushes and the attackers will fight them especially if they can't path into your fort.  A herd of skeletal elephants isn't anything for a goblin ambush to sneer at either.

[Stargazer]

Can marksdwarves carry shields and use their crossbows at the same time?

[Black Bellamy]

Yes.

[candylord]

if I recall, if dwarves equip shield, then they can't hold bolts in their off hands, effectively halving how many bolts they carry until they reload? I'm not sure if that still applies in DF2010
bucklers however, are strapped to the arm, so they still have the hand free to hold bolts
I'm not sure about that though

[Zaik]

If you can find a way to get them to equip both the crossbow and the shield to the same arm it would probably work fine. I had an axedwarf with one arm once that just used the shield an axe in both. They seemed to both function just fine.

I have no idea how you'd go about doing that though for someone with two arms.