Well, Draignean, I tested out your idea. Here are the results:
28 Dwarves vs 14 Holistic Spawn
All Dwarves untrained and wearing full adamantine, minus one gauntlet.
All Holistic Spawn unarmed and competent at all skills.
Wielding iron pikes (SPEARBREAKERS PIKES):
93% of Dwarves survive(26)
61% of survivors infected
12% of survivors missing their hand
15% of survivors in critical condition(85% okay)
Estimated 13 potential Spawn
Wielding iron short swords:
89% of Dwarves survive(25)
64% of survivors infected
16% of survivors missing their hand
28% of survivors in critical condition(72% okay)
Estimated 12 potential Spawn
Wielding iron battle axes:
93% of Dwarves survive(26)
50% of survivors infected
19% of survivors missing their hand
23% of survivors in critical condition(77% okay)
Estimated 10 potential Spawn
Wielding iron spears:
86% of Dwarves survive(24)
54% of survivors infected
21% of survivors missing their hand
33% of survivors in critical condition(67% okay)
Estimated 9 potential Spawn
Wielding iron crossbows w/ 50 bolts:
93% of Dwarves survive(26)
46% of survivors infected
19% of survivors missing their hand
42% of survivors in critical condition(58% okay)
Estimated 7 potential Spawn
Wielding iron maces:
82% of Dwarves survive(23)
52% of survivors infected
39% of survivors missing their hand
43% of survivors in critical condition(57% okay)
Estimated 7 potential Spawn
Wielding copper warhammers (meant as stand-in for stone):
89% of Dwarves survive(25)
56% of survivors infected
40% of survivors missing their hand
48% of survivors in critical condition(52% okay)
Estimated 7 potential Spawn
Wielding silver warhammers:
75% of Dwarves survive(21)
57% of survivors infected
52% of survivors missing their hand
67% of survivors in critical condition(33% okay)
Estimated 4 potential Spawn
As you can see, an average of about 27% of the dwarves across the tests lose their unarmored hand, despite being fully armored everywhere else. Less than half of the dwarves (just over a quarter on average) are estimated to be useful afterwards - and always less than if you had simply captured the spawn. On the plus side, the dwarves that
do get converted will be wearing almost full adamantine armor when they turn (unless you force them to remove it (if you can))... Which is a mixed blessing - if one of those got loose in the fortress... Plus, even if they didn't, you're short a whole suit of candy armor.
Honestly, I think simply capturing a spawn siege would be a better idea.
you could just go the old fashion way of: build a long passage with a drawbridge at the entrance. put a kitten at end of passage way. wait for seige to enter and close gate. Have the entire bottom of this passage way be retractable bridges that dump the spawn into a holding area 1 z level down. Rise and repeate untill you have a vereniable army of spawn. Or: just have the candy breach point come up through this area and drop the spawn seiges ontop of the clowns every seige via kitten lure.
And this would be an excellent way to go about doing it! We're going to need another entrance... And more mugs.