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[greycat]

I had a squad of fully steel equipped (Expert to Legendary) marksdwarves decimated by a single elite bowgoblin.  The problem is the marksdwarves won't focus fire any target, so while they incapacitated nearly the entire enemy squad, it only took a single shot from the elite bowgoblin to incapacitate any one of them.  My marksdwarves were not trained in hammerer, shield user, or dodge, and their steel did not protect them well from metal bolts.

That.  Elites can fire right through your fortifications, from a distance.  If your marksdwarves don't have great shield skill to block the projectiles, they're going to get hit.  Armor doesn't help much, or maybe at all, against metal projectiles.  They just punch right through.

[MenacesWithSpikes]

Force them into a corridor full of weapon traps.  Archers don't usually wear tons of armor...

Another way is to build a couple of archery towers (the DF wiki has advice on how to do this) and shoot them with your own archers.  Elite gobbo crossbowmen can shoot through fortifications, though.

[vassock]

As I mentiond, they have good equipment. Steel weapon and shield, and complet iron armor (helm, cap, mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, guantles, high and low boots). But they have not much experience. They train with each other. I have never trained them any other way and I have no idea how to do thaẗ..

Why not all Steel? It's a waste of iron otherwise. I'd just go all steel unless you have no flux. Otherwise, you can always get coal from bituminous coal or just by burning wood.

[slothen]

the easiest way to crosstrain marksdwarves is to throw them in a danger room.  Otherwise you can set them to active training with no archery range, and they'll do demonstrations.  That might take awhile, maybe less if you have a skilled teacher/shielduser.  They'll also do individual combat drills, but I haven't tested if this gains them marksdwarf experience.  Lastly you can give them melee weapons and shields and put them in squads to spar.

[MarcAFK]

You could put chained animals behind bridges which you only open when archers are around, they'll quickly waste most of their ammo on one kitten if it's far enough away from them.

[kaijyuu]

Dual shield squad up front.

If decently trained, it doesn't matter if they're elite or not; any shot is going to be blocked or dodged.

[NTJedi]

I'm in a tight pickle because 17 goblin crossbow arrived as a siege, except their leader on a giant toad jumped into a pond which froze and killed him... thus I have 16 goblin crossbowmen sitting on the edge of my map.  They're just camping on the edge... laughing at me.  I don't have enough dwarves or soldiers to form a dual shield frontline wall.  I have some kittens and bunnies to sacrifice, but there's no way to move the kittens closer without placing the lives of my dwarves at risk.  My current plan is building ballistas to shoot them yet this can take some time since they're evenly divided two per map column. 

Any Ideas??

[Excedion]

I'm in a tight pickle because 17 goblin crossbow arrived as a siege, except their leader on a giant toad jumped into a pond which froze and killed him... thus I have 16 goblin crossbowmen sitting on the edge of my map.  They're just camping on the edge... laughing at me.  I don't have enough dwarves or soldiers to form a dual shield frontline wall.  I have some kittens and bunnies to sacrifice, but there's no way to move the kittens closer without placing the lives of my dwarves at risk.  My current plan is building ballistas to shoot them yet this can take some time since they're evenly divided two per map column. 

Any Ideas??

In the time it would take for you to hit and kill them with balista you could have train up several elite squads and used the resources used on bolts for some decent quality armor. Built some archery towers facing along a hallway into your fortress or something. The gobbo crossbowmen should try and run right past without even shooting back

[Garath]

They're not running to the fort, that's the problem. The question is how to defeat them out in the open.

Balistae is not an option though. Not going into details, but in this case, don't use them.

double shield may be an option, or just have to wait them out.

[NTJedi]

In the time it would take for you to hit and kill them with balista you could have train up several elite squads and used the resources used on bolts for some decent quality armor. Built some archery towers facing along a hallway into your fortress or something. The gobbo crossbowmen should try and run right past without even shooting back

How can I train several elite squads without the cheating exploit of the danger rooms?
Currently the goblins are camping... what would get them moving?

They're not running, that's the problem. Balistae is not an option though. Not going into details, but in this case, don't use them.

double shield may be an option, or just have to wait them out.

What about using catapults... it wouldn't kill them, but maybe a minor injury would get them to attack?

[Garath]

tried catapults, won't work. catapults as they are now are pretty useless.

[Loud Whispers]

Unless you spam ridiculous amounts of them. They aren't going to break any sieges (unless you're REALLY lucky), but they can really thin out ranks at the cost of some stone

[NTJedi]

I just thought maybe the stones hitting their armor would get them to move and approach my fort.

If I can just get them moving to the fortress it would help immensely .

[Garath]

nope. They'll move a few paces dodging, but it won't get them started.

[Buttery_Mess]

Goblin archers seem more powerful in this version, at least from what I've seen so far. Can you drain them of ammo? Seems like you could lure the archers into a specially constructed area, and throw fodder (turkey gobbler chicks or something) at them so that they waste all their bolts, and then send in the army.

Or you could unleash a pet Forgotten Beast on them. That might work.