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[Dunamisdeos]

I just had a siege of four necromancers. I keep hearing all about how blunt weapons are the shiz against zombies, while edged just chops off parts and gets em reanimated. So I send out the hammerdwarves. They got SLAUGHTERED. In seconds. So I go o sh-- and run back to the conventional defenses involving a bridge and some marksdwarves. The marksdwarves mop the floor with em. No problem. I sez to myself, oh ok. It was just a difference in numbers that kilt the hammers. So I send them out to op up, and they get murdered in 1v1 as well. Keep in mind these guys are wearing full sets of plate with silver hammers. Competant or above. What happen? Are hammers the problem? Should I use maces? Even the axedwarves and swordsdwarves did better.

[Blah]

Yes warhammers suck in general.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Hammerdwarves are a solution looking for a problem. They shine against heavily armored humanoids but goblins wear too little armor for their edge to be noticeable. Their performance is miserable against every other kind of enemy, and maces are no better.

They have a specialist use on maps where the undead effect is a permanent part of the terrain. A pile of a dozen little zombie bits is much less threatening than one big zombie so axedwarves win for killing them, but if the zombie is in one piece then it is easier to cage and transport for permanent disposal.

[slothen]

i miss the 40d days of a strong hammer blow knocking something into a wall and exploding it.

[greycat]

With certain mods (like Fortress Defense), the hammers really become important.  They're pretty much the only melee weapon that can take down a war elephant wearing a steel helmet.  Everything else just bounces off, 200 times in a row.  (Well, everything else up through steel, anyway.)

In vanilla DF, I agree that hammers/maces are pretty weak, but that's because most of your enemies are weak.

[Tolisk]

When your enemys wear candy armor like you, you would start using hammers.

[Rude]

your more or less right. Axes are more effective at lower skill levels. Hammer dwarfs tend to get overwhelmed before they can do much damage. If you are using hammers they need to be closer to legendary. As for marksdwarfs there are a few things to note:
They do stabbing damage and are much less likely to sever bits off. -- which is nice against reanimateables
Zombies die after taking so much damage regardless of where that damage is -- organ damage is not necessary (1shot kills are common with bolts even if its just a knee shot)
They can thin out the crowd of 70+ zombies before you let them into your fort. From cover. --Zombies don't have ranged weapons (afaik)

Considering that, you might want to rely on xbows more for zombie defense at least until your hammers are more relieable. and if you don't mind the scattered thumbs and teeth chasing your potash makers, then use axes -- a relatively unskilled axedwarf can do "max" damage (severs or goes to deepest tissue) pretty often against unarmored flesh. But a hammer needs more power to do max damage.

I'd like to hear anybodies experiences with spears as I have not tried them yet.

[Blah]

With certain mods (like Fortress Defense), the hammers really become important.  They're pretty much the only melee weapon that can take down a war elephant wearing a steel helmet.  Everything else just bounces off, 200 times in a row.  (Well, everything else up through steel, anyway.)

In vanilla DF, I agree that hammers/maces are pretty weak, but that's because most of your enemies are weak.

Not really, warhammers are bad in Fortress Defense also. Well-trained spear/axe/swordsdwarves kill steel clad enemies just fine. Once you give them adamantine weapons (which isn't too hard to do before elephants even show up) they're far better than warhammers at killing steel-clad enemies. In my opinion spears are best in FD due to their higher penetration depth. It means they'll reach vital organs of larger enemies more easily than the other weapons.

[Funk]

warhammers are a bit crap due the fact that haveing every bone in your body broken will not kill, only a good head shot will do it.

but zombies dont bleed out or care that and there limbs just go cut of.
a zombie that has all it bones broken is slower and is weaker to attack.

[Darthlawsuit]

If hammerdwarves are useless what type of dwarves should I be using?

[NecroRebel]

but zombies dont bleed out or care that and there limbs just go cut of.
a zombie that has all it bones broken is slower and is weaker to attack.

On the other hand, so is a zombie that has no arms or legs, or one that only has a hand, or one that only has a head. It's debated whether a zombie with no intact bones is more or less dangerous than one with missing limbs and the detached animate hands and/or heads.

If hammerdwarves are useless what type of dwarves should I be using?

Axes for unarmored foes, spears for very large living organic enemies. Hammers are for armored opponents, but as mentioned no enemies come heavily-armored enough to make them worthwhile. Swords are sort of a combination of a weak axe and a weak spear, but the upper limit on creature sizes that axes work well against is bigger than the lower limit on creature sizes that spears work well against, so swords just sort of have no place.

[Darthlawsuit]

but zombies dont bleed out or care that and there limbs just go cut of.
a zombie that has all it bones broken is slower and is weaker to attack.

On the other hand, so is a zombie that has no arms or legs, or one that only has a hand, or one that only has a head. It's debated whether a zombie with no intact bones is more or less dangerous than one with missing limbs and the detached animate hands and/or heads.

If hammerdwarves are useless what type of dwarves should I be using?

Axes for unarmored foes, spears for very large living organic enemies. Hammers are for armored opponents, but as mentioned no enemies come heavily-armored enough to make them worthwhile. Swords are sort of a combination of a weak axe and a weak spear, but the upper limit on creature sizes that axes work well against is bigger than the lower limit on creature sizes that spears work well against, so swords just sort of have no place.

So do shields not protect your dwarves very much? I thought that was the main advantage of using a sword.

[NecroRebel]

So do shields not protect your dwarves very much? I thought that was the main advantage of using a sword.

Shields provide superb protection, but you can use shields alongside any of the dwarven weapons, not just swords.

[runlvlzero]

Just some anecdotal notice of hammer dwarves effectiveness here...

Outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 in cavern level 1 facing trogs, lizardmen, etc.

I had 3 hammer dwarves, "Competent" hammering, Competent Dodging, everything else adequate or novice.

Their gear was:

Copper Hammer, Wood Shield, Copper Breastplate, Copper Greaves, Leather High Boots, Leather Gauntlets, Copper Helm. All base low quality stuff. This was for a military rush, I was short on supplies and did not want to waste a season forging gear.

They mopped up everything without a single casualty, bruise, or cut. I would imagine they would have handled general "terrifying" biome zombies pretty easily too... probably not equally skilled and geared husks though.

They would take down living targets in 1 or 2 hits. Giant Olm vs 3 of them was an easy fight as well, no injuries there either.

I gave them all "move to" "station" commands, that seemed like the only way to get them not to die, I have allot of problems with kill orders causing bad pathing.

Furthermore I think there is a big disticntion from zombie, husk, and thrall. Zombies being the weakest, husks the hardest, and thralls somewhere in between. I believe necro's raise thralls so that was what the OP's hammer dwarves were up against.

[greycat]

In vanilla I've definitely had good results with axedwarves.  I haven't fought a necromancer or any undead in 0.34.x yet, so I simply have no experience with that part of the game yet.  But I'd use axedwarves as the default in any situation where I'm unsure of which melee weapon is best.

And I still claim my hammerdwarves are a great resource in Fortress Defense.  Maybe candy spears would be better or something, but I tend to leave the blue stuff alone.

Typical FD result with axedwarves: war elephants come, and my marksdwarves shoot them.  They fall over.  Axedwarves rush out to deliver the coup de grace, and then spend several dozen pages of combat report hacking away at the thing's head.  Their steel axes just bounce off the steel helmet repeatedly.  Dwarves are not clever enough to say, "Hey, this thing's down, but its head is covered, so instead of clanging its helmet for the next 3 weeks, I'm gonna chop off its leg and make it bleed out!"

Typical FD result with hammerdwarves: war elephants come, and my marksdwarves shoot them.  They fall over.  Hammerdwarves rush out to deliver the coup de grace, and hit them once or twice in the head, killing them.

Your results may vary, especially if the foe is fighting back.  With a downed foe, your dwarves always go for the head, regardless of how clever that may or may not be.  With an upright foe, they'll attack the extremities, torso, etc.