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[Glyndŵr]

Good evening. I have always adored Dwarf Fortress, but I often spend more of my time actually just reading over the wiki and fantasising over grand plans and schemes that will never be realised. Some of them are of a nature orientated with the military.

Henceforth, I often try to plan the structure of my dream army, but I am confronted with a choice of several soldier types that seem to do the same sort of thing - hammerdwarfs and macedwarfs both use blunt weapons to bludgeon their foes to death, the only difference being that warhammers require two hands rather than one. Swordsdwarfs also seem to be jacks of all trades but masters of none, whilst speardwarfs are ever so specialised.

Unfortunately, the one thing that the DF wiki article on soldiers does not do, despite giving wonderful detail on the actual soldier types and their attack methods, is that it does not provide suggestions for their usage. When do we use axedwarfs over swordsdwarfs? For what specific purpose do we use macedwarfs over hammerdwarfs, for example? Do we use them to take down the heavily armoured foes alongside the speardwarfs whilst the swordsdwarfs take on the weaker ones?

So please, could you explain how would I go about putting each soldier type (axedwarf, swordsdwarf, hammerdwarf, marksdwarf, wrestler, speardwarf, macedwarf) to the best use possible? What is their niche, and how would they be integrated into an army?

Diolch yn fawr,

Glyndŵr.
 

[WealthyRadish]

Axedwarves are most notable for severing limbs/heads like crazy, causing either quick bleed outs or crippling smaller enemies. They can't dismember large foes that well, though.
Speardwarves are the preferable alternative against large enemies, like cavern monsters, megabeasts, titans, etc. They get a lot of penetrating stabs, taking out organs, but they aren't all that useful against smaller creatures.
Hammerdwarves incapacitate quickly and can damage through armor easily, but in vanilla this is rather unimportant in most cases. If only crappy metals are available, they're probably the best choice for melee combat.
Marksdwarves don't require any training, armor, or decent metal to work well. Just mass equip them and shred whatever moves. Crossbows can also be given to civilians to give them a fighting chance if attacked.
Swordsdwarves are like a combination between spear and axe, in my experience anyway, though aren't as good at either severing or penetrating. Still very useful, though, if you don't want to specialize.

I don't have much experience with foreign weapon types, but generally large swords seem to be a direct upgrade to short swords, if they can be wielded, and whips are crazy good at penetration and bypassing armor. Maces are worse than hammers, I believe.

[MonkeyHead]

Nice to see another Welsh person on here.

Basically your choice depends on what metals you have availiable, and what skills your dwarves (often immigrants) have. If you lack iron or steel, then blunt weapons and marksdwarves will probably be your choice, unless you can trade for better weapon materials. Warhammers can actually be used one handed, and I prefer them over maces (slight combat advantagem especially for strong dwarves IIRC), but if you have a skilled macedwarf to act as a squad leader then they can train a squad up better/faster than it takes a bunch of raw recruits to gain competency in hammer use. Blunt weapons like hammer and mace are most useful for breaking bones and incapacitating enemies (especially if armoured, so mainly gobbos/humans), but dont often score quick outright kills, so often are used to soften up enemies while other squads take the easy kills.

If you have bronze, iron or steel

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

or Adamantine

, then you will want to go with sharp weapons. Axes use an edged attack, and cut well, removing limbs/heads with ease. VERY useful against unarmoured fores, as armour of a suffiecient strength can turn the edged attack into a weak blunt attack - hence why often used with blunt squads to get easy kills. Axes are less useful against huge opponents as they dont pierce much. Thats where spears come in. Spears are VERY penetrating, and can hit vital organs for one hit kills. On occasion they remove limbs, but again can be turned aside by armours of better material quality into a blnt attack. Spears are VERY useful against organic titans and FB's. Swrods fall somewhere beween the two - quite good at lopping off limbs, and quite good at stabbing. A good flexible compromise. Metal bolts fired from a marksdwarf are also very good at penetrating, and can incapacitate most opponents by hitting a limb or torso.

So... my reccomendations. Blunt weapon squad supported by axe or swordsdwarf squad. Spear squad for organic FB/titan/megabeast disposal. Oh, and marksdwarves to support everything.

Bah, Ninja'd.

One more bit of advice though. GET MORNINGSTARS. Blunt attack with a bit of penetration thrown in. A very versatile weapon.

[Alastar]

This has been talked about repeatedly, only in terms of weapon types rather than wielder types

Hammers in DF aren't sledge hammers but rather small things half as heavy as maces. The weapons perform similarly: decent regardless of material and good at defeating armour, below average against unarmoured opponents and weak against large beasts.
Large slashing blades like axes rend humanoids limb from limb, but struggle to get through heavy armour or thick bone.
Spears can reach the vitals of large fleshy beasts and are adequate against armour for an edged weapon, but since limb hits are less telling they are mediocre against lightly armoured humanoids.
Swords have individually weaker attacks but hedge their bets between the above, not a fan of them.
Pick attacks have a very powerful attack between a slash and a stab. Excellent general purpose weapon but sometimes annoying for soldier management (mining isn't a weapon skill).

Foreign weapons that stand out:
Whips are modelled strangely and the game assumes the whole thing (made of metal) impacts at supersonic speeds. They ignore armour and can cripple things that'd shrug off other blunt weapons.
Daggers, scourges and morningstars feature tiny contact areas which make them penetrate armour regardless of materials, probably better can openers than domestic blunt weapons.
Long swords hedge their bets in a far more useful way than short swords and are small enough that most dwarves can use them with a shield. Nice if we could make them, but I'd rather have domestic steel weapons than long swords of a lesser material.

[greycat]

Mace vs. hammer: no real difference.

Axes shine against small-to-medium sized foes who are not heavily armored.  You're likely to behead them, or sever a limb, on any good hit.

Spears are good against large opponents with vital organs to pierce.  This mostly means organic forgotten beasts.

Crossbows pierce armor and tend to cripple opponents (they fall over from the pain of broken bones, etc.).  This makes them a lot easier to kill.

Maces/hammers work well against heavily armored opponents.  Especially if they've just collapsed on the ground from being shot.  A hammerdwarf will aim for the head of a fallen opponent, and this will frequently be fatal, even when the head is armored.

(Axes don't work so well against opponents with big steel helmets on, which will happen a lot if you play certain mods.  Axedwarves love to spend 6 pages of combat screen bouncing their axes off a war elephant's steel helmet.)

I'm not sure what swords are good for.

[Yovatsap]

Well, I have a fort that has only 13 dwarves, 2 of which are in the army. I have a thriving gold industry so I can sell anything I want for quality metals, weapons and/or other necessary-ish stuff. My 2-man squad that consists of an axe lord and a spearmaster -both equipped with steel full armor and weapons/shields- easily takes out any enemy that comes in my their way...

The truth is, dwarves are overpowered if you train and equip them correctly. Especially when in a martial trance. So go wild, equip them with whatever you want, they'll still own those gobbies.

On a particularly different note: OH MY GOD! Glyndŵr, is your avatar a dorf version of B.J. Blazkowicz? Naa. Doesn't look like him. Nor does it look like doomguy. Duke Nukem maybe? Never mind...

[Glyndŵr]

This is all so fascinating. So one strategy would be to use mixed squads of heavily armoured hammerdwarfs and axedwarfs to soften the enemy up, whilst using mixed squads of swordsdwarfs and speardwarfs in support. The swordsdwarfs can be used to protect the speardwarfs against any smaller enemies, but still help in piercing the organs of larger monsters. Meanwhile, marksdwarfs rain death down upon the enemy, crippling as many as possible for the hammerdwarf/axedwarf squads to finish off. Of course, for an FB attack, a dedicated speardwarf squad may be the best answer... unless the "lopping" ability of swords could be handy.

It's just such a pity that macedwarfs don't have as much use, they're more of a stylistic alternative to hammerdwarfs. I suppose the best thing about them must be morningstars, and as MonkeyHead says, they can be used to train up squads of peasants more efficiently as squad leaders.

Do pure wrestlers still have some kind of use on the battlefield? I remember they used to in 40d, but is wrestling now only a supportive skill, or do dedicated wrestlers still have a kind of purpose?

The foreign weapon users add a lot of spice to all this. I wonder how they could be incorporated into a battle plan.

Nice to see another Welsh person on here.

Ah well, haha. I'm afraid I'm only half Welsh, but it's my best half. I'm very pleased to meet you.

Well, I have a fort that has only 13 dwarves, 2 of which are in the army. I have a thriving gold industry so I can sell anything I want for quality metals, weapons and/or other necessary-ish stuff. My 2-man squad that consists of an axe lord and a spearmaster -both equipped with steel full armor and weapons/shields- easily takes out any enemy that comes in my their way...

The truth is, dwarves are overpowered if you train and equip them correctly. Especially when in a martial trance. So go wild, equip them with whatever you want, they'll still own those gobbies.

On a particularly different note: OH MY GOD! Glyndŵr, is your avatar a dorf version of B.J. Blazkowicz?

Yes my friend. Yes it is. He's actually a slightly squashed Ivan the Space Biker, but I like to think of him as a Dwarfish B.J. Blazkowicz.

But that's very interesting. Even just two heavily specialised dwarfs for armour piercing and general damage dealing seem to work extremely well for you. Although I do agree that we can just have any soldiers open many cans of whoop-ass on goblins, these posts do suggest that the right kind of balance between armour piercing and DPS is the best strategy.

[Naryar]

Picks kill everything. Really.

[WealthyRadish]

Oh, yeah, picks! Knew I forgot something important. Even more multipurpose than swords, honestly. And now that having legendary miners is less important, it's easy to just shift them over to military duty.

[Calathar]

Hammerdwarves / macedwarves are also good for evil regions, where you don't want to cut zombies up to make even more zombie parts.

[Yovatsap]

Do pure wrestlers still have some kind of use on the battlefield? I remember they used to in 40d, but is wrestling now only a supportive skill, or do dedicated wrestlers still have a kind of purpose?

The thing is, a legendary wrestler (and lashers too) can take out anything with ease {assuming they can dodge a few attacks}. But the wrestling AI is EXTREMELY unreliable. It grabs random body parts and if there is no other interaction with it, it lets go. So a lucky throat grab would do wonders, but would still be lucky.

Lashers use the same AI but can rip limbs/heads off. So a legendary lasher with copper equipment can easily decapitate a bronze colossus, but again, it would just be a lucky shot. (I haven't tested these in the current version, but I believe I'd have noticed or at least seen something on the forums if any change had occurred...

The foreign weapon users add a lot of spice to all this. I wonder how they could be incorporated into a battle plan.

They actually do. I'll check the wiki on the different characteristics those weapons have. Keep in mind that you can only produce crossbow bolts so bows/blowguns would be a bad idea.

Yes my friend. Yes it is.

That is just completely awesome. Imagine if that dwarf entered a martial trance... Insta-world destruction.

[Glyndŵr]

So it would be wiser to use pick-dwarfs than swordsdwarfs in the mixed squads I was talking about? They seem like very strong militia. Drafted miners and woodcutters with support from drafted rangers may be able to hold their own.

It is also interesting that hammerdwarfs/macedwarfs are good for fighting zombies. Do zombies still use that health system rather than the old system where they were basically unkillable?

Do pure wrestlers still have some kind of use on the battlefield? I remember they used to in 40d, but is wrestling now only a supportive skill, or do dedicated wrestlers still have a kind of purpose?

The thing is, a legendary wrestler (and lashers too) can take out anything with ease {assuming they can dodge a few attacks}. But the wrestling AI is EXTREMELY unreliable. It grabs random body parts and if there is no other interaction with it, it lets go. So a lucky throat grab would do wonders, but would still be lucky.

Lashers use the same AI but can rip limbs/heads off. So a legendary lasher with copper equipment can easily decapitate a bronze colossus, but again, it would just be a lucky shot. (I haven't tested these in the current version, but I believe I'd have noticed or at least seen something on the forums if any change had occurred...

The foreign weapon users add a lot of spice to all this. I wonder how they could be incorporated into a battle plan.

They actually do. I'll check the wiki on the different characteristics those weapons have. Keep in mind that you can only produce crossbow bolts so bows/blowguns would be a bad idea.

Yes my friend. Yes it is.

That is just completely awesome. Imagine if that dwarf entered a martial trance... Insta-world destruction.

"Heinrich, necromancer, has been struck down"

Yes, Heinrich would never understand why his blows from his slade two-handed sword were always parried, nor would Hitler understand why his minions lay in piles of blood and vomit with broken brains.

It's good to see that wrestlers can still hold their own. However, would there be any specific use for them in a battle? What kind of supporting role would they provide? If their best use is to incapacitate the enemy, is that role not already filled by hammerdwarfs and marksdwarfs? Or maybe they could bring something else to the battle.

[Yovatsap]

Picks kill everything. Really.

^
THIS!

The fact is, legendary miners are awesome fighters even if they aren't in the military. When forced, they'll attack. And they'll attack REALLY hard. Whenever my military is too late to save my miner from a threat, the miner will get cornered, hit the thing once (which often results in insta-kill or insta-paralysis) then simply walk away unharmed...

[Yovatsap]

By the way. By examining the wiki I can guess that maces are more effective different than war hammers. They have greater size and greater contact area. The size would give them mass, which would increase their blunt damage but the contact area is also raised in a linear fashion. So the ratio of weight:contact area stays the same.

Which, now that I think about it, would give the same effect. Unless I am missing something here.

But if we follow that logic, morningstars would be the MOST effective blunt weapon in the game. So if you ever come across a silver or steel morningstar, don't think twice. Sell your war lion and buy the weapon. (Blunt weapon memo: Never make one out of adamantine! All six non-adamantine metals perform nearly identically. Steel has a slightly higher rate of critical wounds, while silver is slightly more likely to penetrate armor.)

[Yovatsap]

"Heinrich, necromancer, has been struck down"

Yes, Heinrich would never understand why his blows from his slade two-handed sword were always parried, nor would Hitler understand why his minions lay in piles of blood and vomit with broken brains.

I lol'd really hard. I think I'll reinstall Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

It's good to see that wrestlers can still hold their own. However, would there be any specific use for them in a battle? What kind of supporting role would they provide? If their best use is to incapacitate the enemy, is that role not already filled by hammerdwarfs and marksdwarfs? Or maybe they could bring something else to the battle.

Wrestlers are a definite no-no for now. Marksdwarves can cover the incapacitation part.

And also, hammerdwarves and axedwarves DO kill unconscious enemies with a blow to the head. But my Axe Lord does that without them being hurt in any way. I have seen many combat reports going "The Axe Lord hacks the goblin lasher in the head... blabla tearing the brain etc..." in the first (and the last) line. I am not sure if hammerdwarves aim for the head in that situation though.

So what I'm trying to get at is, axedwarves make short work of most creatures. Make a squad that has at least some of them. (I just tried to see how my axe lord would do against large creatures. He murdered 3 elephants with extreme ease.)