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[Kelner]

I've got a necromancer tower in vicinity of my fort and I've got a small problem now. During a goblin siege, which got decimated by my marksdwarves and then led into trap corridor, several necromancers arrived in ambush. I discovered it when my mopping-up squad of melee dwarves itself was mopped-up by zombie goblins. I've managed to cage many undead but there is about a dozen outside my main entrance and another dozen in trap corridor (to which I've blocked entrance from the side of the fort, can't block it from outside). The former group is being shot to pieces and raised by necromancer, that I can't see, every few seconds.
Will the bastards go away on their own or do I have to somehow flush them out? There's a caravan about to go amok and I have no melee dwarves to speak of (just a bunch of recruits that are running around the fort trying to find their equipment). I'm building a second trap corridor but it'll take some time and doesn't solve the underlying problem: how do I find and kill/cage necromancers in ambush?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Send out dwarves to investigate where the body parts are being raised.

[Kelner]

My dwarves will just get massacred if I let them outside to fight zombies being constantly reanimated.

[Loud Whispers]

My dwarves will just get massacred if I let them outside to fight zombies being constantly reanimated.

Then your fortress is surely going to crumble to pieces. Withdraw your Dwarves and let the zombies inside your fort. Spring an ambush of your own. If you find a necro, job done. If you don't, goblin corpses are gone.

How are your soldiers equipped/trained and how many are there? You mentioned marksdwarves.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My dwarves will just get massacred if I let them outside to fight zombies being constantly reanimated.

Armor them better? Seriously, the zombies aren't even armed, unless you've got something at least horse-sized or so out there you should be fine for long enough to find a nearby necromancer.

[Loud Whispers]

My dwarves will just get massacred if I let them outside to fight zombies being constantly reanimated.

Armor them better? Seriously, the zombies aren't even armed, unless you've got something at least horse-sized or so out there you should be fine for long enough to find a nearby necromancer.

Undead ravens can break bones by pecking.
They get massive size/strength bonuses from being undead. Your best bet is to kill them before they even get a chance to fight back (undead are slow, so this is easy where small numbers/dispersed crowds are concerned).
Then again any sufficiently trained/armoured Dwarf should be semi-invincible...

[Kelner]

I have 10 marksdwarves (6 of them elite) but the rest of my militia was annihilated when they got jumped by zombies. I've managed to put together a single squad of Novice to Competent melee dwarves clad in steel (full set + leather clothes) but the same zombies have vanquished a force twice the size. I'm going with second trap corridor now.

NOTE: I can produce lots of steel and high quality armaments. It's the skilled killdwarfs that are hard to find.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My dwarves will just get massacred if I let them outside to fight zombies being constantly reanimated.

Armor them better? Seriously, the zombies aren't even armed, unless you've got something at least horse-sized or so out there you should be fine for long enough to find a nearby necromancer.

Undead ravens can break bones by pecking.

Oh, really? To the arena!
An undead dwarf easily dispatched three undead ravens before getting smushed by a ceiling. Three undead ravens on a living dwarf? They got killed quickly, one by getting kicked a few tiles, the other by getting its leg punched off, and the last by getting a bruised wing.
That dwarf is naked, by the way. Naked except for a dented abdomen and a bruised spleen. Half a dozen raven corpses? Five get killed, most during a martial trance, and the last one starts shaking the dwarf around by the head, as he's been rendered unconscious from a broken finger and some more dents. I take control of the raven and peck the dwarf in the foot, fracturing the bone and waking Urist McEvermore up. A head-peck then merely tears skin and bruises muscle. Not much more than torn skin and bruises seems to result from pecking I seem to be biting the dwarf, my bad. Point is, which undead ravens are dangerous, you're exaggerating. Slightly, but still, once I released control of the raven the dwarf swiftly dispatched the raven by punching off its leg.
Let's see what 5 steel-armored dwarves with wood weapons and shields do against a mob of elven zombies. Elves because of their higher stats and because, why not?

[Urist Da Vinci]

The ambushing necromancers are drawn towards things that they can animate, but they run away for a short distance if they see an enemy. You can use cage traps and "bait" corpses to catch them. Military dwarves are unlikely to find them, because you need to get within 3 tiles of them to spot them.

[Loud Whispers]

I have 10 marksdwarves (6 of them elite) but the rest of my militia was annihilated when they got jumped by zombies. I've managed to put together a single squad of Novice to Competent melee dwarves clad in steel (full set + leather clothes) but the same zombies have vanquished a force twice the size. I'm going with second trap corridor now.

From what I've seen corpses seem to work as necro bait. Luring them into a room with fortifications/cage/weapon traps should deal with your problem nicely. Kill a couple of corpses (if any show up) or place the bait in such a way that if they come back to life, you know the necro is there and spring the trap.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, really? To the arena!

Well I can already see where this is going

An undead dwarf easily dispatched three undead ravens before getting smushed by a ceiling. Three undead ravens on a living dwarf? They got killed quickly, one by getting kicked a few tiles, the other by getting its leg punched off, and the last by getting a bruised wing.
That dwarf is naked, by the way. Naked except for a dented abdomen and a bruised spleen. Half a dozen raven corpses? Five get killed, most during a martial trance, and the last one starts shaking the dwarf around by the head, as he's been rendered unconscious from a broken finger and some more dents. I take control of the raven and peck the dwarf in the foot, fracturing the bone and waking Urist McEvermore up. A head-peck then merely tears skin and bruises muscle. Not much more than torn skin and bruises seems to result from pecking I seem to be biting the dwarf, my bad. Point is, which undead ravens are dangerous, you're exaggerating. Slightly, but still, once I released control of the raven the dwarf swiftly dispatched the raven by punching off its leg.
Let's see what 5 steel-armored dwarves with wood weapons and shields do against a mob of elven zombies. Elves because of their higher stats and because, why not?

Sure do that. But people forget the arena is not Fortress mode. There's nothing I hate more than semantics, but 'can' is an important word here.
They're small critters already. And I've had a marksdwarf earn himself broken bones from failing to kill the last 3 ravens in a flock. They broke his legs through steel greaves. Happy?
Especially where humanoid zombies and necromancers are concerned. If your Dwarves keep taking hits they will die. It doesn't matter if the zombies die because they'll just come back right up. Zombie elves? Don't bother with the pedantry.
For one the elves will be created with average stats. As will the Dwarves.
Secondly I murderized the crap out of 80 or so elf corpses with no injuries. Key part there? The necros were dead or separated. The more times you allow your Dwarves to get hit by zombies there will be one out of the several dozens that will inflict a severe or mortal wound.

Oh and it gets better, there are loads of people who can also attest to Dwarves having their skulls smashed apart by buffalo hair and severed heads. In Fortress mode.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm giving the dwarves adequate military skills and wooden swords, to simulate a crappy military with good armor. I've decided to further emphasise the "crappy" by making a lot of the armor iton. The armament given to the dwarven champions is:

Spoiler: Armament (click to show/hide)

1 wagon wooden short sword
1 feather wood shield (the worst for bashing)
1 steel helm
1 iron breastplate
1 pair of iron chain leggings
2 copper gauntlets
2 copper high boots
1 elf leather cloak (mostly for show)

Skills: Sworddwarf, Fighter, Shield User, Armor User, Dodger, Wrestler

I made five of these fine dwarven lads in a line in the big fieldy area. Three tiles away, I added a 5-tile-tall, 4-tile-wide formation of naked, unarmed, unskilled elf zombies. I then encased those in obsidian and made 20 new elf zombies that were on a different team than the dwarves. Three dwarves swiftly entered martial trances, then one of those was struck down and another entered a martial trance. Two dwarves left the martial trance and two elves collapsed. The fifth dwarf entered a martial trance, and another dwarf left it. Things went on, blah blah, entering and leaving martial trances, elves collapsing, dwarves being struck down...eventually, the last dwarf was killed, and only five elves had been killed. So...arm your dwarves with better than wood swords and mostly-iron armor and don't go in against overwhelming numbers? Maybe I should test some more.

Ninjaedit: Whispers, yeah dwarves sometimes get killed by roaming hair. They also sometimes get killed by cats. Just because it's happened enough for people to remember it happened means nothing. Remember the fluffy wambler incident? That happened ONCE. Also, the dwarves killed by hair and stuff were A. killed mainly by hooved animal hair, which is generally around horse-size and B. probably civilians. Also, my tests suggest that even elf zombies are pretty darn good at killing dwarves.

[Loud Whispers]

Ninjaedit: Whispers, yeah dwarves sometimes get killed by roaming hair. They also sometimes get killed by cats. Just because it's happened enough for people to remember it happened means nothing. Remember the fluffy wambler incident? That happened ONCE. Also, the dwarves killed by hair and stuff were A. killed mainly by hooved animal hair, which is generally around horse-size and B. probably civilians.

The amount of Dwarves killed by ridiculous undead bodyparts is a great deal higher than the amount killed by cats. Zombies are not fluffy wamblers. Severed heads are most definitely not horse sized. I don't see why I honestly need to argue that anything can kill you in Dwarf Fortress because everything can kill you in Dwarf Fortress. You're saying he should just armour his Dwarves and send them outside to find the necromancer.
Now time for a quote.

Direct attacks on zombies in direct view of a necromancer is nigh suicidal; indirect combat is required.

Also, my tests suggest that even elf zombies are pretty darn good at killing dwarves.

You're better off not letting them get near the point where they're hitting your Dwarves. Or just liberally apply legendary miners or something.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My point about the cats and fluffy wamblers was that memetic =/= common. Severed heads shouldn't be big, but there used to and might still be a bug where body parts were considered to be as big as the original creature. And my tests seemed to confirm your assertions. Although I might do a complex test pitting a dwarf against some buffalo hair just to see what happens...
Anyways, the idea isn't combat, but to see the necromancer once, then retreat. To be more exact, it's to survive long enough to see the necromancer. That should be easier than killing the zombies.

[AutomataKittay]

Have fortification all around the top and throw out a corpse on other side of invaders with dwarves sitting around to look through it?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Fun fact, dwarves can scratch the leg hair off of animated hair from a water buffalo easily. Indeed, a dwarf can hold out against reanimating water buffalo hair and skin for a while with nothing but bruises and maybe some lost teeth. (I'm not sure how much of that is from the elephant I dropped in, hoping to see if elephant skin hurt more than buffalo skin. I might need to do a fresh test for that, but not until the three other elephants in the corner finish beating each other up.)
EDIT: I should probably redo the test, the elephant died before the dwarf. The elephant's corpse got revenge, though.
EDIT2: Dwarf in steel vs. elephant skin: Dwarf wins. Then it resurrects the skin. Oops.
So...gear beats size when fighting skin. Also, all of your hype about the undeads' power was sadly (?) an exaggeration.
EDIT3: Unarmed, unarmored dwarf beats up elephant skin. The skin barely even got in any attacks, and those it did only bruised. It seems that A. skin has been overrated in deadliness, if not in number or distraction; and B. elephants do not have hair.