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[Linkxsc]

So I've got a pretty good game going, at about 140 dwarves. 80 of them have been conscripted into my army and have been training (10 swords, 10 spears, 20 axes, 20 hammers, 20 marksmen). And they've been training and are steadily climbing in skill. Already been a couple goblin raids that were primarily eaten by the marksmen, however I managed to capture and cage about 30 of them (more training later).

I got to thinking though. I know that marksdwarves will switch to using their crossbows as a bashing weapon when the enemy gets too close. Hence why a fully outfitted army should have steel crossbows or iron rather then wood or bone (mine currently have medium quality wood ones because my steel is going to the melee units armor right now)

Could I force all my marksdwarves to carry a shortsword or other actual weapon with them so that when they get into melee range or out of bolts, they'll use a proper melee wep rather then their bows?

[Chaia]

They use mainly their crossbows in melee, even with a backup weapons.
Best solution is to wall them off from the enemy or train them in hammer skills for the crossbow

[Uristoteles]

there has been a couple of threads on this topic over the last months:
Making Marksdwarves effective in melee (will it work?)
Frontline Marksdwarves
Properly-equipped marksdwarves
Research: Crossbow with axe and shield

This should be more or less everything the forumhivemind knows about this right now. Have fun reading 

[VerdantSF]

Frontline Marksdwarves

That thread is actually about having melee troops and marksdwarves in the same squad, not individual troops armed with a mix of melee and ranged weapons .

They should do well enough with a metal crossbow, swung with high skill. Arena testing says steel crossbows are devastatingly effective against spinal chords, lungs and brains (but next to useless against everything else).

I can attest to Larix's assertion.  Once my frontline archers run out of bolts and join the fray, they still do quite a bit of damage with their crossbows.  Several of them are 10+ in hammer skill.

[Gamerlord]

Try looking at the Society Arms weapons used by Orc Fortress for Masterwork. One of them combines a katana and a bow to allow for close quarters and ranged combat. It's pretty useful and it would be pretty easy to mod into a vanilla game.

[Deepblade]

You could mod crossbows to have a piercing attack, like a bayonet. Possibly change the skill used from hammerer too.

[Uristoteles]

Frontline Marksdwarves

That thread is actually about having melee troops and marksdwarves in the same squad, not individual troops armed with a mix of melee and ranged weapons .

sorry 'bout that; I had it in my bookmarks for interesting marksdwarf info (they are so damn finicky), I skimmed it again before posting, but well, I'm not so good skimming english text. And it's a confirmed way of dealing with the vulnerability of marksdwarves and your last post has good info on ammo stockpile setup. 

Anyway, here's one possibilty to mod a bayonet:

It's real easy to mod in a 'bayonet' to a crossbow just add

[ATTACK:EDGE:50:5000:stab:stabs:bayonet:1000]

at the end of the crossbow entry and it's done, or replace the bashing action with that. You can mess with the numbers, that entry is something like stabbing with a shortsword. Might put the crossbow [SIZE:] to 500 to 600 to account for the extra mass of the bayonet, which would also make it heavier and more lethal.

Might also replace the bashing entry on the crossbow with

[ATTACK:BLUNT:400:4000:bash:bashes:stock:1000] to model a good ol' smack with a buttstock, and it puts it in line with pommel strikes of swords and whatnot.