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[rmblr]

I'm keen on playing a little RP fort that is a military outpost near their parent civ's borders. The idea is to take 6 military dwarves and one helper along with enough equipment to begin training the 6 up to the point where they can become squad leaders for the migrants. The remaining dwarf would be the camp 'assistant', performing all the other tasks until more 'assistants' arrive.  Of course they'd need to take enough food+booze to survive long enough.

Part of the reason I want to do this is to practice the military portions of DF that I'm rubbish with. I figure playing a warlike caste of dwarves at the wild and savage edge of their civilization would be a good way to do so.

I'd like to make use of the Teaching skill in the way discussed in this awesome !science! thread.

So...I'm a little at a loss at what to embark with though as I've only ever played the standard balanced embarks. Anyone know of an embark along these lines or care to discuss what to bring?

[Sutremaine]

Dwarf 1: Weaponsmith / Armoursmith, Proficient
Dwarves 2-6: Proficient Teacher plus one each of the following: Armour User, Shield User, Dodger, Striker, Kicker, Biter.

If you want, you can substitute Biter for Hammer skill. I've done this kind of embark (though with three or four military dwarves), and Biter was always the last skill to be spread around. I've chosen Hammer skill because it can be used for actual hammering, or for emergency crossbow bludgeoning. A dwarf with good defensive skills in good armour and with a good edged weapon can learn on the job, really. If your smith likes a certain kind of weapon, you can go with the skill for that too.

Items to bring:
Enough leather for six waterskins
Lots of barrels (bring a little bit of many different kinds of food and drink)
Enough food to last until the next migrant wave
8 units of three different types of booze (for the waterskins), plus any extra you'd like
At least one chunk of magma-safe stone
1 bar of charcoal, as a starter (optional)

One of the following 'recipes':
Malachite / native copper + cassiterite (1:1)
Iron ore (N/A)
Iron ore + flux (1:4:? -- see next line)
Carbon source, if you're bringing steel ingredients. 1:4:9 for charcoal or wood, 1:4:2 for lignite, 1:4:1 for coal. These figures assume coke-fired smelters.

If you have coal or lignite, great, bring that too. If not, you have more choices to make regarding your fuel or carbon source. You can either dive for the magma sea, or bring an axe to chop down more wood to make more axes for your military dwarves (see below).

Bronze is extremely efficient to make, especially with a magma smelter

Your military dwarves can be put to work for the first month doing civilian tasks. A few options are: gathering herbs for booze and food, clearcutting the map for fuel, or putting up and using smelters or wood furnaces to make metal production go faster. The first two of these will reduce the need for embark items and help out with the first migrant wave, and the second will help in turning piles of stuff into slightly smaller piles of weapons and armour.

I would recommend embarking in an area with lots of plants and trees, and digging the wagon items under as though you're in a dangerous area (dismantle wagon, channel out the tiles on which the items fall, bridge over the channelled tiles and dig an access route with enough space for a door). It's the quickest way to get them protected from keas and langurs, and gets them underground well in time for the first ambushes.

[burchalka]

Sutremaine's response kinda makes me want to try this, with added complexity of Genesis mod.
I have already lost 2 forts to random creepyness coming into the map and obliterating my dwarves.

[Godlysockpuppet]

Change embark startting points to 3000. Use startdwarf 40 in dfhack.
Make 35 dwarves military (spearsdorfs etc... teachers etc..)
1 cook/brewer
1 carpenter/mason
1 armour/weaponsmith
1 doctor (diagnosing+suturing+surgery)
1 engraver/mechanic (for recording your awesome battles and making traps)
Buy a few picks and training axes and set the military dwarves to work as miners and woodcutters.
Voila.

[MightyPaladin]

Isn't there a great risk in forts like this where the starter military dwarves who happen to be female use their spawn as arrow catchers, which leads to well equipped and trained tantrums, which leads to more tantrums, which leads to...

Huh.  Gonna have to try this sometime.

[Sutremaine]

If they're kept as permanent military, they don't have time to form relationships. Sometimes they'll become lovers, but they need civilian time to get married.

[rmblr]

Dwarf 1: Weaponsmith / Armoursmith, Proficient
Dwarves 2-6: Proficient Teacher plus one each of the following: Armour User, Shield User, Dodger, Striker, Kicker, Biter.

Thanks Sutremaine! This answer is exactly what I was looking for, but I've a few questions.

I would have thought the 2-6 dwarves would need some skill with a weapon too. Why not? Also, I don't quite understand your description for channeling the tiles the wagon and supplies are on. Do you mean this:

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..WWWW..
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Then build a bridge where the Wagon was? This causes a cavein, but doesn't harm the goods?

[Repseki]

Dismantle the wagon first, then channel where all of the items are and they will drop down to the ramps, no cave in needed. Then build a bridge where the wagon used to be, creating a roof over your stuff and dig some sort of access.

[Sutremaine]

Yeah, that's it for the wagon. Dismantle it to dump all the stuff on the floor, and then let gravity do the hauling. There's no danger to the miner because they'd have to be standing in the wall to be beneath the items when they fall.

Weapon skill is less important for two reasons.

One, it raises very quickly, especially if you have dwarves dual-wielding, and often at the expense of other skills. If you suit up a bunch of rookies in the default metal uniform and let them train, they'll gain lots of weapon skill but very little of the bare-handed and defensive skills. Good architecture will let you place dwarves in a mass ambush position, but if the fight goes out onto open ground they'll be exposed to more attacks.

Since it raises so quickly, you can give them weapons and let them gain a few levels. Goblin grunts can be Novice to Proficient, so Proficient is adequate offensive skill.

Two, if your dwarves have good defences and a good sharp steel weapon, the goblins will have a hard time disabling them before being disabled themselves.

Getting away from embark prep for a moment, it's good to treat your military as though they're rookies even if they are competent. Have a killzone, animal spotters, supporting fire from marksdwarves, and try and keep the fighting somewhere where soldiers (and later, haulers) won't be strung out all over the map.

[Asra]

Isn't there a great risk in forts like this where the starter military dwarves who happen to be female use their spawn as arrow catchers, which leads to well equipped and trained tantrums, which leads to more tantrums, which leads to...

Huh.  Gonna have to try this sometime.

You can actually turn this into a weapon in and of itself, if you get the dwarf mothers to a point where they have "doesn't really care about anything". Desensitizing dwarfs is a methodical process though, if you go too far they will tantrum spiral before you achieve your goals. But the rewards are pretty great. Your military will never tantrum just because their baby shield accidentally blocked a titan's punch.

[Ubiq]

One of the following 'recipes':
Malachite / native copper + cassiterite (1:1)

Another good option that often falls through the cracks is Malachite/Copper Nuggets + Cassiterite + Bismuthinite (2:1:1) and double the fuel. Sure, it's time consuming and more expensive at the start but, in the long run, it pays off handsomely.

If need be, you can just smelt the copper and tin ores directly to make bronze but if time isn't a pressing concern, then first smelting the ores to make bars and using the bars to make bismuth bronze instead is a rewarding proposition. Bismuth bronze and bronze are equal when it comes to weaponry and armor but bismuth bronze is worth more so fort value will increase and lure more dwarves in a shorter time. Plus you can easily create enough bars this way to make a few trade goods without having to worry about having enough for armor.

[rmblr]

Isn't there a great risk in forts like this where the starter military dwarves who happen to be female use their spawn as arrow catchers, which leads to well equipped and trained tantrums, which leads to more tantrums, which leads to...

Huh.  Gonna have to try this sometime.

You can actually turn this into a weapon in and of itself, if you get the dwarf mothers to a point where they have "doesn't really care about anything". Desensitizing dwarfs is a methodical process though, if you go too far they will tantrum spiral before you achieve your goals. But the rewards are pretty great. Your military will never tantrum just because their baby shield accidentally blocked a titan's punch.

This works well for the military only dwarves, but is a tedious process and won't work if you're trying to train everyone.

I'd love to run a warrior society "frontier fort" where everyone in it is a seasoned/hardened warrior. Lining the thoroughfares with wooden spears to simulate a danger room would be a way to do this, as well as rotating them in and out of the military so you can get work done.

I wonder if it's possible to do an all male embark and forbid females until the 3rd or 4th migrant wave, just outlaw kids entirely. DFHack could help here I'm sure.

[UnlawfullyDeranged]

One of the following 'recipes':
Malachite / native copper + cassiterite (1:1)

Another good option that often falls through the cracks is Malachite/Copper Nuggets + Cassiterite + Bismuthinite (2:1:1) and double the fuel. Sure, it's time consuming and more expensive at the start but, in the long run, it pays off handsomely.

If need be, you can just smelt the copper and tin ores directly to make bronze but if time isn't a pressing concern, then first smelting the ores to make bars and using the bars to make bismuth bronze instead is a rewarding proposition. Bismuth bronze and bronze are equal when it comes to weaponry and armor but bismuth bronze is worth more so fort value will increase and lure more dwarves in a shorter time. Plus you can easily create enough bars this way to make a few trade goods without having to worry about having enough for armor.

If you're going the bismuth bronze route and smelting everything separately anyway, why not bring tetrahedrite in place of malachite or native copper? Smelting it gives you four bars of copper, like other copper ores, and a (20%) chance of silver. Albeit, it does cost a little more than malachite, but if you're smelting enough ore to outfit a squad of six, then at least one or two silver bars is guaranteed, which would do very well for hammers.

[Ubiq]

If you're going the bismuth bronze route and smelting everything separately anyway, why not bring tetrahedrite in place of malachite or native copper?

That works as well but one piece of tetrahedrite costs as much as a copper nugget and a piece of coal/bismuthinite so you have to juggle everything else to compensate. Though if you want the silver or like billon, it is a better option.

[MasterShizzle]

You can try the turtle route. Defensive skills plus shields, and your militia can wield two shields and bash everything to death. I seem to recall someone else doing this with great success.