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[Loud Whispers]

I thought (and have indeed observed) that marksdwarves which also have a melee weapon will just continue using their crossbow in melee, no matter what melee weapon they have.
I also thought if a dwarf just holds 2 melee weapons he will always just use one of them and ignore the other?
unless you're messing around with equipment changing and squad removing/re-adding

That's not what I'm observing. I've got hammerlords mixing between axes and hammers, and my marksdwarves will readily switch to battleaxes in melee combat.

If I remember correctly, you have to make the melee weapon ordered above the ranged weapon. I don't do that though, so I'm unsure. It can be made to work effectively though. Even if its random, a stab from a sword is much more lethal than a slap of a crossbow, so it makes a difference eventually.

Assigning the sword above the crossbow will make the Dwarf ignore the shooting side of the crossbow, and simply use them both in melee instead.

[Magistrum]

As loud whispers(I'm trying to figure out this since 2013) said, the marksdwarves weill attack with a second weapon when in melee, but he is prone to use first the crossbow for 10~20 hits, use the sword one time, more 10~20 hits from the crossbow, and keeps on that.

[Necrisha]

I've never seen a humanoid corpse take a shot from a crossbow and not collapse.

You haven't dealt with husks yet then. you either have to bisect the suckers or crush them completely via collapsing trap/atom smasher. Which is fine until you've got two husks wrestling each other for a year or two, and there are a few holes from the last time you tried to drop them into a corridor full of weapon traps. You either need a pack of elite melee, or magma flood to take care of the suckers.

EDit: Oh, right magma doesn't kill undead. It'll just set them on fire to boot.

[neblime]

yeah I meant animated corpse specifically.. not much experience with husks/thralls other than dying quickly to them

[Tenderroast]

Melee is so EASY to set up... 3 dwarfs, change the training orders to "2 dwarves" needed to train, and leave them at it. All 3 will be super soldiers within 6 months game time. As for the issue with crossbow dwarves sucking when they run out of ammo, or when the enemy gets close... give them Steel, Iron, Bronze, or Silver crossbows. Again, 3 dwarf squads. Set 2 need to train. They will be super soldiers, with awesome hammer skill, and the 3rd one, that is not sparring, will be on marks practice at the archery range.

Give all of the soldiers a shield, and those 6 dwarves will be able to handle anything short of the circus.