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[StagnantSoul]

I'm working on getting a men-at-arms fort going. It is based around having the vast majority of the civilians armed and ready to go at a minutes notice. They won't be fully armoured up, or armed with the best weapons. Their suit is a bronze mail shirt and helm, leather armour, leather leggings, high boots, mittens, gloves, hood, and cloak, a wooden shield, plus a bronze spear, mace, or short sword. The stronger soldier uniform is steel mail shirt, breastplate, greaves, shield, weapon, helm, boots, gauntlet, plus leather mittens, cloak, robe, and hood. How huge of a difference would these guys have from each other? I'm thinking when I lick the candy cane and draw out the clowns, I could have the most of my militia, minus the metal workers, all the crafters, and a couple doctors, engage the clowns first in a labyrinth, to weed out the weak clowns. So how viable is having roughly 140-150 weak-ish dwarves marching around, with 10-20 really strong ones backing them up? I am adding one marksdwarf per squad, so that's about fifteen-seventeen marksdwarves.

[Insanegame27]

I dont know how viable it is, but thats the point of !!SCIENCE!!

[StagnantSoul]

So far I've lost one guy to an iron arrow through the chest. The rest held up rather well versus a goblin siege, thirty versus fifty, with eight in the hospital, needing suturing or setting of hands. Was just wondering if anyone else tried this approach and found it worthwhile or not.

[hegchog]

I've tried this before. Unless your soldiers are armored and at the least competent in a weapon skill they will get butchered in larger fights or against archers and you will get a lot of disabled dwarfs who are missing a limb (plus there could easily be tantrum spirals after someone sees their friends killed in front of them). If you do go through with it you could lose a lot of manpower that would be better at building walls and fortifications. Find the best ones, set them to train  and give them good armor and weapons and they will be just as good.

[pisskop]

I've tried this before. Unless your soldiers are armored and at the least competent in a weapon skill they will get butchered in larger fights or against archers and you will get a lot of disabled dwarfs who are missing a limb (plus there could easily be tantrum spirals after someone sees their friends killed in front of them). If you do go through with it you could lose a lot of manpower that would be better at building walls and fortifications. Find the best ones, set them to train  and give them good armor and weapons and they will be just as good.

This.  Untrained and poorly armoured dwarves are not viable.  They are perhaps an emergency measure.

If you want a good militia, divide them into two or more groups, and set them to train for 3-6 months.  Expect it to take years to yield viable combatants, however, and expect suicidal dwarves who are improperly trained to go Rambo on an ambush squad.

Its possible, and I do have part-time militia forces, but I usually dont train the civvies until the fort is mature and I can spare the power.

[Pirate Bob]

Honestly, I think your plan to lightly armor and train most of your fort is a good idea, but not necessarily for the reasons you were planning.  As stated by others, they will perform rather poorly in combat however, there are some advantages:

1) Armor does not decay.  Any citizens that you can provide with armor will not need new clothes every few years.
2) Bronze mail provides significant protection against all attacks, including archers.  It will convert all edged attacks from weapons not made of steel or candy (i.e. anything your foes would have) to blunt.  If they get shot in the chest while wearing a bronze mail shirt, they will likely end up with a broken rib (easily treated) instead of a perforated lung (not so much).  If possible it would be good to provide them with bronze chain leggings also, but if not most leg injuries are not fatal.  Do NOT use copper mail - copper is only effective against copper and silver, and bronze and iron will cut right through it.

What I would recommend is that you arm and train important citizens as you describe, and have them keep their armor on at all times.  Then if they encounter any !FUN!, they will be more likely to survive, and you can also order them to defend themselves until help arrives.  I would NOT recommend using these lightly armored recruits to battle sieges - instead maybe keep them guarding the inside of your entrance in case anything gets through, and send out those 10 highly trained dwarves to deal with the siege.  Even 2 highly trained dwarves in full steel armor will make short work of a siege, so there's no point in exposing the others to danger.

Also, if you can afford it, I would recommend replacing the bronze helms with steel, at least for anyone important.  Bronze is great for chain armor, but is terrible for plate armor as it has very low IMPACT_FRACTURE.  Steel helms will protect against almost anything, and if you can't get that iron is pretty good too.

As your fort progresses and you get better equipment, it IS pretty safe to send a dwarf with low skills out to fight a siege if they have a full suit of steel armor.  I have actually done this (by accident) and the dwarves were just fine - only one cut ear.  The only thing the gobbos have that can penetrate steel is whips (even arrows are safe in the new version) and they don't do much damage.  This could provide rapid training for your newer soldiers, in case you'd eventually like to have a very large army of highly trained and armored dwarves for some end game challenges...


Edit - I just read your post again, and saw you were thinking of using these lightly trained guys against the clowns. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I would also say that is not a very good idea.  The only benefit I could see there is that they might distract the clowns for a bit and allow your trained guys to take some down before being engaged.  Clowns have very high natural skills.  In a test I did the other day, goblins with Great skills in weapon, shield, fighter, dodge and armor won 999 of 1000 1 on 1 battles against unskilled goblins with the same weapons and armor.  Without good skills, your dwarves will not even be able to hit clowns, and will rapidly be ripped to shreds.  Also, even steel armor is not a sure defense against them - it may protect against many of them but some of them will do things light light your dwarves on fire or breathe poison gas, or may be so strong they can punch through armor (not sure - I haven't tested this).  If you want to fight the clowns head-on, you will need as many highly trained dwarves as you can get, and even that may not be enough depending on what random clowns you have.

[GavJ]

Probably. Be sure to not armor them head to toe in heavy metal they can't use well without armor skill. I'd choose a strong mail shirt and helmet and that's all, personally (oh also wooden shield)

[Borge]

I arm my militia with metal leggings, mail shirt, cap, gauntlets, low boots, and a leather shield and leather armor. This provides full coverage with lower weight for faster movement.

[JimboM12]

You should consider just making all of your militia into marksdwarves using copper crossbows. The reasoning behind this is that marksdwarves don't have to be particularly skilled to be effective, mass dakka usually wins, and in emergencies copper crossbows make reasonable blunt objects due to its weight. Not to mention, if any armed civilian gets ambushed by a small creature or something, they will usually spray their entire quiver at it, killing it, or weakening it enough to run.

My usual military is a small squad of elite melees, armed and armored with steel if i can swing it, or iron if i can't. The rest are bundled into fullsize squads of crossbow dwarves, armored with nothing but leather with iron breastplates and helmets. They usually get some cross-training to use their crossbows as melee weapons, and any "enlisted" dwarf gets a special job title: Reservist, who is pretty much empty of jobs except siege operating (to train, i just set up some cheap catapults to hit a wall and drop the ammo down a z-level).

Since I started playing 40.XX versions and have a liking for heavily forested embarks, the effect becomes Vietnam-like. I set my crossbow squad to secure the main trade road only to be ambushed by the Viet-Gob, and watching the shootout between my fairly trained marksdwarves and the untrained gobbos is quite entertaining to watch with "Run through the Jungle" playing in the background.

[StagnantSoul]

Huh... Maybe not have these guys engage the clowns. I have a huge access to steel and iron, 500+ bars of iron, an entire layer made of limestone, and lots of fuel. I have five legendary all skill warriors, each decked out in steel. I was thinking of, since I had four carpenters constantly making featherwood training spears since the first migrant wave, of putting all the barracks in a room full of spear traps hooked up to a lever, five in each trap, so when they're training in the barracks, they're actually double training and raising attributes. Obviously this would be behind many animal locked doors, with even the artifact hatch to my fortress being animal locked. Question: If I get sieged, can't close the gate fast enough, and lock that artifact hatch, can the goblins claim it like doors? Or is my fortress impenetrable with it?

[Baffler]

I do this in most of my forts, and it does work fairly well. The men-at-arms are only really suited to patrol duty though, or for fighting dangerous wildlife, thieves, and snatchers. I wouldn't set them up against a siege though, or even an ambush squad if they're armed with ranged weapons. My guys get sorted into two types. Type A has a mail shirt, round shield, partisan, and kettle helmet. Type B has a mail shirt, metal crossbow, and kettle helmet.

[PDF urist master]

it seems very expensive though, especially for a fortress of 140 like mine. but once you get it set up you could probably reduce fatalities by 50%.

[Girlinhat]

Personally, I'd equip them with crossbows more than melee, and then use bulk bone bolts or something.  I mean, if you just cover your foes in enough bolts, something will hit the neck or have some luck!

[StagnantSoul]

I brought 30 cassiterite with me on embark, 120 bars of bronze right there, plus this place is rich in cassiterite and tetrahydrite, so I have lots of bronze. Plus, if I had to use iron, it'd be easy- I have 600+ bars right now. Thank you miners!

[pisskop]

Personally, I'd equip them with crossbows more than melee, and then use bulk bone bolts or something.  I mean, if you just cover your foes in enough bolts, something will hit the neck or have some luck!

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