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[Saiko Kila]

Maces should be better against unarmoured foes, but I believe the most enemies in my fort will have some sort of armour, plus supernatural resistance to concussion. Like goblins. Besides, with two legendary weaponsmiths, two ores of silver and three ores of iron, I should not have problems with masterwork weapons, be it warhammers or maces.

I was also musing on keeping a mace for an adventurer... but after some experience with demons, I believe the best overkill weapon is a thrown one. And it doesn't matter too much what is actually thrown. One mace takes the space of two warhammers /Are there throwin' axes somewhere? Would be probably even better/

[krenshala]

This is because while they do the damage in general, the mace has four times the contact area at a quarter the velocity (assuming the raws for maces and warhammers have not changed since I dug into it back on 0.31).

Well, according to the wiki those numbers weren't correct even in v0.31.

Maces have twice the size and twice the contact area of warhammers.

I was going from memory.  So, twice the contact area but half the velocity.  Same general end result: the warhammer punches through armor better, but the mace smashes stuff better, all for roughly the same potential damage.

[Sadrice]

The problem is, maces tend to deal bruising damage over a larger area.  This stacks up real quick, so you might get Bruise X 5 then the injured part explodes into gore, and this is an excellent way to deal with zombies.  But against living opponents, armored or not, warhammers often deal disabling blows on the first strike.  A broken leg makes you fall over, a broken arm makes you drop your weapon, a broken head is often an instakill.  These blows may not pulp the body beyond reanimability, but they certainly reduce the ability of a living opponent to fight back.  During the five or so bruising strikes a mace is likely to get before doing crippling damage, the enemy can be counterattacking.

I mean, maces aren't bad.  I am fond of them, and often use them, if I have spare recruits with the skill, but they tend to get fewer kills than my hammerdwarves, and seem to be more vulnerable since they leave their opponents in fighting condition for longer.  Still, legendary macedwarves with full kit will tear through goblins like nobodies business.  But hammers are better.

EDIT:  In my observation, legendary macedwarves have fair odds of getting "explodes into gore" reactions on  the first strike, and break more bones.  At  this skill level, they are pretty brutal.  However, for lesser skilled dwarves maces seem to do a lot of bruising, while warhammers work well even at lower skill levels.

[Max™]

Well, if you could have your dorfs target stuff smarter then I would not see a reason for an undead squad to use anything but axes, neck/head, hand, hand... useless corpse, next! Vs bash, bash, bash, bash, bash, bash... oh, still gotta deal with the hands, bash bash, bash... bash, bash, bash... bash? Bash... ok, bash, finally.

[BoredVirulence]

Well, if you could have your dorfs target stuff smarter then I would not see a reason for an undead squad to use anything but axes, neck/head, hand, hand... useless corpse, next! Vs bash, bash, bash, bash, bash, bash... oh, still gotta deal with the hands, bash bash, bash... bash, bash, bash... bash? Bash... ok, bash, finally.

Axes are fine, unless there's reanimation. And who wants to haul away so many body parts...

Although, I would be curious to see a comparison of how quickly weapons pulp body parts. I imagine hammers or maces would pulp faster, although an edged weapon with less propensity for "sailing off in an arc" might work pretty fast...

[Pwned dwarf]

artifacts can make foreign weapons i think

[Proudnerd]

None of them. I prefer Axes. I find Warhammers deflect off clothing far too often. An axe is heavy enough to break bones and sever limbs and also slices the target. Axes are the best weapon.

[Saiko Kila]

artifacts can make foreign weapons i think

Yeah, I was thinking - maybe whip? But a whip is brutal only in hands of goblin invaders in fortress mode. I tried learning a whip in adventurer, but was disappointed. It's good against armoured humans, but there are better ways. Against unarmoured creatures (like night creatures, which are probably the most serious threat except demons) whips suck badly. They are even not good as a missile, because they are so light. But I was curious how platinum whip would do, anyway.

I haven't considered any edged weapons, because platinum I imagine heavy battle axe to be quite good at breaking bones even being dull, but somehow I think that a mace or a warhammer would be better.

After reading these, and recollecting my experiences, I  think that maces are for aces, that is they require more skill (and strength) to be effective, so for early military a warhammer user will probably see more rewards sooner.

Now, I'm also curious how a platinum pick would do. Pick is a piercing weapon (I believe), but with such a mass it could be effective. Plus training miners is easy.

[That Wolf]

You didnt use a whip properly then my brother.
I avoid them in adventure mode cause ya know I duz likes me a challenge.
Aim for the throat. Pow dead, pow dead, pow dead. Oh you think im playing, POW.
The throat is only ever protected by cloaks and tunics, and a whip of any material will do well against a throat, silver whips work well cause a whip is bludgeoning damage, so a platinum whip would be very effective just unmodded dwarves cant make them.
So its a human thing.
I want to test a candy whip though. I have a feeling it could be effective... not a good one

[Saiko Kila]

You didnt use a whip properly then my brother.
I avoid them in adventure mode cause ya know I duz likes me a challenge.
Aim for the throat. Pow dead, pow dead, pow dead. Oh you think im playing, POW.
The throat is only ever protected by cloaks and tunics, and a whip of any material will do well against a throat, silver whips work well cause a whip is bludgeoning damage, so a platinum whip would be very effective just unmodded dwarves cant make them.
So its a human thing.
I want to test a candy whip though. I have a feeling it could be effective... not a good one

Hah, I wanted to reproduce what I saw in fortress mode. The breaking bones and related unconsciousness thing. But I was quite frustrated with my efforts, and out of the frustration a Legendary Strangler Dwarf was born. He aims for throat - but with his bare hands. Almost bare, strangling goblins without gloves would be unhygienic. Next time I will try the go-for-throat technique with a whip. Silver whips are rather frequently observed in human forts.

And if I even have another weapon mood I will try some of these (though I need to mine some of adamantine ore for that. I have uncovered it, but since I dislike adamantium I haven't bothered).

[Richard Von Veger]

I would prefer warhammers as they can break bones very easily.Silver(or any dense metal) is very good for blunt damages as blunt attacks increase in severity the denser the weapon is.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

The best weapon is a platinum minecart filled with other platinum minecarts filled with lava. One-hit-instakill against anything. Doubly so if it's not handheld but impulse-ramp accelerated. A platinum warhammer, however...I think a mace might be more useful. One-hit kills with a warhammer are almost as likely with lesser metals, but when fighting undead, even a slightly higher chance to pulp is worth it. And aren't artifacts three times as likely to hit their target as normal weapons?

[Afghani84]

And aren't artifacts three times as likely to hit their target as normal weapons?

Yes, they are.

[doublestrafe]

I haven't played .40.x yet--been away for a while--but if it's anything like .34, isn't the correct answer morningstar? It's an artifact, and that means foreign weapons are fair game.

[Loci]

I haven't played .40.x yet--been away for a while--but if it's anything like .34, isn't the correct answer morningstar? It's an artifact, and that means foreign weapons are fair game.

Foreign weapons from weaponsmith moods are vanishingly rare because they require a dwarf with a preference for the weapon. A dwarf without said preference is limited to weapons that the civilization can normally produce (mostly).

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Strange_mood#Artifacts_created


Also, morningstars are edged weapons, which might significantly impact their performance when made from poor edge-quality materials.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Morningstar