Windmirrors enters its 10th year after a violent close to Year 9.
Fortress spent most of the year trading, building "bridgehead" entries into two caverns, mining adamantine, and also starting on a plan to bring water and magma to the surface to cast a big heap of obsidian to serve as a central keep of the fortress - simply to do it. And the giant war cheetahs had cubs...
In the middle of Obsidian a goblin siege turned up. A few thieves, five squads of infantry (spear, hammer, archer, archer, xbow) and three squads of trolls.
The attack split up and went into all the access tunnels (North, East, and South.)
The east attack was a single archer squad. The drawbridge was closed behind them and the grinders took care of the rest. A lone survivor got the chop from an axe squad in passing.
The northern attack was a hammer squad and a squad of trolls. The squad leader and the first few goblins went swimming in magma. The trolls got bogged down on the bridge over the magma as well. And so it was 4-5 trolls and about a dozen goblins milling around the stairs going down to the tunnel. At this point the bridge covering the magma was put up and three 4-dwarf melee squads went up the tunnel (axe, sword, and spear - steel armor and generally master level in their weapons.) The upper end of the tunnel and entrance gets decorated with troll bodies and pieces of goblin armor. A few trolls try to run for it and get chased down by a speedy sword dwarf who likes decapitating them.
The main assault was the goblins going into the South Tunnel. Lead by a troll squad, then two squads of infantry (spear and archer), followed by a second troll squad, and then a crossbow squad bringing up the rear. The first troll squad goes down to the traps and a few dodging into magma, but they also manage to jam a few traps with their bodies. The infantry don't get far as their leaders exhibit superior dodging skill - - into a pool of magma.
The second troll squad gets further into the tunnel, but comes to grief in the spike traps guarding the grinder. This allows the crossbow squad to finally enter and get into the grinder - with the squad leader clearing the grinder traps and getting caught in a cage trap. (First goblin to get that far!)
At this point twenty goblins are still left at the tunnel entrance, a 50/50 mix of spear and archer goblins. The militia gathers five squads (axe, axe, sword, spear, xbow) adding to about eighteen dwarves and goes up the tunnel once a bit over a dozen are there. The first dwarves to exit the tunnel get the brunt of an arrow salvo and one goes into a martial trance as a result. Otherwise, the goblins get hit by what is essentially a volcanic eruption of dwarven steel. After a few seconds of melee the 6-7 goblins still standing run for the south edge of the map. A few of them even manage to make it off.
Over the entire fight the dwarves suffer three injuries of which two require hospital stays. A speardwarf has a fractured rib, and the spear squad captain is laid up with a broken hip, broken leg, and injuries to both hands. Fully sutured up, and no infection so far.
A few squads got their baptism of fire here. One spear dwarf got six kills and a nickname from this fight alone. A veteran axe dwarf added another five goblins to his kill list. And a lot of dwarves got credit for three or four goblins between the two fights.
At this point I should check the population of the goblin civ. They've been losing 80-100 citizens per year between the ambush teams and the annual siege that gets ripped up.
The casualties do point out that I need to verify I have some reservists working up and spare armor and weapons. Otherwise, I might end up fighting with reduced squads. But for now the sands surrounding Windmirrors contain the sun bleached bones of many a goblin.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6197924 times)