I finally got my first real goblin siege, 56 units composed of bowmen, spearmen, lashers and ogres, all led by a goblin axe lord. My military consists of one squad of 10 iron-clad dwarves, wielding iron shields, save for the captain of the guard. He wields an artifact dingo bone shield. Half have silver war hammers, half have iron spears. They are decent enough, but I had serious doubts about them being able to take on this siege by themselves. The entrance cage traps did a good job of thinning them out. I caught two ogres, 11 bowmen (one elite), 3 lashers, 13 spearmen and the axe lord.
With their numbers halved, they hesitated to continue despite almost reaching the end of my cage traps. The remaining ogres eventually got frustrated and charged, opening a path through the cage traps. That's when a dwarf began furiously pulling a lever up and down, over and over, triggering the iron spikes hidden in the floor to shoot up again and again. The ogres had their feet and legs broken, only to fall over and get perforated. Several more goblins lost their lives to the spikes, until several bowmen and lashers remained, along with a couple spearmen. I read some bad things about whips slicing through even steel armor like butter, but I figured this was as good as it was going to get. The squad readied themselves, and charged.
The battle was brutal. I was deeply concerned after one dwarf was quickly slaughtered by enemy whips, but the rest of the squad caught up and smashed the melee troops into green goo, blocking every arrow headed their way. When it was all over, two goblin bowmen and two goblin spearmen were all that remained, running in terror. The squad had lost a man, and another was injured and unconscious, but they had won. One goblin spearmen was injured, and trying to drag himself away. The squad caught up to him and, letting out all their anger over their fallen comrade, proceeded to smash and stab this goblin for 3 pages. The captain of the guard bit off his toe. They refused to simply put him down, grimly stabbing and smashing until he bled to death. Finally, their first real battle over, they returned to the fort.
The injured soldier has a broken right upper arm, right shoulder, right upper leg, left false ribs, and left upper leg. But, he just may survive. A random dwarf is also in the hospital after taking an arrow to the leg due to poor burrow layout. Very exciting stuff.