My second .31 fortress is now getting interesting.
Got up to about 50 pop, had killed several FBs without any poisoning, some gobbos and various cave dwellers. I run an open fort policy, more open due to the three caverns and minimum z levels between them. The military are forever chasing crundles down, but at least it keeps the meat and leather stocks up.
Then another FB appeared. A scaley, horned maggot, with a some fearsome breath. No problem, send in the legendary axe lords. Oh. One dead. Ive not had a combat death for a good while now. And another. hmm. Well I hope its getting injured and the rest will finish it off. Then again, perhaps not. It appears that a @Bronze Axe@ wont cut the scales. I had 8 military and a couple of trainy marksdwarves, and was down to the last couple, so with the FB distracted chasing a hauler around the lower caverns, and no obstruction limiting its access to the main stair core, I ordered the civs to a new burrow outside, where I could dig a new hole and wall ourselves in, at least until I had worked out what to do.
Everyone streamed outside as I designated a new stair entrance when....
"Curses an Ambush!"
Oh dear...
"Curses an Ambush!"
"Curses an Ambush!"
"Curses an Ambush!"
Now Im down to 9 dwarves, and we are stuck in the upper levels of the old fortess, with a bridge to the main fort dug out to isolate us from the now named scaley maggot. Only one dwarf seems uphappy at the mass of death, so I guess I had them working too hard to make friends. The only couple and their child are dead, and the recently appointed legedary miner / expedition leader seemed to scare the gobbos off with his pick, without getting any kills. All the military were long dead since then, so I guess I got lucky.
Now I need to work out how to kill the beast, and to trap arm my entrance against goblins, so I dug another long stair down to the magma, to lay out some magma smelters and forges. Of course forgetting I am short an anvil. I sure hope the next caravan brings one. As the channels were dug out above the magame caves to provide power to the smelters...
"Praise the Miners!"
First time ever.
I have had various ideas for getting out of this, and some of them involve magma. But this is the most challenging fort since about my third fortress when I learnt all abut carp. Until I learnt about Restricted traffic designation. But it is the most fun.