After modding rabbits as a playable race and getting tigermen to survive worldgen (most of the time), I started playing around in the arena to see if I could judge the rabbits' chances in battle.
Turns out: not so good.
Rabbits have to use rabbit-sized weaponry. I don't know if you've ever seen a rabbit, but they're pretty small. You can hold them in the crook of your arm. To adequately use a weapon or tool, the item should be, at maximum, no bigger than the creature wielding it. In battle, then, they're effectively fighting off humanoids a dozen times their size with toothpicks while their enemies wield hammers with a contact area equal to the rabbit's entire body.
Iron-clad goblins vs Iron-clad rabbits, the goblins won one-on-one fights every time. The iron armor saved the rabbit from quite a few blows, but eventually they just get crushed or stabbed to death.
Iron-clad goblins vs steel-clad rabbits, the goblins still won one-on-one fights somewhere around two-thirds of the time.
I tried a huge battle (I know they're not scientific, since the sides get uneven really quickly and the survivors gang up on the losers, but I like the way it looks), 50 iron-clad goblins vs 50 steel-clad rabbits. Total massacre, though it did take a while. I had totally forgotten that I had put in the [TRANCES] tag for rabbits, so that was quite the sight. The rabbits were doomed, of course, but what a way to go.
This result was repeated over and over again vs different types of enemies. Tigermen warriors tore up the rabbits on the testing fields. Gorilla warriors proved that they were not to be trifled with. Even Kobolds, those wimpy little lizard-men, proved more than a match half the time, even for steel-clad rabbits.
Now I'm really puzzled. I've seen rabbits kick tail all over the world in legends. There are axerabbits that have taken down a bronze colossus, swordrabbits that have tackled hydras and survived, spearrabbits led armies to victory in campaigns vs goblins. But arena testing insists that the rabbit civilization should be all but wiped out by the end of worldgen. What the hell?
Impossible odds in every battle, and that's even if I manage to smelt steel. The first goblin ambush will likely decimate any forces I choose to raise. Kobolds will be a serious threat. There's nothing for it; time to start a rabbit fortress.