Year 10 - Ironfierce
Just finished dusting off the latest siege - having a couple of them each year. Currently the entrance is free of traps and the goblin hordes simply surge into the fort, and oblivion. Makes quite the spectacle and is way more satisfying than capturing, disarming and all that malarky. The front drawbridge is still operational - but its primary purpose these days is to keep the horde in, rather than out. The party isn't over till it's over.
The greenskins have to first negotiate the entrance corridor, suffering withering fire from nine elite marksdwarves over a 15 tile dash. Following that, they must face the guardroom. This is something of a challenge, being staffed by three Mace Lords, one armed with an artifact mace and a dozen lesser mortals, one of these toting an artifact sword. They are all dressed in the height of fashion - all of them wearing gold-studded masterwork steel armour. Well, the sword squad is called "The Golden Haze' and after outfitting them there was a load of stuff left over.
In all this time have only lost one axedwarf to a bleed-out due to a lopped hand - but did have a minor drama with a sword dwarf whose pet had died. For some reason its corpse was placed on the refuse pile instead of the perfectly adequate coffin available in the pet cemetery - puzzling. Gave him a 4 month sabbatical before re-absorption into the military - seems to be okay now, his cat is still at the dump, however.
Things are going quite well, apart from the kid situation. 100 of the little bleeders! And now I hear that they don't grow properly! I have pretty much decided to start burrowing them in little groups of friends, who are then going to attend a slumber party hosted by Urist McVampire. He has been languishing on a gold chain in the dungeon for the last eight years, and was only meant to be serving a year for murder, so he deserves a break. I'm going to set up a system where hopefully kids can be sent into the 'kindergarten' never to be heard from again, Pied Piper style. Surely, McVampire won't publicise his own murders?...have slabs on standby, we'll see how that goes.