A vile force of darkness has arrived!
10 goblins 4-5 years in, the forts first siege. The militia consists of 20 melee dwarves, all dabbling wrestlers with no weapons, and 10 marksdwarves.
Immediately ordered the closing of the compound drawbridges, and at this point Armok chose to send us a little blessing. The gobbos chased and killed someone's pet chicken, then since they couldn't see another target, stopped to think. On the east drawbridge.
A few seconds later the bridge rises and flings them into the sky. I paused to take a commemorative picture at this point.
Sadly none of them died from the fall. One landed inside the compound fairly unharmed, while the rest ended up in the trench two levels below where they started, each with an arm mangled beyond recognition. The bow/crossbow part of their force unfortunately avoided being on the bridge at the time.
At this point things got messy. I dispatched the entire militia to deal with the speargoblin who landed inside the walls (you can see him in the pic). One dwarf died before a marksdwarf imploded his skull with a bronze crossbow. One down, nine to go:
At this point I remembered my melee had no weapons (I like to train their wrestling for a bit first), so I ordered them to grab their favored weapon and sent them into the trench. To be able to mine away entire layers while still giving my miners a way out, I had an entrance dug down and come in through the window of the future barons office. Pictured here after the battle:
This was now a problem as it meant the gobbos in the trench could get in, so out march my brave dwarves to defend their home. Things go pretty well, now that they have actual weapons and are fighting weakened opponents, they are a lot more effective. The fight is not without losses however, as those in trench still fight back with all they have, and several dwarves fall. In addition the ranged gobbos who are still outside are raining as many projectiles as possible on forces in the trench. Most of the heavy fighting took place here:
At this point the tide of battle had decidedly turned in our favour, lowering the bridges I unleashed my dwarves on the four remaining gobbos, and they are dispatched with as much brutality as possible, my milita commander, armed with our artefact silver shield and artefact badger bone short sword is by far the most effective member of my forces, his shield bashes exploded at least a half dozen goblin body parts. The remains of the goblins final stand:
And that's how the first siege of Mansionshank went down. In the end we lost 2 melee soldiers and 4 marksdwarves, plus at least 4 civilians who got caught outside the walls. This makes the third time my broker has been almost killed. It was not most impressive siege, just 10 average gobbos, but it was most enjoyable battle I've had in some time. Military development has been slow this fort, normally by the time I get my first siege I have 20 odd weaponlords ready to rip them apart, but this time I didn't, and I quite enjoyed having to earn my victory. Now I just have to clean up the enormous mess it left behind.