I started a new fortress because I was growing bored with my old one, which I’d placed in an area that turned out to be a little too calm, a little too peaceful. The new fort got named “Lanceknights”: a good sign. Two years in, some goblin snatchers showed up: an even better one!
Four years in, a “siege” consisting of a single crossbow goblin was massacred by my eager military. Is that all they got?
Six years in is when the fun really started. A werebeast appeared and slaughtered the guard dogs, then rushed towards the depot. A little kid was playing in there, and the moment she saw the werebeast, she attacked it, because of course she did. It didn’t go well for her. The military arrived, a hammerdwarf wielding a lovely artifact hammer took care of the were, and no one was bitten, so I sighed with relief and --
Hey. Hey! Why did the captain of the guard just murder that hammerdwarf? Oh jeez. Was that werebeast a dwarf? Is this a loyalty cascade? Keep the fort sealed! Contain the damage! Okay, okay, looks like no one else is getting attacked, so whatever happened must be over. Phew.
That’s when the siege hit. That exact moment. Trolls, beak dogs, the whole deal, easily outnumbering my military three to one.
But when the dust cleared, there were a dozen caged goblins, troll teeth everywhere, and not a scratch on my dwarfs. Hooray for dwarven steel!
The entrance hallway, afterwards:
A couple years later, the goblins arrived with much greater numbers, well over 100 of them this time. Not that it helped them much. I kept the outside drawbridges open too long because I wanted to get all the beak dogs (we were running low on meat), and three veteran dwarfs died as a result. Later, from reading one of their slabs, I learned this goblin attack was given the name “The Molten Assault”, which was pretty awesome: we were the magma in which their invading forces melted away to nothingness.
Some relics of that battle, on a roof three levels above the killing field:
Just half a year later, the goblins tried again, but I wasn’t anywhere near finished smashing all the teeth and used loincloths from last time so I locked them out and let the marksdwarfs have a try. They shot and killed a grand total of 6 before the other 130 invaders decided to run away. Such courage, those goblins. Soon after, I got my dwarfs to build a wall around the whole fort. Not to keep the next set of invaders out, but to keep them from escaping too quickly.
The latest fun challenge: an elf ambush! There were about a dozen of them; they’re fast but they die quickly. This is actually the first time I’ve seen elves on this embark site, and the first time any of my dwarfs have ever been attacked by elves. I trust they’ll be back later with more of their buddies.