I know, it's been a while since this thread was used. But the topic kind of fits and it was a good read so far, so I thought I'd rather add to it instead of opening a new one.
As far as I have read until now, there seem to be three types of animal people favoured.
The spider men for the multiple limbs, the elephant men for the sheer size and strength, and the turtle / turtoise men for the ability to withdraw into their shell.
But how about wearing armour?
Assuming I have no clue about modding or how to properly use DFHack and just want to play the game (so I cannot "make" suitable armour for the three types suggested above), would it be worth to pick something more dwarf sized, so it can wear armour?
Three species come to mind in particular:
- The wild boar man, with a size of 75,000 being the largest animal man who is still able to wear (human) armour.
- Snapping turtle men sound like a very tempting alternative, since they are of the same size accoring to the
List of creatures by adult size in the Wiki. But as far as I can tell, that entry is wrong. The wiki page of the snapping turtle men states their size as 50,000, which seems to be correct; and too small for armour.
- The hyena / cougar man, with their size of 65,000 being able to wear both dwarven and human sized armour.
- The cheetah man, with their standard movement speed of 40 kph being ~33% quicker than other races - and they can still wear dwarven sized armour.
Could those three be an alternative to the ones mentioned above?
Or would the advantages of the others outweigh the armour?