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[Kamitorrorga]

What is your worst military disaster that ever happened to you in the entire time you have played dwarf fortress in general?

My worst was when I made what I called my first "real" working fortress. Ofcourse, it was in my clueless stage and the fortress and its workings itself was flawed. I did not know how to give people labors, thinking that if I didnt have an armorer, I couldnt make armor with the rather abundant pieces of hematite that inhabited my stockpiles. I did, however, have a metalcrafter who created metal swords for my military. At the time, I believed that until I got an armorer, I had to make do with what I had and keep my troops constantly training; I became reliant on the opinion that their training would make up for their lack of proper military dress. I ended up giving them layers of coats and cloth to atleast give them something of a uniform and make a standard equip. Later on into my military program, I believe I traded some wooden crafts for a boar leather armor piece, which I gave to my militia commander. I saw it as a status symbol for him, a ballistic vest to protect the leader. But then...

The goblins came. They came better prepared then I thought they would, with atleast 3-4 archers traveling with them. I muster my troops using burrows (Also didnt know how to use the squad screen) and they appear at the entrance. The goblins come within sight and my troops charge forward. Their archers let loose and one of my 4 sword dwarves is cut down. I quickly queue them to go back deeper into the fortress. However, my militia commander got hit, fell against a wall, and got shot at, but not killed. I've kept the thought that his armor helped him survive. Meanwhile, I take the oppurtunity of the goblins being closer to the entrance, sending out my remaining two sword dwarves who manage to cut through the goblins, their training paying off for that moment. We won, but the worst is to come. Finally, I get an armorer and we begin producing iron bars. After finishing that order, I quickly send my armorer to get straight to making iron armor. Before he was down though, the goblins came back. They were better prepared, and yet again, I send my troops up, albeit deeper inside the halls of the fortress, which turned out to be a bad move. They were far enough away from the corner that got deeper into the heart from the entrance that the goblin archers would have enough time to cut down our 3 remaining soldiers, militia commander included. I begin to panic, and I designate a new burrow deeper in the fortress, but it was too late. The goblins chased my crowds down the halls and the walls were stained with blood, vomit and floors were adorned with endless piles of guts, limbs, and the bodies of dwarves. Only one child managed to escape the fortress.

[Kamitorrorga]

Is anyone there? Anyone going to share something?

[kemoT]

For me it was the death o my first real fort. After over 10 years a giant zombie siege came, over 100 of them with armor and weapons. The fort was VERY low on FPS, so I decided to either win this battle, or lose the whole fortress. I burrowed all my civilians to the lowest level, one containing cemeteries and tombs and sent my militia to the second, underground drawbridge with my two best warriors, the militia commander and baron behind to be the last line of defense. Then I opened the gates. My soldiers fought well, one of the axeman killed ten zombies, but they were outnumbered 10:1. In the last, epic charge Kadol Khadolkil, one of the starting seven, died taking many with her. And then, after all the militia fell, undead fell upon the crowded, frightened dwarfs. I have never seen so much gore on so small surface.

[Kamitorrorga]

Dang...Well atleast its not as embarassing as mine...

[Bearskie]

Forgotten beast showed up, it had webs. Sent about four squads of fifteen legendary soldiers to meet him, together with about five marksdwarves. Heh, I thought it would be enough. Bloody massacre.

[Wilm0chimp]

Im not sure I've ever really had a disaster. I either have a horrifically under trained or under equipped (or both) army of useless peasants that die nearly instantly, or a squad of uber godlike unkillable siege breakers.

Actually I can recall an instance where I sent a squad of 5 legendary masterwork clad steel axedwarves to face off a forgotton beast. It was a forlorn hope though and I knew it, as it had a rotting dust syndrome. Every single one of them rotted to death in the caverns, and I had to seal it off and not retrieve their corpses.

[Grimlocke]

Well there was this one time where I mis-planned a pressurized cistern, and simultaneously forgot that climbing is a thing.

This was a fairly fledgling fortress, and most of its efforts were going to churning out blocks, building a surface fortress, mining out a cavern and churning out hemp clothing for trade and local use. Its military consisted of a pair of poorly trained squads with mediocre quality bronze armor, which is why I did not try to fight the web-spitting, skinless-whatnot forgotten beast that showed up but instead trapped it with a draw bridge and a chained dog so I could farm 'Thol's forgotten beast silk'.

All was going well. I dug out a room and hallway with fortifications in between, chained up some dogs in the room and set a 1-tile cave-in trap to trap the beasty in the hallway. Said beasty was however not interested in dogs it could no path to, so I duh out a channel above the hallway, dropped in another puppy, and promptly got distracted by a pressurized flooding that was started with a delay with the river thawing.

The flood was quickly contained and the only casualty was a random child but I was distracted enough to not notice old Thol had come up to eat up a his puppy and noticed he could climb up for much bigger, tastier food.

Sooo, naturally Thol ran up the central stairway, depopulated half my fortress and ran right over my peasant levies that very tactically showed up one by one.

At least he also killed off the sudden rash of bards my fortress had grown.

[Kamitorrorga]

I really wish that the humans wouldnt flood so much into the fortress, so yeah.

So a one guy's disaster was a misplaced cistern and the other was because of rotting dust.

So that means most of people military blunders are just because of forgotten beasts?

[KillzEmAllGod]

Thinking that an eyeless FB spider was harmless, Over 30 dwarfs died and that was pretty much the end of the fortress because my civ had no migrants to spare.

[Purdurabo]

I had my entire marksmen squad   jump off my 4 story tower into my moat and mostly drown because I did not put a roof over the fortifications.

[mobucks]

I only had 3 legendary swordsdwarves in an old fort and lost all 3 during a massive seige that included the elf king of goblins. They managed to turn back the invaders thanks to help from some wardogs but eventually all three died of bloodloss. In a scramble to make a real military I drafted twenty recruits into squads set to "replace clothing" BEFORE making the armor! Before I realized my mistake the dwarves of the fort were in a tantrum spiral. It was a real "shirts vs skins"! I watched in awe of the chaos for a bit only to have the elf king arrive with an even more terrifying force.

[Killgoth]

Back in 34.11 I had a fortress built into the rocky side of a waterfall. They key point is that the cliff face was many z-tiles high with the river essentially dividing the map into 3 quadrants, and I had built narrow bridges connecting the 3 quadrants on the surface that crossed over the lake far below.
I played turtle because I wanted this to be the first fort where I built a true army that could go out and fight the goblin hordes in the open instead of only shooting through fortifications. I outfitted 3 squads with full steel armor and weapons, then trained them in my first ever danger room until they were all legendary.

The goblins came and I opened my fortress and my soldiers marched out to meet them. The two armies met on the cross-walks I built connecting the quadrants. I lost over 75% of my army because their epic dodge skills took them over the sides of the walkway and to a watery grave far below. My remaining forces were overwhelmed and wiped out completely.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

Either web mega beast, fire mega beast, or both, can't remember clearly.
Goblins? They can't even touch legendary soldiers, unless you are talking about earlier versions?

[darkflagrance]

I had built up my military from day 1. Speardwarves, hammerdwarves, macedwarves armed with morning stars, swordsdwarves armed with stolen long swords, and of course, axe dwarves composing half of my army, fifty all told. In addition to these I had carefully filtered guest applicants so that only soldiers joined, and I had another twenty of these, fierce veterans in foreign armor.

I was playing the Fortress Defense Mod, and suddenly it was announced that a siege of Great Fiend Spiders had arrived. Confidently I arrayed my military within my twisted halls, forming a solid 3x4 block of flashing champions. Steely-eyed they awaited the arrival of the chitinous horde.

The spiders were merciless. Fifty of them came, all capable web-slingers. To avoid disaster, what I SHOULD have done was charge out to meet them, so that only a few of them would be able to shoot web at one time, and my military would be able to kill some of them before the rest entered into range.

Instead, I let the spiders bunch up, while bunching up my own soldiers, so that all of them were caught in unending waves of web. Slowly the spiders strangled my paralyzed dwarves to death, if their pincers did not first pierce through the helmets of prone soldiers. My seventy knights fought back, killing half of the spiders - but each fps tick brought another friendly death, slowly my forces dwindled, and soon the spiders had free reign of my fortress. All were devoured that day.

[TheFlame52]

Had my dwarves training underground, and when a goblin invasion showed up, they started vomiting. Everyone died except one macedwarf, who wiped out the whole siege by himself and became my militia commander.