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[Salkryn]

I've had one attack my fortress recently, and ended up using a dfhack command to kill it because none of my military dwarves would engage it at all. Seriously, I had 15 pages of combat reports, and not a single instance of any dwarf doing anything other than dodging or blocking flame. I can understand the melee dwarves having trouble engaging because of all of the fire and smoke, but my marksdwarves didn't engage either. Has anyone else had this problem, and if so, do you have a solution?

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, first, make sure you're not engaging on flammable ground. Yeah, dwarves can't see through smoke (and can't shoot what they can't see), but flame based procedurals don't generate any when just milling around on their own.

Second, they're incredibly fragile. Even non-dwarf-fatal hits from ballista, repeating spears or minecarts will put one down, with good chance of doing so in 1 hit.

To engage one in melee combat, you might want to use a hatch-based ambush that places dwarves immediately adjacent to the FB with not a tile between 'em, or (cave) dragons for their fire immunity. You could reduce the danger of fire or syndromes by preparing ground with 3/7 water, and break sight lines by a checkerboard.

The standard methods of dealing with steel webber FBs will work here, as well ofc - trapping between bridges or hitting them with a cavein - though their fragility means that even a glancing dust hit from cavein can break them like a twig.

[Skorpion]

Dump water on it until it goes out, perhaps?

[Lozzymandias]

Never had one that my marks dwarfs wouldn't engage and kill very quickly... no matter, there are solutions. Trap him in a gatehouse using some fireproof furniture as bait, and build a mine cart shotgun with rocks or blocks or bars or whatever you have a lot of. It doesn't have to do a lot of damage, being a fire creature there just has to be a lot of it.

[PatrikLundell]

Dump water on it until it goes out, perhaps?

Doesn't work. They won't get doused by swimming under water either. As mentioned, water is useful for the engaging dorfs, as the water can douse them when set on fire, but not as a counter to the critters.

[Sethatos]

As was said above Cave Dragons work great if you can catch and tame one as they are also immune to the smoke effects as well as the fire.

Another option is to use a 3X3 staircase at the end of a hallway. Position your melee dwarves one level above on the staircase that way the FB won't see them until it is on the stairs and your melee dwarves should all get a first strike in before the FB can do anything. That's enough to kill it most often as they are very fragile and can't take more than a few hits.

[Salkryn]

As was said above Cave Dragons work great if you can catch and tame one as they are also immune to the smoke effects as well as the fire.

Another option is to use a 3X3 staircase at the end of a hallway. Position your melee dwarves one level above on the staircase that way the FB won't see them until it is on the stairs and your melee dwarves should all get a first strike in before the FB can do anything. That's enough to kill it most often as they are very fragile and can't take more than a few hits.

I never seem to encounter cave dragons. Are they biome restricted, or just rare? I didn't think any of the cave creatures were restricted, but I may be misremembering.

[PatrikLundell]

Cave dragons are 3:rd cavern critters and they're fairly rare. You won't get them if there is no dry 3:rd cavern entry (i.e. if the 3:rd cavern is completely flooded). You also won't get them (or any other new critter groups) if your 3:rd cavern critter slot(s) is occupied by campers.

[Staalo]

If it's actually composed of fire, just a few marksdwarves behind fortifications usually does the trick for me. If it's made of something more substantial, my usual response is to trap it to a winding corridor with cave-ins until I can figure out how to dispose of it safely. Same goes for dusters with insta-kill syndromes.

[Maul_Junior]

Never had one that my marks dwarfs wouldn't engage and kill very quickly... no matter, there are solutions. Trap him in a gatehouse using some fireproof furniture as bait, and build a mine cart shotgun with rocks or blocks or bars or whatever you have a lot of. It doesn't have to do a lot of damage, being a fire creature there just has to be a lot of it.

What a waste.

Let me build on your idea:

Trap him in a flame-safe gatehouse, with a flame-safe  gate that you can raise and/or lower. This Gatehouse is immediately adjacent to your entrance, and provides a clear line of fire (yes, I know, bad pun) on any invaders/elves/in-laws.


EDIT: Wait, no. This is Flame body, not fire breath. my bad.

......lure invaders to attack the FB, to a point where marksdorfs can attack invaders, but not FB?

[Staalo]

EDIT: Wait, no. This is Flame body, not fire breath. my bad.

I'm not sure but I think all creatures made of fire have automatically fire breath and fire ball attacks. I've never seen a flame creature without them.

The worst was a clown made of fire who also had deadly dust in addition to fire based attacks...

[Merlota]

Usually I'll build a long zigzag out of fortifications with bridges at each end as a trap.  Thats the entrance to the caverns.  Build a room on one side and leave marksdwarves training in it.  Usually works well enough but I recall a flame beast required routing a water trickle (pumped from the baths) through it to extinguish !!Dwarves!! as they dealt with the beastie.

A word of warning, don't trap a FB made of flame.  The cage overheats and nobody will move it.   Had to arrange a cave in on that fiasco.

[Maul_Junior]

EDIT: Wait, no. This is Flame body, not fire breath. my bad.

I'm not sure but I think all creatures made of fire have automatically fire breath and fire ball attacks. I've never seen a flame creature without them.

The worst was a clown made of fire who also had deadly dust in addition to fire based attacks...

In that case, I retract my retraction.

Give it a gatehouse with double fortifications that can be sealed off via bridges. This gatehouse should be positioned in a place where it can !!welcome!! "guests" to the Fortress.

[bloop_bleep]

A word of warning, don't trap a FB made of flame.  The cage overheats and nobody will move it.   Had to arrange a cave in on that fiasco.

The cage doesn't burn up if you make it out of a fire-safe material. You can also trap it inside a containment unit by luring it with cat bait and closing the bridge behind it.

[Merlota]

The cage didn't burn up, it just got too hot to handle.  I wanted it in the tavern/zoo with all the other FBs but it just sat there untouched until eventually I dropped a rock on it.