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[Garfunkel]

So my fort had 3 military squads and thus 30 warriors. One was armed with spears, one with axes and one with hammers. All iron equipment, mostly good quality but not masterworks. The hammer squad wasn't trained very well but the other two were. I got invaded by about 60 undead, with roughly 50 walking corpses and 10 intelligent undead leading them. All in a mix of iron, bronze and copper equipment.

I figured that this should be a relatively even fight as the invaders were strung out in a stretched column from map edge to my drawbridge, so I gathered my dwarfs at the entrance, lowered the drawbridge and sent them out to kill.

Imagine my shock when ALL of my military dwarves got slaughtered and only little under 20 undead were killed. As far as I can tell, my dwarves didn't get swarmed and it was the intelligent undead that proved to be my undoing - one of them was fighting three of my dwarves and he slew all of them.

Is it because undead feel no pain and suffer no blood loss? Should I have re-trained my military as 30 hammer users? Should I have waited until I have steel and adamantium gear? Or are undead better dealt with traps instead of a straight-up fight?

Just as background info, these three squads have killed cyclops and giants with zero problems, as well as fought off a goblin invasion (3:1 odds) with only like two casualties. Which is why the undead prowess in battle really took me by surprise.

[anewaname]

Your gamelog.txt will contain all of the combat reports ordered by time (and mixed with announcements, so it might be difficult to look at until you get used to it).

Look for clues as to what magics the intelligent undead used on your dwarfs, because that is probably why one was able to kill 3 dwarfs by itself, but also, maybe that fight included other intelligent undead attacking magically from a distance, or your dwarfs may already have been tired or wounded.

Undead have no pain, no exertion, and no blood loss. When armored, they are maybe 3 times tougher to fight, because every blow losses some oompf until the armor falls apart. Meanwhile your dwarf becomes more tired and raises their shield slower.

[DorfMan234]

Spears and blunt weapons are very ineffective against undead since they don't bleed and aren't affected by organ damage so they'll never bleed out or suffocate. They can only be killed by beheading or bisection. Headshots with spears and blunt weapons can still kill them "...tearing the brain!" "...explodes into gore!" but are less efficient than hacking them to pieces in my experience so axes and swords are your best bet.
Also worth mentioning that Undead sieges are OP and pretty much always have been, I wouldn't recommend fighting them in an open battle at all and to cheese them with traps instead. Military dwarves can fight maybe 1.5 their numbers of undead at most and if necromancers are around they'll need to be killed first since they'll just revive zombies over and over again then revive your dead military dwarves with their Legendary combat skills intact.

[Garfunkel]

Okay, thanks guys. Clearly, I underestimated how dangerous armoured undead are, especially with a bunch of intelligent undead leading them. They have left now so I'm rebuilding things and I'm now making a massive trap in which I can flush besiegers down into caverns.

[coalboat]

flush besiegers down into caverns.

I did exactly the same thing. However, those tough zombies even survived a fall of several dozens of z levels. I eventually applied magma. I logged the process in my slow-fort thread.

[Eric Blank]

Yeah, don't try to dump them in any caverns. I would use traps to thin their numbers, either cage traps to grab as many combatants as possible, weapon traps with serrated discs, repeating spike traps or just repeating raising/lowering drawbridges. The traps don't have to be perfect. Cage traps will catch any undead of non-trapavoid species. Weapon and spike traps will help weaken them even if theyre loaded with glass or copper weaponry, they just have to chop off a few exposed limbs, weaken their armor and maybe put down the first wave.

You can supplement traps with an elevated crossbow pillbox, but if the pillbox is pathable and not covered, your marks dwarves will try to jump out or run out into the field, and seeing dwarves will prompt the undead to start running.

Axe squads are your best bet. Iron weapons are OK if they're highly trained, but the more steel weapons the better. Iron armor should be acceptable most of the time as it will stop most blows, but sometimes they also have steel weapons.