Pretty novice player here. The cuteness of kobolds convinced me to push through the game's learning curve and actually get a settlement going.
A few pretty vicious failures. I had one fort dug into the dirt of a pretty impressive natural location -> a mountain trisected by a Y shaped chasm with a waterfall at one end, my kobolds on the cliff face opposite the waterfall, and a 10 z-level sheer drop down any face to a river. I set bridges so my fishbolds could access the river and the trees on the other sections of the mountain. A raccoon attacked and pushed my fish cleaner off the eastern bridge. His girlfriend kind of took it hard. After a little while, she threw a tantrum...
and ended her life in a kind of poetic (and Wile E. Coyote) manner. Afterwards, I got a spiral of madness and depression that saw my kobolds refusing to do anything, wasting away in their workshops and bedrooms.
My current run is fairly successful, though I got a bunch of miserable migrants I couldn't get much use out of. At 13 kobolds, currently, my migrants included two peasants, a metalworker, an armorsmith, two kobolds with ranks in the social skills and a plant grower. (Suggestions on finding tasks for these sods is welcome). They were a depressed lot after their arrival, being dirty and covered in flies, but a bed, chest, cabinet and chair for everyone seems to have lifted their moods. I've overfished the marshland and have resorted to hunting with well equipped kobolds (Bows I traded for, wood arrows, bone plate mail head to toe). Previous failures where deer absolutely murdered my kobolds have left me a touch wary of pitting them against anything larger than a breadbox.
Pretty solid fun. Some of my 'bolds ran into a black bear and one was left without any legs, the other has a pretty minor wound on his hand, but seems reluctant to get out of bed. I'm fairly attached to the little guys as a whole, and have been ensuring their comfort and well being.