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[Brandino144]

     I have had a few amazing war stories that were umm... amazing. For an example, I had a recruit whose only military skill was a dabbling wrestler wipe out a whole group of goblin marksmen is a siege.
     I'm sure many of you have amazing war stories go ahead and share them

[Kel the Oblivious]

There I was, fourth year of a prosperous fortress. We were around a hundred strong, had a duke, taxcollecter, and the hated Hammerer. It was mid summer, the farmers were tending to their above ground harvests, the Hammerer was sitting back watching them toil, stroking her steel warhammer, waiting for one of the noble demands to do unheeded., and a pair of wood cutters were returning with some logs to add to the stock pile.

When out of no where, three full raid groups appear at my front gate. The wood cutters managed to evade them, the farmers locked the door to their walled off farms. The dwarves below ground could not manage to pull the death bridge lever in time. I rallied the army and sent them screaming to battle.

But I did not need to. Turning to see the gibbering horde of wretched gobbos, she unfastened her warhammer and charged into the fray. A pair of arrows struck her, one embedding itself in her spine, the other piercing her lung. That did not stop her. With grace and fury she caved in skulled, imploded chests, crushed legs and pelvis in one might swig. Out of maybe 25 goblins, only three managed to turn tail and run.

They did not get far, as the perfectly agile, unarmored crossbow dwarves sprinted out, riddling them full of holes with iron bolts.

The Hammerer would never rise again, paralyzed from the waist down. But she had saved the lives of many of my dwarves, and she was given a place of honor. A 10x10 room, decorated with the bronze she so loved, a bed made of the finest featherwood, decorated with the bones of her enemies. So fine is this room, parties are held often in her honored. And only my pair of legendary engravers were allowed to smooth and engrave the walls. Nearly all of them are her striking down one goblin after another.

Because of her action, the fortress still thrive and prospers, although on a different computer so I can not show you the awesome that is Cog Steelthread

[Foa]

The first usage of the prototype of the Operandai:Falling Forges, it caused great pain to both sides, both in action, and construction, and collapsible rigs are hard to make.

When I tested it, those nobles didn't survive the magma that splashed everywhere.


It sent my greatest warriors, some elves, and many goblins into the fiery depths, I didn't like the fact that I left Hammerer out of the testing grounds.
The technique took too long to make and is really hard to construct and fill, it was later used to repel large raids and mega-bastards.


Then there was a time when I made the dark forest, it was made of many tall and slender collapsing towers, it was fun.

Fill the forge, nearly killed Noobcakes, many times, but the end result was good, friggin Kobolds.

It's a Trap, helped the Pass out in filtering out those fucking Archers.

[Cheshire Cat]

heh, i hope that recruit got a really nice room and an epic mausoleum.

and i like the idea of a crippled hero sitting in a four poster bed with the bones of their slain enimies inlaid into the decorations and dangling from the canopy, hosting social gatherings and telling the little dwarves about their advantures. seriously i hope this sort of thing gets into the game as dwarves social lives and relationships improve, it would encourage people to keep their disabled veterans around.

before i really understood the legendary power of champions with high armor, shield and wrestling skills in adition to their main weapon proficiency, i would pull everyone inside during a siege, have the goblins enter a big courtyard, then shoot them to death with crossbowmen and siege engines. then one day a really big siege pulled up, i hit the alarm and had all dwarves scramble for indoors, yet for some reason one champion hammerdwarf hung around outside.

i at first wrote her off for dead, but after she took down two entire groups of goblins i decided to race out my military to try and help her out. she took down a further 2 groups, then met the second last bunch who were armed with bows. she took a few arrows, then sent that group running, then downed the last batch of wrestlers before the rest of my army appeared to mop up the wounded. she then passed out due to blood loss. when i checked her out just before she died she had arrows stuck in her all over, and a whole bunch of red wounds including one to her heart. yes, she survived long enough to send the last two groups of goblins packing, with an arrow in her heart! she got a really nice tomb for that.

another epic event was when i decided to start cross training my first ever military of crosbowmen with hammers. my captain of the guard picked up a steel hammer, and promptly belted his sparring partners liver out, across the room, out of the fortifications and down one z level into my dining room. his thoughts about it were "has had a satisfying sparring session lately, has taken joy in slaughter, has recently lost a friend to tragedy."

last was my best mayor ever vs the fortress guard. i had just survived the HFS event, and the mayor had lost her 30 something pet cats who were hunting cave spiders in the catacombs where the fight happened, along with lots of dwarves who were hauling adamantium who were her friends. so the tantrummed, and when my legendary wrestler plate wearing guardsmen turned up to arrest her she beat three of them to death and gave a fourth spinal injuries by throwing his friends steel boot at him. this started a set of imprisonments and tantrums that ended the lives of several other dwarves and a few of her remaining cats who tried to comfort her.

eventually after she was imprisoned she went beserk and pulled the dwarf who was bringing her waters arm off. the prison was a well trafficked place and she kept punching passers by till she eventually attacked one of my adamantium clad champions. so he punched her back with his adamantium hammer. i was so very sad. she was such a cool mayor, but in the future ill be careful not to let dwarves with the label "is in a constant state of internal rage" reach legendary in four different skills like she was.

[Silfurdreki]

another epic event was when i decided to start cross training my first ever military of crosbowmen with hammers. my captain of the guard picked up a steel hammer, and promptly belted his sparring partners liver out, across the room, out of the fortifications and down one z level into my dining room. his thoughts about it were "has had a satisfying sparring session lately, has taken joy in slaughter, has recently lost a friend to tragedy."

  

I don't really have any great military stories, since most of all sieges is dealt with by crossdowdwarves shooting from fortifications and a retracting bridge over a bottomless pit.

[Onlyhestands]

epic hammerer

Yeah the Hammerer can be pretty badass, and even better he will be unable to hammer anybody!


The only really epic thing I ever had was a lumbercutter who was ambushed, so I figured he was a gonner and drafted him. He killed enough Goblins to drive off the two ambushes and was uninjured.

[worldspawn]

Just now have my own story to add. I'm trying to make a perfect army of 50 champions but sparring injuries to the brain keep screwing that up. Usually I just deactivate the affected dwarf and draft another in his place. In this case I had 3 axelords and an elite wrestler who were injured, but stuck as soldiers since they were elites.

I took all 4 of them and sent them after a massive siege that was half bowgoblins to have them killed and then I'd send my main army to deal with the siege. However, these dwarves had max stats due to years of idle time socializing in my meeting hall. These 4 dwarves murdered the first wave of about 20 goblin wrestlers before having all of the bowgoblins catch up and descend on them. All 3 axelords fell on the spot as I predicted and I was getting ready to send out my main army.

But then something happened. My lone elite wrestler started tearing the bowgoblins apart with his bare hands. Arrows were flying all over the screen by the dozen but he kept throwing goblin pieces all over the place. Moving from goblin to goblin their numbers started dropping and he started taking hits. I saw multiple red injuries and as he dropped like the 40th goblin he took a arrow to the head and now has a red brain injury, among other red injuries all over his body from other arrows.

So now I'm thinking to send my army out since he's down and out and soon to be finished off. He doesn't die though. I looked and saw the "SIEGE" message at the top of the screen was gone. I didn't need to send out my army, as one lone wrestler ripped nearly all of the bowgoblins to shreds. All that's really left is zounds of macegoblins, speargoblins, and a shitload of wrestlers and they're all fleeing.

[lowsodium]

I had a lone hunter roaming around when a goblin siege of about 15 came up. I didn't even know he was out there, so far every hunter I've ends up dead cus of the ice wolfs that come around about once a year. So needless to say i was shocked when i went to actually look at em and see this lone hunter, only slightly injured, had already killed their leader and was working on another one of his lessors. The entire siege got scared and ran off after that.

I wish I drafted him into the army to start a squad of marksdwarfs.

[Cheshire Cat]

worldspawn - there are a few things you can do to help your dwarves out, especially against enimies with ranged weapons.

first, your wrestler may have done a lot better then everyone else because the wrestling skill increases the chance of dodging attacks. at least in melee combat, legendary wrestlers are untouchable. i always put my dwarves in the best armor i have with a shield, and set them to wrestle for a good long time. with high or max armor use, shield use and wrestling they are very very hard to kill, and you can then train them in just about anything else. the armor and shield use along with wrestling dramatically cut down on sparring injuries.

dont use spears. they have a terrible tendancy to get stuck, and your dwarf will stand there trying to pull it out while everything else around him beats him to death. champions with spears do very badly compared to champions with anything else. spears are good at hurting the internal organs of things, so lots of spears against a megabeast may be decent, but not against lots of small targets. any of the other weapons work fine, though i love my axes for their dismembering effect.

last, the absolute best way to take on goblins with bows or crossbows is to have your army wait around a blind corner just inside your fort. a single champion will very quickly tear them apart at close range. shield use and a good shield and plate armor will help a lot against instant kills from ranged if you must fight in the open.

you can forbid weapon stockpiles or lock stockpile doors to try and force your military to spar with wooden or silver weapons, which do only 50% of the damage an equivalent iron one would do. you need to buy wooden weapons from the elves. i personally dont do this anymore, as once my dwarves are good at wrestling, armor and shield they never manage to hurt each other. check the wiki for details on weapon swapping arrangements if you want to use it.

so, for invincible 50 strong phalanx of champions
1) train wrestling, armor, shield first
2) give them the best armor you have. you can get them to wear leather, chain and plate all at once
3) keep melee soldiers around blind corners to force ranged foes to come to close quarters.

you can also retire any minor spine or head injuries to crossbow duty or royal guard, they can still do good there.

[Tormy]

Eheh, I would like to nominate my lowskilled spearsdwarf for the "heroism" award.
So a while ago in one of my fortresses a dragon has invaded my lands. He managed to kill a couple of civilians and a few animals. He also killed 2 of my best soldiers. [This was a modded game, the dragon had SIZE:60 for example..]
Then my newbie spearsdwarf rushed out of the gates, and managed to slay the beast alone, without being injured. Needless to say, I was like "WOW, what the?!"...

[worldspawn]

first, your wrestler may have done a lot better then everyone else because the wrestling skill increases the chance of dodging attacks. at least in melee combat, legendary wrestlers are untouchable. i always put my dwarves in the best armor i have with a shield, and set them to wrestle for a good long time. with high or max armor use, shield use and wrestling they are very very hard to kill, and you can then train them in just about anything else. the armor and shield use along with wrestling dramatically cut down on sparring injuries.

Aye these are things I plan for my next fort. I was going to do this with my current one but due to constant sieges my army pretty much needed to be constantly armed. Wrestling never made it very high because I didn't feel like frequently disarming 50 dwarves.

[sonerohi]

I had a castle fort recently, with the only entrance being a largely fortified gatehouse facing north towards a bunch of dried up ponds, my moat, and the local brook. I had bunker with 6 catapults in it, 2 across 3 deep, facing down the road that went through my gatehouse. A goblin siege came rolling in from the west, and so I had plenty of time to order my speardwarvs into position, tell my catapult operators to man the 'pults, and get my swordsmen to the east banks of my moat to face the one (out of eight total squads) squad that had decided to pincer us from the east. I faced roughly 20 crossbow/bow goblins, 3 Local Leaders (two axes and a mace), 7 macemen, 14 axemen, and roughly 25 wrestlers. The macemen and their leader were on the east, everyone else west. The swordsdwarves were all legendary (my first immigration wave all got recruited and eventually got trained up to legendary armor, shield, wrestling, and sword) and brushed through them super easy. They got back to the fort a while before we actually saw any action from the west. All the remaining gobs suddenly rushed me after a season of milling about, and when they got in range I told my catapults to open fire. The first volley cuts down maybe 3 gobs and wounds 1 more. The second volley killed one of the axe leaders, and the siege was broken. I gave the order for the levers to be pulled that would enact my Siege Eradication Field, a huge wall of drawbridges in front of my fort that trapped in all the gobs. It had two ponds inside of it that I had, for any pond-dodging soldiers, put ramps into. I intented to just mess around and take everyone down with the catapults if possible, so I set em to firing, put the soldiers at the gates in a defensive line, and went to other parts of the fort. A bit later I get "Urist McSiegeoperator cancels fire catapult: interrupted by goblin wrestler". I pause and zoom to him to see that he has rushed out into the field to get a rock that fell into one of the ponds, punching out two goblins on his way. I recruit him and he proceeds to swiftly slaughter 9 or so gobs that were in the nearb vicinity before going to get a drink. After that I sent out the spearmen to mop up the remaining gobs. Twas a fun day indeed.

[Vieto]

I reclaimed a map recently, it had HFS on it, and I reclaimed with 50 dwarves in full clad steel. So, I decided to see what HFS was actually about.

I'm not disappointed:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My miner opened up the demonpit, and was instantly attacked by a Spirit of fire. Since the mine-shaft was open to the air, I sent my entire army (all 50 dwarves, in steel, with steel crossbows, hammers, wrestling, axes, what-not) to the entrance of the pit. (everyone was one big squad). Moments later, there was an epic battle between 20 SoF, and 20 Crossbow Dwarfs with 20 melee dwarves duking it out. There were 20 arrows on the screen at any one instant, as well as many fire-balls andlots of smoke, but it was epic. I won, but with around 10 dwarves left, most of them either on fire, tantruming, or injured. It was the most fun I think I've ever had. 

[AncientEnemy]

In my first fortress with the orc mod:

It was my first winter and I was no where near prepared. I'd actually gotten 7~  migrants, and had just started training 5 of my dwarves to use crossbows.

A seige of 12-16 orcs appears. oh god oh god oh god

I send my fledgling marksdwarves, along with my axe-proficient woodcutter and my decently stat-ed backup miner into the fray, along with a several dogs (i was breeding them, and had 5~ dogs and a dozen or so puppies wandering around). they killed 2-3 orcs before being mowed down. at this point most of my remaining dwarves were running around outside because i had one of the forbid options set wrong. so I draft everyone and send them flying into battle. they fight valiantly.. for about 3 seconds and are nearly all slaughtered.

it's now down to my foreman (leader/miner) and my mason vs 7 orcs. both have no armor and no combat skills. the mason jumps into the fray, killing one orc and before he is severely injured and drags himself away as my foreman steps up.

My foreman is swarmed by the remaining 6, but slowly and methodically kills them one by one, until the last flees in terror. I tell him to stand down, but he only makes it a few steps before he sees the carnage of all his friends and colleagues.

He snaps. walked back into my fortress, picked up a crossbow, and begins slaughtering puppies. dead puppies, dead puppies everywhere. finally he comes across my mason and puts him down with one bolt.

[Bryan Derksen]

I had set up a fort in what turned out to be absolutely perfect steel country - a magma pipe, marble flux, plenty of trees, and about a dozen magnetite deposits. On top of that, I got a legendary weaponsmith and a legendary armorer quite early on - before I'd even got my steelworks up and running to full capacity. I was very proud of the industrial monster I built; I channeled magma directly to each of the magnetite deposits so the magnetite could be smelted into iron bars on-site, hauled back to the fort already in bins, and then run through a second set of smelters next to the wood furnaces and marble quarry to make steel.

The only downside of all this activity was the insatiable demand for wood. The forest was productive enough, but cutting it down and hauling it inside required a constant stream of dwarves braving the outside and resulted in a steady stream of goblin ambush casualties trickling back. A spiffy military wouldn't help much because the ambushed dwarves would be dead by the time they got there, and walling in the forest was unfeasable.

So anyway, I decided my best bet was to equip every adult dwarf in the fortress with a masterwork steel battleaxe by setting them all as woodcutters. The annual spring wood harvest would become a settlement-wide festival of lumberjacking, a vacation from their toil at the smelter banks, furnaces, and hauling paths. But masterwork axes weren't enough, in my opinion; I wanted them well trained in their use as well.

I had about a hundred dwarves, almost all completely unskilled in military matters. Setting them to spar with masterwork axes would have resulted in carnage. So first I had my legendary armorer produce a hundred complete sets of steel plate mail and shields. I would set my entire population training in wrestling, armor use, and shield use for the winter season (aside from a skeleton staff of support dwarves to keep the booze flowing and care for the inevitable injured). It took a full year of preparation to ready the fort; supplies had to be produced and laid in, perishables cleaned up and stockpiled, the brand new gigantic barracks cleared of rock and furnished. It took more than a month just for everyone to get dressed in their armor.

Finally the winter of sparring was ready to commence. I set my heavily armored dwarves off duty and they began the festivities. Mere moments later: a force of darkness has arrived!

Heh heh heh heh...

"Change of plan, boys," the lead champion of my small standing army announced to the legion of new recruits. "We're going to do axe training straight away after all. Armok has provided us with the perfect sparring partners."

With the enormous value of all the arms and armor my fort had produced I knew a siege was inevitable, so I'd built some good defenses into the fort's structure. There were two widely-separated entrances, one leading to the forest and the other coming out in the rocky ravine the brook had cut through the mountains, connected by a long underground road so that the caravans could use either of them to reach the trade depot deep in the mountain's heart.  I let the siege in through the forest entrance uncontested, and then once the last goblin had passed the threshold I threw the levers to slam the gates behind them and open the other entrance's gates instead. The only way out now led straight through the heart of my fortress, where a hundred gleaming steel-clad dwarves waited for them in the trade chamber with axes at the ready.

I have never seen a trade depot that was so awash with blood and pieces of bodies before or since. Partway through the massacre a titan showed up and came in through the back entrance, but I barely even noticed when it was dispatched along with the rest of the invaders. I had to convert the brand new barracks into a goblin morgue to keep the fort from being flooded with miasma.

No dwarves died. No dwarves got much training either, though - the goblins were shared between too many and died too quickly for that. Oh well. I delayed the training plan for a year while the cleanup operation went on and the next year I got my wish of ambush-proofing every dwarf in my fort. Thereafter any time there was a goblin ambush the lone dwarf who was ambushed had a good chance of simply wiping out the ambush party on his own initiative. I just wish they'd wear their armor when going lumberjacking or wood-hauling, too.