Population ~60. Fort is starting to thrive. Getting a decent bronze industry running (haven't found the flux yet). Two full squads of useless migrants putting on pieces of bronze armor, straight from the forge (ow?). Suddenly: An ambush! Curse them! x2. That's fine, I think to myself. I'll just dump them in my magma moat when they go to cross the drawbridge. At worst I'll have to seal off until the weapons/armor are finished.
I look around for the drawbridge lever... Uh oh.
Having forgotten to actually connect my drawbridge to anything (titular facepalm), I activate my half-armed, half-armored immigrant squads and send them to intercept the gobbos on the drawbridge. They are slaughtered to a dwarf without inflicting any casualties on the invaders, who gleefully swarm into my fort and start doing their thang. Uh oh.
I draft my two legendary miners (who were married last season) into my now-empty military. A satisfying level of carnage ensues and the goblins are obliterated. Tragically, only one of the miners survives. She mourns the death of her husband. Population ~35.
I start cleaning up the mess. Morale is low. The legendary feast hall and dormitory don't seem to be cutting it. The armorer goes melancholy (sadface). The carpenter tantrums, killing my weaponsmith (!!) and mason. I dump him in the volcano. As the only one with any experience fighting, I appoint the heroic miner as my militia commander, in the hopes that her badassery will rub off on the new migrants/recruits that just arrived. A perfectly logical decision. Except in hindsight, it may have been too soon. Which I realized when she berserked. Uh oh.
I'll leave what followed mostly to the imagination. Ok, I won't. She proceeded to slaughter every living thing she saw with a ¤Bronze Battle Axe¤. Chunks everywhere. It was a mess. Finally, her rampage was ended by one of her former students, who punched her brain out through her skull. Population: five (FIVE!!) miserable dwarves. O_O
I abandoned soon after that. Lesson learned: test traps of fiery doom BEFORE you need them. Also: have a plan B that doesn't involve suicide squads? Also: don't give your best combat gear to someone who is on the edge? I guess those are all good tips for life in general.