Recently the orcs have been less challenging. I don't know why. I had a single marksdwarf with a quantum quiver (cheating, I know, but if I hadn't done that I would have just had some forbidden ammo up there and unforbidden in combat) raining hell on them and he did a pretty good job of weakening the hoard. After that, about 20 melee dwarves, all legendary wrestlers but only 8 with weapons (only four of which had actually used the weapon before, 4 of my hammerdwarves weren't even dabbling yet) slaughtered the orcs wholesale without a single casualty or even injury. Kind of surprising, considering my first encounters with the orcs many forts ago were bloody and usually required giving up or sealing myself in.
Maybe I'm getting better, or maybe the orcs are just getting worse. On a darker note, I just realized one of those champions is my farmer! I accidentally drafted him instead of a soap maker, which explains why my food stocks were running low.
Edit: On an unrelated note, add me to the list of players digging deeper. After trying a few other mods, this is my favorite. Looking forward to the new civs as well.