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[milaga]

Sweet crap I had never faced these guys before. The first clue should have been when he killed the marksdwarf in the first watch-tower. Until that moment I had never lost a dwarf behind a fortification so I figured it was just dumb luck. As the rather large siege group approached the gate I pulled my melee troops way back. He and his six bowgoblins unleashed a hail of arrows at my gate tower guards. Two z-levels up and a good 10 squares away they managed to pincushion four of the eight dwarves stationed up there! I finally sent in the footsoldiers and they killed an axelord with an arrow to the forehead before the hammerdwarves broke up the party. While sifting through the bodies, we only got four of the bowgoblins. And no sign was found of the elite bowgoblin. We of course made a mess of the lashers, wrestlers and speargoblins.

It's a good thing I only draft dwarves with no friends into the marksdwarf service. A dark day for Tradesnarls.

Are these guys really that nasty or was I particularly unlucky? The first tower guard might have been two zlevels up but adjacent to the elite that killed him. Any advice?

[Phantom]

The level of marksmanship makes a chance they might shoot through fortifications, also do what some players suggest,magma, I hate that option, and I only play as humans... Anyway send some Elite Marksdwarves or

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

adamantine clad melee soldiers

My solution:Send in the soldier who has tons of wardogs and pet unicorns

[Michaelsoftman]

Best ways to deal with enemy archers are

1. Magma or water trap
2. Long hallway with siege engines
3. Your own archers, but with pets / war dogs / babies to absorb stray arrows
4. An entrance with lots of twists and turns so they can't attack from too far away, and your Dwarves can rush them
5. Dumb luck.  I once had a single hammerdwarf somehow dodge 30 - 40 arrows before killling a squad of goblin archers.

[Graven]

If you want to cheese it a bit (and I'm not sure if it'll work, though there is no reason it shouldn't), do the following

Make a chess-patterned walled room in front of the entrance, and station your melee dwarves there.

Something like this : (x - wall pillar)
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x
 x x
x x x

You get the idea... Crossbows and bows should have a minimal range, and even if they don't, the goblins shouldn't be able to get a clear line of fire to any dwarf.

If anyone knows that this won't work, I'd appreciate them saying it now before I've wasted half an hour designing the room

[Ampersand]

It won't eliminate their ability to shoot at dwarfs from a distance, but it will severely limit it, so there's that.

[Lummox JR]

It's possible I think that they could shoot diagonally in a chessboard pattern. However an elongated version of the pattern should limit line of sight options pretty well.

xx  xx  xx
  xx  xx
xx  xx  xx

[Hyndis]

You might be best off with a single twisting corridor.

Code: [Select]

XXXXXX
    XX
    XX
    XX
XXXXXX
XX
XX
XX
XXXXXX
    XX
    XX
    XX
This way your guys will always be coming around a corner. And you should be within the minimum range of the crossbow. If you are close enough, they will not use their ranged weapons but instead try to use their bows as clubs.

[grendel]

tl;dr: good equipment and good training makes the full time military unstoppable.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the bow / crossbow skill is unique in a way. iirc, both the bow and the bolts confer skill of +2 effective level for each level of quality.  say the x bow gob has a *bow* and *bolts* thats 6 additional levels of quality and around 12 additional levels of skill above his actual, easily pushing the goblin's effective skill into the legendary ranges. what this means is that the elite goblin will probably make any necessary skill check to hit your dwarfs.

To counter this i recommend the following:
give all of your military dwarfs wrestling and shield training. this will quickly raise their stats, and give them the defensive ability they need to stay alive.

your military's most important piece of equipment is the shield . Even my ranged dwarfs carry bucklers on them and have high shield user skill.  you still want to get melee in at least iron armor ASAP, and you should strive to develop highly trained armor smith in your fort. for all this you may want to add proficient armor smith to your starting build. I play the orc mod, so access to high quality armor may not be as necessary to you, but it still is a nice source of fortress value

Consider establishing your military early. I usually draft the first migrant wave that I get to make sure that they have the skills and the stats ready for a fight. This is what I call the "First Division", pretty much it is the best dwarfs with the best equipment. I personally think it is better to have a few highly trained dwarfs with extreme stats than it is to have a legion of mediocre dwarfs.

Once you have them trained, your dwarfs can take on almost anything thrown at them.  I constantly charge archers with almost no losses at all. best of luck to you, and in the worst case there are only a finite amount of elite archers available for a civ to assail you with.

[milaga]

Thanks for the advice.

I can see why i was getting shot up ... not only was the goblin Elite, but he did have *arrows* and *bow*, so if it's compounded, that's quite a skill boost.

I've noticed training seems to go faster the more advanced you are.  Once my military becomes elite, they very quickly become champions and before long they are superdwarvenly agile. At that point archers aren't much of a problem. Now I have six champion hammerdwarves. Still no elite marksdwarves but I've got so many with such a high turnover, none of them have been training for very long. The hammerdwarves are enough. It's nice to see them hammer a goblin into another one, stunning it ... rush over hammer that stunned one into another, stunning it ... etc. Had a four goblin chain tonight.

[milaga]

Okay, the only thing worse than these guys has to be the Elite Orc Snipers. I just lost my first fortress in the Orc mod. One Elite Orc Sniper, the only ranged attack in the whole siege ... kills 3 elite marksdwarves behind fortifications from 20 squares away. He cripples the other three and sends them off to their bed. He had a steel bolt sticking out of each of his hands but no wounds. After that, the remaining army just swooped through my castle and steamrolled the Champions and Axelords.

[Pie]

If you are really, really keen on the optimal defence against these kinds of units, I reckon this:

Code: [Select]

W = Wall
< = Up stairs
> = Down stairs
. = floor.

z=0
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
<WWW<WWW<WWW<WWW<WWW<W
WW<.WW<.WW<.WW<.WW<.WW
<WWW<WWW<WWW<WWW<WWW<W
WW<.WW<.WW<.WW<.WW<.WW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

z=1
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
>.WW>.WW>.WW>.WW>.WW>.
WW>WWW>WWW>WWW>WWW>WWW
>.WW>.WW>.WW>.WW>.WW>.
WW>WWW>WWW>WWW>WWW>WWW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Essentially, the maximum distance that they will ever be able to fire is from 1 square away, but also this system has the advantage of being able to "stair ambush" the archers instantly (whereas other systems mean that the goblin will ALWAYS have a tile to potentially shoot your guy, this system has a chance that he won't).

[ArkDelgato]

I remember fondly a half dead maceman sleeping in a barracks behind fortifications getting shot by accident because the real target walked away

And for some fun, set up a line of pressureplates that open a hatch behind the goblins, which is filled with military dwarves, so they don't get their gosh darn surprize attack.

[Rowanas]

Pffft. hide everyone inside a narrow entrance way and then the moment the gobbos get close, rape them with a zerg rush. No-one survives. Except the dwarves.

[milaga]

Since I've been playing this orc mod, I'm usually on the wrong end of the raping. If there can be a right end.

[Skorpion]

I find the best counter for ranged troops is hammerdwarves.
Bear with me, here. This makes sense.

Now, you approach so their melee troops are between the dwarves and the crossbows, giving cover. Then you attack the melee troops, causing knockback. Any ranged troops hit by the melee troops are stunned, giving a lower number of arrows while you close the distance quickly and mix it up close.

This actually does work on infantry. I've tried it.
Beware of horse archers, though. They're NASTY. Good eatin' on those horses, though.