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[Elliott_Thinas]

The AK-47 is effective because its easy to use and even someone who has never fired a gun before, if issued it, can use it in a reasonably effective manner. In my newest far, I'm trying out the LL mod and I'm afraid of the many civs I've spotted during legends. However, although I'll train a few soldiers once I get my first immigration wave, I need your input as to which weapon I can distribute to my civilians which is most effective to the untrained. When I had a fort on a magma pipe I had over 200 obsidan short swords, all masterwork or exceptional thanks to a artifact producing stonecrafter, and if worse came to worse I was ready to issue the swords to every dwarf. Is there a better weapon for my militia?

[Synzig]

Clearly the only answer is to mod in AK-47's.

[corvvs]

I would assume maces, on the basis of simplicity. (What's to understand? You hold this end and swing the other end at stuff!) No edges, no faces, just a big heavy artificial club.

However, if you're willing to look away from "traditional" weapons, you should use picks. Just make sure your militia has mining designated as an available job, then make them wrestlers once they've dug a few tunnels. Picks use the mining skill to calculate attack rolls. Plus they do piercing damage, so high potential for criticals to internal organs.

[Elliott_Thinas]

I generally use miners as my second line of defense if my normal military has been annhialated; do you think it would be wise to issue picks to common civilians before a fight or a conventional weapon?

[Phantom]

Pffff I have a cold war mod,and I dare say those Vietcong with AKS are quite effective,but the Brits SA80s and the Americans M16A1s are effective against any thing except metal.

[blah28722]

Picks are the easiest to train in, because they rely on miner skill.

If you don't feel like destroying an entire mountain, go with one of the more mass-producible blunt weapons (harder to kill during sparring).

To be honest, a good layout and a well trained core army is all you need. Just have like 8 champions who are legendary weapon/shield/wrestlers and equip them with steel or better.

[Muz]

Lol, I think you mean the M-16. The crossbow is the AK-47. It's fast, fairly inaccurate, can be made cheaply, with cheap ammo, but deals a lot of damage.

Yeah, obsidian swords are possibly one of the cheapest good weapons in the game. My choice has always been to train everyone in wrestling - any civilian can reach champion status and solo wrestle skeletal imps to death within 2 seasons.. so, it's good to cut down the training after half a season or so. If you have a massive horde storming your fort, an army of 180 wrestlers should be able to hold them down while the 20 champions hack them to pieces.

[Martin]

Actually, the obsidian sword is pretty effective for untrained dwarves - at least while their strength is below Ultra-Mighty. They're powerful and easy to make so you can keep loads of them around and they can do real damage, unlike blunt weapons in the hands of low-strength dwarves.

Once your laborers get strong, switch to the blunt items (I prefer hammers). The knockback is very useful provided the dwarves have the strength to cause it and that'll help keep them from getting wounded. For the miners, keep them with picks. Give them nice steel masterwork ones and they'll be fairly effective.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Clearly the only answer is to mod in AK-47's.

This.

I'll play the Fallout mod then. (or the ZOMBEH!! mod?)

[pushy]

Neglecting any injuries incurred during sparring, obsidian shortswords are brilliant provided you have the resources available to make them. One thing I'm considering is to perhaps try a fort where I've got my two miners (who wield picks) and everyone else gets the woodcutting labour so they'll carry an axe everywhere they go...or at the very least giving it to my fisherdwarves, as they are usually the first ones to get attacked in an ambush; an untrained recruit with minimal stats wrestling eight goblins is only going to have one conclusion, but give them an axe to defend themselves and they may at least have a sniff of a chance...and if they don't survive, they might at least take a couple of goblins down with them

[dogstile]

the swords are good, most dwarves can use them pretty damn well, stick with them

[Grendus]

If you're going to cross-train your civilians as military, make them marksdwarves. Low chance of fatality, high chance of massive damage to enemies. The downside is a decent sized fortress can go through a forest-worth of wood or a ranch-worth of bone bolts in just training.

[eddyg86]

my mod has many dwarven guns - a recruit with a bayonetted musket or boomstick is pretty comfortable with 200 damage shots (til an enemy with a gun comes and rips the recruit to shreddery. i'd say swords/spears anything more lethal is good for newbie recruits. the more effective the weapon generally the quicker they'll get kills and therefore experience.

[Grendus]

my mod has many dwarven guns - a recruit with a bayonetted musket or boomstick is pretty comfortable with 200 damage shots (til an enemy with a gun comes and rips the recruit to shreddery. i'd say swords/spears anything more lethal is good for newbie recruits. the more effective the weapon generally the quicker they'll get kills and therefore experience.

Dwarves get experience for each attack that hits, kills have nothing to do with it. That's how they spar, they're really fighting each other they just do less damage and use weaker weapons. The reality is, if you want to train via combat you should use less lethal weapons so they can hit their target more times before it dies. Spears and swords for untrained recruits might be good though, since they'll have a higher chance of getting lethal wounds on the one or two attacks they get before they're mauled.

Overall though you'd probably be best off actually training your unskilled peasants as backup militia. There are plenty of them, when they die it's no great loss, and it will increase their strength and agility letting them haul heavier loads faster.

[Skorpion]

Actually, killing things gives experience. Out of my two newbie wrestlers, one got an entire goblin thief to himself and made champion ahead of the other guy.