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[tmountain]

Hi all. I run into the same problem time and time again. I dedicate a group of dwarves to the military and set them to training in the barracks. Before too long, I have a nice handful of legendary champions, and everything seems fine. This is where the problems begin. I give them some armor and some weapons to continue developing their skills. Before long, there's blood all over the barracks, and at least a few are laid up in bed with spinal injuries and any dreams of victory on the battlefield shattered. How do you approach training weapons without sustaining permanent debilitating injuries?

[Chewykittens]

have them use your worst weapons, and your best armor. And watch them like a hawk as they pick stuff up. You don't want them training with stuff that can kill demons, you want your dwarfs whacking eachother with kid tested, mother approved wooden weapons.

[Quietust]

you want your dwarfs whacking eachother with kid tested, mother approved wooden weapons.

And if the elves aren't being cooperative (i.e. if they bring nothing but 30+ bins of rope reed cloth every year), silver weapons (preferably forged by a dabbling weaponsmith who doesn't have a preference for silver) will work just as well.

[tmountain]

Ahh, so steel warhammers are a bad choice 

[Sphalerite]

Train them in armor first.  Only once they have armor and shield use trained up highly give them weapons.

[Shurhaian]

Steel anything is a VERY bad choice. The only worse choice is adamantine weapons.

Also, indeed. Train them in armor and as wrestlers. You might still get casualties due to a crushed windpipe or similar, but wrestling skill also contributes to dodging, which is important both on the battlefield and when you start sparring with weapons.

To be safe, forbid or even dump any weapons of the stronger sort. (If you want to keep a cadre well-armed, find the others and forbid them by hand; if you're training the whole lot, forbid them in the stocks menu.) I'm not entirely sure, but you can probably reclaim them once all the soldiers have their gear. Once your soldiers are well enough skilled that you want them properly equipped(especially as armor/shield users), forbid their crude weapons, and maybe set up cage traps for goblins, to use as blood spectacles advanced sparring partners.

[Razoric480]

What I did is train my army as pump-operators (at least beyond expert), then as leather-wearing wrestlers, then steel chainmail wrestlers, and finally steel plate wrestlers (to take advantage of armor stacking). Only once they were elite or champions did I deign put a weapon in their hand.

I had good result and little injury, even with steel warhammers and spears.

[Slogo]

What I usually do is create a separate training barracks for recruits with three rooms. In it I make a small dining room with food and booze stock piles, the main barracks room with beds beds, and a silver only weapon pile in the 3rd room (keep the doors locked until you're using it). Recruit the dwarves you want to train up, station them in the barracks, lock the outer door and unlock access to silver weapons. Then have your dwarves arm up and train away until they're ready to join the general population.

Even with this setup train up armor, shields, and wrestling first.

[Lordinquisitor]

Why are that many guys doing their training wrong?

Just give them armor and shields and let them wrestle to legendary. Then you can give them weak weapons.

[Slogo]

That works for your first batch of military but it becomes more complex after that or if you want them to keep training while you also train a new batch of recruits.

It takes a while for fresh recruits to be able to spar with high end champions and not get hurt. Especially if the champ has a weapon and the recruit doesn't.

[Servu]

I was just having a lot of sparring deaths in my last save. I did have lots of ore so producing some nice plate would not have been a problem. If there were any trees and the stupid magma pipe had shown up where it was supposed to be.

Got annoyed searching it and mined to HFS by accident. My first HFS ever. Only survivor was the mad carpenter locked in his room...

Had Fun and fun though.

[personofshadow]

I dunno if this is accurate, but I heard they have a better chance of NOT maiming each other with high quality weapons

[Stargrave]

pff training your dwarves with wooden weapons is for sissies. the casualties along the road to being a champion is how we seperate the wheat from the chaff. those who are confined to the infirmary for the rest of their lives are drafted into the fortress/royal guard.

[Lord Dakoth]

After you get legendary wrestlers, level shield and armor user to legendary, and only THEN start on weapon training.

Unless you're training marksdwarves, then you give them a crossbow and bolts as soon as they hit legendary wrestler.

[Airpi]

I dunno if this is accurate, but I heard they have a better chance of NOT maiming each other with high quality weapons

Pretty sure its a lower chance of injury when they have higher skill. Or maybe that was just a suggestion I heard once. Either way it makes sense.