To everyone who isn't using Moss and Steel Dwarves exclusively in the military, here's another reason. Those Forgotten Beasts that use dust? They completely ignore that. My starting ice dwarf commander is in sickbay with all his skin rotting off right now, everyone else is back to drilling and sparring.
It's good to have a few deaths per year in the fort. Safety is for tree-climbing wussies.
One could have two squads, one for toxic cases and primary fighting, and a secondary squad with fewer layers of mail armor, or crossbows.
Hey Deon, how's the TrapAvoid on the DK evil civ? Is we safe with a 12-cage corridor?
How about Study Architecture in the Library, Archi seems to be a really hard skill to get.
Seconding architecture. It's another marginally beneficial skill that is a bitch to get up.
My new strategy is to split my squads by functionality. I have my demigod squad (two steel dwarves using full masterwork/exceptional sun gold) who can do anything, but I don't use them for dangerous breath attack FB (they can block pretty much everything, legendary shield, weapon, armour, dodge). Next I have my FB squad which are 5 spear dwarves, in this case all stone (I only have 2 steel in my fort). They do really well vs single strong enemies, especially ones that feel pain. They are not nearly as good as my demigod squad and thus are more expendable. Next up is the obsidian squad which is 5 obsidian dwarves with various weapon skills. These guys are better vs ambushes and the likes since they have the breath attack. Next up is the 5 dwarf moss squad which are for poisonous and finally my 10 stone dwarf "cannon fodder" squad. Well these were the numbers before my last double siege (goblin/dusk elf) which left me with 3 amputees (retired from combat), 2 deaths and some 6-7 with injuries of various degrees.
The important part of combat imho is to use a lot of cannon fodder, once they get amputated you swap them out since they can still do other jobs. Fill in the empty slots as soon as possible. My baron is an ex-spear dwarf who lost his right hand. The only real fear is getting "unable to stand" since that's bugged. I've only had 2 dwarves get that and for some reason one died of dehydration. The other has spent the last 4 years in bed.