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[Josiwe]

I'm struggling to understand this. I've read game threads where champions become unstoppable killing machines, but mine just seem incredibly weak.

I've got 8 champions. All of them have masterwork steel cap, helm, gauntlets, greaves, mail, plate, and shields. At present they do not have masterwork weapons, I'm still training that - but they have normal quality iron spears or crossbows. And when they fight just a few goblins, they inevitably get badly injured. I have one with a mangled leg, and another with a broken arm. The leg occurred in sparring, and the arm happened when 4 of them were fighting 5 or 6 goblins one at a time in a pit (I had captured them in cages).

Are they supposed to be this weak? All of them have stats of 10+ in toughness, agility, and strength as I cross-trained them in wrestling, hammer, crossbow, spear, armor use and shield use and they are legendary across the board. All of them have lots of kills and long names, but they invariably take injuries and if I didn't have strong trap defenses my fort would have been overrun years ago.

[Hyndis]

Are they legendary wrestlers?

A completely naked legendary wrestler can utterly destroy an entire goblin siege.

A dabbling wrestler wearing masterwork adamantine armor will have a lifespan measured in seconds in 40D.


In 31.03, its the other way around. Armor is far more important than skill in 31.03. In 40D armor is almost useless.

[Diablous]

In 40d, anything less than a legendary wrestler can't dodge a snail.

[Ivan Issaccs]

The spears probably don't help. Particularly if they spend 12 turns twisting their iron spears in the Goblings right foot, big toe.

[ZeroGravitas]

In my experience, war hammers or maces are the best 40d weapon. I could be wrong though.

[Josiwe]

Yeah they all trained to 15+5 in wrestling right off the bat. But before I had weapons for them I sent them out into the first goblin siege wearing leather armor and they were all slaughtered, mainly by crossbow goblins. But even when there were no ranged attackers they still died really quickly and I had to savescum. This is what I don't get, I was under the impression that a few champions should be able to handle a siege, but my guys - despite loads of training - are pussies.

I had some of them with silver training hammers for a few seasons but it didn't make any difference to the spears.

Is it possible the local goblin civ is training up incredibly strong guys of their own? I don't know if they get different titles but there was one elite bowgoblin leading a siege and he killed 4 of my champions who were firing crossbows from 2 z-levels up behind fortifications (I savescummed again and locked up until I had some traps in place).

[Quietust]

While armor wasn't particularly important in 40d, shields were critical - without them, it would be up to the dwarf to dodge every single attack (which doesn't work very well in crowded situations).

[Josiwe]

They have masterwork steel shields and legendary shield skill.

I guess it's just the RNG being nasty

[Z1000000m]

what about the 3 main stats?

maybe they are not agile for some reason

if they are, and they do have shields, then make sure if you are not playing as elves

also check if you have all the elven/human shit forbidden
even if you have masterwork bling armor , your champs may decide to go in with -oaken greaves-

[Josiwe]

Nah, I set up an armory with an exclusive useable steel masterwork armor stockpile, got them naked, locked them in and armored them up. Then I checked each individual inventory. They're wearing masterwork steel everything.

[Z1000000m]

maybe you can provide a vid presenting your military and a random battle

im sure theres an obvious mistake somewhere

[Josiwe]

Ok that's a good idea. Next time there's a siege, I'll send them out and make a movie.

[darkflagrance]

Do note that crossbows are nearly broken in 40d. Even with shield and armor, if a shot gets through, it will mess up the dwarf. When my champions charge a group of enemy archers, normally one of the archers will get a shot through that hits in the heart/both lungs and kills him/her. Bow goblins are to be treated with extreme caution.

While legendary+5 wrestling champions are normally pretty much invincible otherwise, two circumstances can eventually overcome that ability. The first is exhaustion (becoming over-exerted), and the second is being surrounded. So some degree of tactics is also important to fighting, so that your champions don't get surrounded and isolated from each other by too many enemies.

Also, spears tend to get stuck in wounds, leading to disarmed dwarves, who will then fight with wrestling, which takes longer to kill the enemy and gives them the chance to get in a lucky hit.

[Corona688]

Yeah they all trained to 15+5 in wrestling right off the bat. But before I had weapons for them I sent them out into the first goblin siege wearing leather armor and they were all slaughtered, mainly by crossbow goblins.

Crossbow goblins pwn anything but crossbow dwarves.

But even when there were no ranged attackers they still died really quickly and I had to savescum.

What were their attackers?

Is it possible the local goblin civ is training up incredibly strong guys of their own? I don't know if they get different titles but there was one elite bowgoblin leading a siege and he killed 4 of my champions who were firing crossbows from 2 z-levels up behind fortifications (I savescummed again and locked up until I had some traps in place).

I suppose it's possible you're getting one super-goblin in there though I haven't heard of such a thing.  Stupid uber-dwarfness or not, I'd still try giving them proper armor and weapons.

[Hyndis]

Even a single champion can be taken down if he's overwhelmed. Try to have groups of dwarves all attacking at the same time so no one single dwarf gets surrounded and overwhelmed.

This is why 100+ dabbling wrestlers can take down a megabeast eventually. The lucky hits they get in just keep adding up until it finally downs the megabeast.