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[Slythe]

If I train a wrestler and he reaches legendary or some other very high skill level, then I switch him to train with a weapon will that weapon skill raise or does a soldier stop gaining skill levels once one of their skills reaches legendary?

[Smew]

He will continue gaining skills, look out, however, as your chances for death by sparring are higher, since he's so strong and such.

[Slythe]

He will continue gaining skills, look out, however, as your chances for death by sparring are higher, since he's so strong and such.

I thought it worked in the reverse way - being incredible wrestlers helped the dwarves dodge and avoid getting wounded from weapon sparring.

[Corona688]

If I train a wrestler and he reaches legendary or some other very high skill level, then I switch him to train with a weapon will that weapon skill raise or does a soldier stop gaining skill levels once one of their skills reaches legendary?

Once they get to the point of 'champion' or higher they often won't obey weapon changes.

[Dave Mongoose]

He will continue gaining skills, look out, however, as your chances for death by sparring are higher, since he's so strong and such.

I thought it worked in the reverse way - being incredible wrestlers helped the dwarves dodge and avoid getting wounded from weapon sparring.

Being good wrestlers will help them dodge, but leveling up that high raises their strength too (they'll likely be 'superdwarvenly strong', or whatever). Since strength boosts weapon damage, they can cause more damage when they hit.

Try to give them good full-plate armour and shields (masterwork steel if possible) and bad weapons (no quality silver or wooden). This should mean that they don't do much damage and most of it gets deflected.

Wrestling isn't too bad against most enemies, so you can just leave them with that if you're concerned about training accidents (they can be a good way to start a tantrum spiral!).

[Leesin]

I had 11 military in my first lot training, got them all to legendary wrestlers then switched them over to axe training, my main leading champion ended up killing another champion but he was my only casualty, now there are 10 legendary wrestler/axe dwarves. It isn't too risky really, just train a couple more than initially intended, incase of any losses. I basically just train ALL of my military in wrestling first, even my marksdwarves. Seems to work well so far.

[gtmattz]

If I train a wrestler and he reaches legendary or some other very high skill level, then I switch him to train with a weapon will that weapon skill raise or does a soldier stop gaining skill levels once one of their skills reaches legendary?

Once they get to the point of 'champion' or higher they often won't obey weapon changes.

As long as you use the military screen they should always change their weapons.  At least I never had any problems.  The only time I had issues was before I had learned how to use the weapons portion of the military screen and was trying to change weapons in the individual dwarfs information screen.

[Slythe]

Being good wrestlers will help them dodge, but leveling up that high raises their strength too (they'll likely be 'superdwarvenly strong', or whatever). Since strength boosts weapon damage, they can cause more damage when they hit.

Try to give them good full-plate armour and shields (masterwork steel if possible) and bad weapons (no quality silver or wooden). This should mean that they don't do much damage and most of it gets deflected.

Wrestling isn't too bad against most enemies, so you can just leave them with that if you're concerned about training accidents (they can be a good way to start a tantrum spiral!).

Hmmm.  You speak as if I can pump out 2 full suits of plate armor within the first year with only 15 dwarves.  You also mention silver weapons (I have no silver) and wood weapons (I've had no trade with elves and I can't make wood weapons myself).

Maybe the problem here is timing.  If within the first year of a fort, should I even dedicate any of my dwarves to the military?  Once I got my first wave of migrants in the first year, I had 15, so I thought okay, maybe I should dedicate 25% of my dwarves to the military.  I made 2 dwarves marksdwarves and had them practicing at the archery range.  The other two I wanted to make some type of weapon dwarf but I read it was good to train them up in wrestling a bit first so I did that...besides, I didn't have any weapons or armor made yet which is completely understandable since I'm in my first year with limited dwarfpower and no fuel source discovered.  So maybe the problem is that I shouldn't be taking any of my first 15 dwarves in my first year and trying to make them soldiers?   Or, since wrestling trained up so freakin' fast, maybe I should just put the two wrestlers on duty after they reach like Talented level and let them sit for awhile until my steel production catches up, so that I can produce enough armor to protect them in weapon sparring?  And again, with no silver and no elves, how can I train them with weak weapons?

[gtmattz]

In 40d my standard military consisted of 4 wrestlers, drafted from the 1st migration wave.  I would build them some leather armor and wooden shields and let them train until legendary (barring any interruptions of course).  By the time they were legendary I usually had the means to provide them some sort of metal armor (usually adamantine, as I always embarked with HFS).  I would also switch them to use weapons and remove the barracks so they no longer spar (and kill each other with their adamantine battle axes).  The legendary wrestler skill was enough to make the super fighters able to fend off just about anything short of !!HFS!! denizens and their axedwarf skill would raise solely from real combat.

[o_O[WTFace]]

They can still gain any skill and do any amount of weapon switching once they reach legendary.  In fact they can gain "legendary+1 +2 and so on in that same skill, even though it isn't displayed.
I would always train wrestling with armor and shields first and then only hand out weapons when everyone is legendary and full armor was available.  Its a good way to quickly get them stats very quickly and the toughness/dodge/shield block/armor skill puts 4 extra layers of protection between them and weapon accidents.   

Early military isn't neccesary, assuming you have some traps set up and a way to seal the entrance.  But its a good thing to have and you might as well get them going early.  I would ALWAYS embark with 2 military dwarfs and get them training as soon as possible, and then assign another 2-3 on my first migrant wave, but thats because I played with Orcs and worse.  Basically on embark I would turn some cats into leather armor, bone helms and wood shields and get them wrestling once all the hauling was done.  Leather and bone are fine for wrestling and by the time you have to fight more then kobolds, they will have enough skill and attributes to destroy anything.  When you do have a metal industry, or enough trade goods to buy stuff, focus on shields and weapons because those give you the most bang for you dwarfbuck. 

One final note, training weapons should ideally be high quality but made from poor materials.  Weapon skill rapidly decreases the chance of causing a sparring injury and each level of quality adds 1 skill level.  Even if it also adds to damage done (I don't think it does) brown and light grey brain injuries are basically the same, and brown and light grey regular injuries both heal immediately so it won't matter as long as you are using silver/copper/wood.  Remember, tetrahedrite produces about 1 silver bar per 5 smeltings look for that