Sweet.
I took the new wands to the arena and tested them out a bit. Unfortunately, it seems that they are pretty much inferior to the standard weapons. Then again, I used humans to test, so if there's some interaction with magic, things might change. Wands seem to use the concentration skill, from the way skills rose during battle. Now, onto the test results:
Using steel wands, opponents wearing steel mail robe, steel high boots, steel gauntlets, and a steel helm (armour user: skilled) were unable to harm each other using the wands, aside from some knocked-out teeth. They still died after a while because they sporadically used kicks and punches, which did some harm. A single human wearing the same equipment but using a steel warhammer pretty much instantly killed any wand-armed opponents.
Now, results against unarmoured humans:
good: wands of piercing, cutting, digging, slaying
bad: wand of smiting
you are better off unarmed: shredding, striking, blasting, just 'wand'
I briefly checked embarking with wizards, and was relieved to find the normal weapons still available. I also noticed that gremlins cost 1 point. Is that right? In a previous version, trolls cost the same for sorcerers (didn't check the current one).
Also, how do I make military squads as a sorcerer civ? There are only four noble positions on the nobles screen, and the one most likely responsible for that task is the overseer (who demands lots of stuff and starts mandating a few weeks in). He can't be used to create squads, though.