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[Kolbur]

Well, not really, but mounted goblin archers. 

I just got my second siege after i easily dispatched the first one consisting of only one squad of swordgoblins. The new siege had one speargoblin squad, one crossbowgoblin squad and one troll squad. Also all goblins were mounted on Elk Birds. I managed to trap the entire siege in my long trading tunnel (the fortress lies beneath the first cavern level). The crossbowgoblins were standing close to the raised exit bridge while the rest of the siege was still on the far end of the tunnel. So i stationed my 9 now experienced and well equipped (all steel and with axes) battle maidens right behind the bridge and lowered it. In true dwarven fashion my battle maidens charged the enemy with their dwarven battle babies raised as shields.

What a disaster. I was prepared to be greeted with a hail of bolts but i wasn't prepared for their mongolian Elk Bird back archery! My dorfs couldn't reach the goblins because the Elk Birds were keeping their distance while the goblins were free to pepper my maidens with their crossbow bolts. I could only kill 2 or 3 goblins who lost their mounts to cage traps. My soldiers were majorly injured and i ordered the retreat. 3 dorfs fell unconscious in the tunnel and were lost along with one baby. The rest barely made it out. One battle maiden fell unconscious right next to the lowered exit bridge of the tunnel, luckily on the right side. I closed the tunnel again and now i have a hospital full of injured dorfs and also my tunnel full of invaders and 3 dead dorfs. Only 2 soldiers are uninjured, 4 in the hospital and 3 dead. At least my medical staff gets something to do now. My entire military is female with a lot of babies, this happened randomly but now it's probably a very bad thing.

So how do you deal with mounted archers? I don't want to rely too much on traps, so I probably need to build up a marksdorf squad now. At least this shows that ranged combat can still be very deadly.

[JoystickHero]

If you don't want to rely too much on traps, then marksdwarves seems to be the way to go.

If you've got a Dungeon Master, maybe you could try domesticating and breeding some cave swallows or somesuch?

[The Yellow Peril]

Yeah, marksdwarves and trained animals are a good way to go. Really, if you want to fight off every siege you get purely without using traps, you're going to need to donate a heavy proportion of your fortress towards churning out a military.

On a side-note, I'm envious that you've gotten mounted sieges! I've been playing on fortres for 9 years, 190 population, and I've still only had them turn up on foot.

[JoRo]

My goblins showed up riding giant cave swallows, but they never seem to actually attack.  The melee goblins scatter and run when I come close, and the ranged goblins hide just out of range of my towers.  It doesn't take much for my marksdwarves to bring down a mount when it gets too close, though, and goblins on the ground are easy pickings.  I only have 4 marksdwarves, but they're all heavily skilled from years of hunting and training so they do pretty well against all comers.

[Aspgren]

Battle maidens ... with babies?

Bah. They're not maidens unless they're pure virgins! these baby-bearing s .... nice axe, Shorast. No. No I didn't say anything. You ... maidens look great today. Really. I like your hair.

[existent]

On a side-note, I'm envious that you've gotten mounted sieges! I've been playing on fortres for 9 years, 190 population, and I've still only had them turn up on foot.

Maybe there is some criteria for whether the have access to mounts? Such as elves needing access to mountains to bring giant eagles.

[jester]

Just flat out roofing off a large courtyard so everything that tries to get in must walk helps.

  My favorite tactic against shooters though is to chain up a pile of large animals outside and build fortifications randomly around them.  shooters with no ammo = fodder