By the way, like miners they will use their axe in extremely deadly ways as a legendary woodcutter when threatened as a civilian. Some of my best military victories were won by miners coming back overland from some digging. I still wonder how they cut off heads with picks.
I remember very depressing battles in my first fort, where the axedwarves couldn't do a single damage on goblins, and then, while the axedwarves are agonizing, a couple of miners arrive and quickly mine the deadly goblins: One arm, the other, the head. One leg, the other, the lower body, and so on...
Since I discovered that, I enroll most of my miners in the army.
I'm not sure to understand well about woodcutters.
I want to benefit from the fact that woodcutters carry an axe: I hoped this would allow a quick transformation into an axedwarf in case they're in danger, or they're near an endangered colleague.
But apparently, if I assign them an axe in the military screen, they will drop their woodcutter axe as soon as they are told to fight. Did I understand correctly ?
And so the solution is to assign them no weapon. Then, if I ask them to fight, they will use their woodcutting axe ?
Another point: for miners, the mining skill is used also for fighting. There is no pick weapon skill. But for woodcutters, there is a woodcutting skill
and an axe weapon skill. Is the woodcutting skill really helpful in combat ? If so, cutting trees can be a substitute for axe practice in a barracks, like mining is a good way to train a "pick-dwarf".
One thing I wonder is why picks are listed as foreign.