I know there are alot of these threads out there, but none are currently active (AFAIK)
So here's mine.
I stated my miliary off with the first migrant wave.
4 dwarves, two on duty two off.
I got alot of sparring that way.
There were in a (out doors) danger room
##D##
#ASW#
#####
A- armour stand
D-Door
#-wall
S-Training spear Trap (4 spears i think)
W-Channel full of water,
outdoors so they don't get cave adaptation.
the water, so that when they dodged in to it they, get cross trained in swim.
(Training is swim has gone slowly, my best is now around lvl 6)
They do on occation be stunned long enough to start to drown, but I've yet to have any die from drowning.
With my next couple of fumigant waves i brought them up to 10. (8 on, two off)
They trained for a couple of years.
Eventually being moved into my new danger room
###########
#WWWWWWA#
DSSSSSSSSSS#
###########
I moved them in here so they could benefit from engravings.
(More space more engravings)
They are rubbish engravings, but still
Just now (years later) I have channelled above this to let light in.
So they quickly reached legendary shield user (thanks to danger room) and fighter (Cos that always trains fast)
There weapon skills arn't going up so quickly, (most of them are wrestlers, my equipment is quiet poor/lacking, i'm about to start pumping out the steel, but most of my forges are busy with the 1000
orders for gold furniture i've got ordered for bedrooms)
After that they then started training dodging (It was going up slowly, but once there shield user maxed out, it seemed to start going up much faster)
I then got a couple of massive migrant waves,
and so I began my training program.
I took brok up my legendary squad ino 4 squads.
Each one had 2-3 legendary shield users/fighters
and was filled with civilans to bring the number up the 7
(5 on, 2 off)
Now the Civilans trained Up FAST,
like a couple of season saw them go from newb til some started having legendairy +5. (In shield use/fighting)
Now the Science part of this, had me check the correlation with teaching.
the Squad that had the most reach Lvl 15+5 first,
didn't have the best worrior teaching. (as in it wasn't the one who reached maxed out first/had also maxed out dodging)
It had the best teacher.
When I looked his teaching was lvl 4. (otherrs were 1-3 i think)
At this rate i should have the army i need to take on hell, before i have there armolur/weapons built
tl:dr:
Teaching kicks arse, and is a very fast way to train your military