I had loads of fun yesterday night trying out the new stuff (grazing animals, pottery, ...)
Marksmen actually train (sometimes) and use metal bolts against baddies, having a somewhat working military is great. They turned a goblin snatcher into a pincushion. They do display "Soldier - cannot follow order" 90% of the time though, which is rather confusing. Any chance of telling us what they need to get to work instead of that cryptic error message?
A hilarious moment was when a water buffalo and a horse got into a fight: the horse first kicked the hell out of the buffalo, and then bit and latched on to its back and wouldn't let go. Trying to imagine the scene had me laugh out loud.
Overall animals being a big unruly is fun. I put two war dogs and a giant scorpion (all non-grazers) in a small pasture in front of my entrance to guard it, and they also got into a fight (the dog actually wounded the scorpion and was unhardmed
).
The scorpion didn't use its sting and only grabbed the dog with its rear legs, as if it really didn't want to harm it. This made me think that it would be fun if animals (and dwarves, why not) did have a set of attacks (some of them toned down as when training) that they use in friendly brawls. Puppies would have those kind of brawls all the time.
Also very funny is "Urist
bashes Asob in the head with its iron battleaxe,
lightly tapping the target".
One last thing: do you guys manage to visually distinguish grass from muddy floor, pebbles, and various other kinds of soil? Around my fortress, it seems that the only way to see if grass is growing somewhere is to use 'k' and check tiles one at a time, not very good if you want to quickly assess how much food is left for your grazers, or if a place is good for a pasture. Some different tiles for grass and bare soil would help I think.