with those scary desert guys, i dunno much on fighting against them, but my previous fort, before the drow related experiment, had them as embarkable pets (long story, that), so a brought a boatload of males for combat purposes along with my war-everythings (dogs, rhinos, giraffes, and various underground critters, including gcs) and two females.
interesting things of note: they very frequently give birth to triplets. three or four seem to be able to overwhelm and kill a bog troll thief. like gremlins, gorlaks, and animal men, if they're brought to your map already tame, they have names. and all their kids will be named, even if the parents weren't (mind you, taming them requires modding their raws). and, like the children of gremlins and gorlaks, their kids will be targeted by snatchers, if they're closer than your dwarven children. much nicer to lose one of those than a dwarf kid. or, as usually happens, have the parents make a meal of the would-be snatcher
also, on their cloud/syndrome attack, it's really great. i even pointed it out in another thread to someone who was looking to make something really similar. hope you don't mind, narhiril
and, on those damned kittens. i don't mind it at all. it actually sorta fits, in a way. real cats are all nice, cute and fluffy one instant, and tearing things to shreds the next. so, a race of them, when something pisses them off enough to get the claws out...it ain't gonna be pretty. the previous fort (one mentioned above) had the humans at war with the meowkin, and they were both pretty much at a draw. guess that other world, they just got lucky with their bit of warmongery. normally, they're just fine. the cute, cuddly traders you expect