Back in 40d, I'd become annoyed with elven caravans being sitting ducks for anyone and anything and modded them with [MERCHANT_BODYGUARDS] and maces and pikes instead of swords.* I genned a new world, found a nice little embark spot and ran a quite successful little fortress with some quite elaborate engineering projects by my standards. I learned to appreciate their tendency to bring vast quantities of cloth and very little else quite early on when a fey mood left me with a legendary clothier; I'd rather neglected this industry until then and decided I might as well run with it, and before long I was buying out entire caravans.
So, around about the sixth year after settling there, a massive goblin ambush hit while the elven caravan was en route. An elven maceman found himself in a narrow valley facing a whole squad of goblins single-handed with reinforcements several minutes away.
He hit the first goblin hard enough to launch him into the hillside and splatter, and went on to dispatch four more before dying to a crossbow bolt in the back mere seconds after several Fortress Guard marksdwarves arrived at a dead run to render assistance.
I ended up erecting a statue on the spot where he fell, and I don't think I cut down another tree as long as that fort stayed active.
* Apart from seeming a bit more plausible, blunt weapons were a lot more dangerous under the old combat rules, especially without the strength cap. Sometimes I miss the days of Captain Ironblood and Morul, The Most Interesting Dwarf In The World, when with years upon years of practice a dwarf could become strong enough to punt a goblin clear across a mountain range.