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[ledgekindred]

How are crossbows? Last I played they were worthless since bolts couldn't even penetrate clothing. Is a hail of wooden bolts effective or do I really need to go for the metal tips?

Vicious.

A single lucky shot through the brain is an instakill.  A squad of 10 marksdwarves can make the lives of an incoming ambush very, very short.  I typically have two or three hunters for the first couple of years, then draft them as squad leaders, then draft a bunch of peasants into a couple of 10-dwarf squads. Put them behind fortifications so they can safely shoot at the first couple ambushes and they will level fast with wooden bolts. After a bit I start making metal bolts.

Last night I had a single crossbow dwarf take out an ambusher from something like 30 tiles away.  He got a single shot in that crippled the goblin then sat back and plinked away for five or six more shots until he got a headshot and killed it.  He then proceeded to cripple two more at distance, leaving them ready for my axedwarves to sweep in and chop them to bits.  I was impressed.

[franti]

You can make things like pewter swords now? Interesting ... I suppose I should have been making nickel weapons and armor since I had so much of it last embark. It can't be much worse than copper, can it? I imagine it would be better. Wait, are you running a mod for that?

This new embark does not appear to be much better. All I have found is Galena, but since Silver warhammers don't sound that bad I might just field some hammerdwarves in lead armor. After things get fun, I suppose I'll look into cheating my worldgen.

How are crossbows? Last I played they were worthless since bolts couldn't even penetrate clothing. Is a hail of wooden bolts effective or do I really need to go for the metal tips?

Nickel is worse than Copper.
I did A LOT of testing, and from best to worst all the metals (rated by armour/slashing worthiness) are in my sig.

[milaga]

Ah, I see. I ditched the second embark since all I could find is Galena. I see lead is not ranked very highly on your metal chart.

I regenned with more metals and found a cool embark site*. I've been pretty lucky with migrants, getting a 13ish carpenter, armorer, weaponsmith and grower, in the first two waves (rendering four of my first seven useless.) Not many military folk, but hopefully I can figure out how to train them now. I'm still without stonecrafter and mechanic, but I guess I can start from nothing with one of the many master beekeeper and waxworkers that decided to come to my frozen jungle.

So I should I have squads of 3 men, with 2 training at all times so they are sparring? Should each squad get their own training barracks? Do military dwarves actually perform their non-military duties now when they are inactive? Does it make sense to have my axedwarves act as my woodcutters so they head out in full gear to chop down trees, mindful of ambushes from elf-goblins?

* Conflictdiamond! What a surprising fort name. A nice stream (not brook) that my wagon started on! Abandon wagon! Once I dug through the deep levels of soil and clay I find quite a bit of hematite among the mudstone (at least it wasn't microcline.) Despite asking for flux stone, I don't see any in this biome. Not only that, but this place is cold (despite being temperate). The stream is frozen from mid-autumn through mid-spring. Unfortunately, when the stream is not frozen, my migrants are always trapped on the other side. I suppose I should build a bridge.

[franti]

There's no guarantee they'll always spar, but a smaller size helps, I've heard.
Woodcutting does nothing to benefit the Axedwarf skill, and vice-versa. Also, Woodcutters/Miners/Hunters have an invisible uniform that consists of only their tools: putting them in the military can have odd effects.

[Maklak]

3 squads with minimum 2 training worked well for me. you can assign multiple squads to the same barracks. Yes, inactive squads will occasionally do "individual combat drills", but otherwise stick to civilian jobs. It makes more sense to give woodcutters some war animals to soak damage while they run.

[Yoink]

I just think I'll ask this here, since training is discussed... How do I get my dwarves to spar, rather than simply train individually? I've never managed to work that one out.

[ashton1993]

I just think I'll ask this here, since training is discussed... How do I get my dwarves to spar, rather than simply train individually? I've never managed to work that one out.

Activate them, go to your alerts in the military screen, go to the pannel with squad names and press enter on each one to activate it.