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[Girlinhat]

Has anyone tried to equip a marskmen squad with melee weapons, in addition to crossbows?  If so, how did it work?

[Hitty40]

Has anyone tried to equip a marskmen squad with melee weapons, in addition to crossbows?  If so, how did it work?

I haven't tried this, but I think in my opinion, whatever soldier profession a military dwarf is, they will stick to it.

[Girlinhat]

I'm not entirely sure.  I mean, you can assign them a melee and a ranged, and they'll carry them both, but I -think- they'll only resort to melee when their ammo runs out or they get rushed.  Normal crossbows have a blunt attack, but even a legendary hammerman with a crossbow will fire before bashing.

[trees]

They will fire and use their melee fine, but they'll won't give their melee weapon priority over their crossbow when in combat so you'll still see plenty of smacking. It's not too bad, though, whenever I play Genesis I tend to give at least one of my archer squads daggers to help against flying illithids.

[Girlinhat]

So, they tend to bash with crossbow instead of hack with ax?  That kinda defeats the purpose...

[trees]

Not instead of. It's about equal.

[Roraborialisforealis]

Has anyone tried to equip a marskmen squad with melee weapons, in addition to crossbows?  If so, how did it work?

Ive found that its highly random behavior. They will shoot at target out of their reach (Most of the time,) and develope their own personal preferences. I have learned that they practically ignore hammers. Thus I highly recommend bladed weapons. I tested billon XBOWS using arena, and they will ALWAYS use the billion crossbow over any other weapon (With good reason...... They could out brawl platinum hammers.) So avoid heavy crossbows if you want bladed weapon infantry, Otherwise, the dwarves that like shooting their enemy's will let off their payload and then engage their foes in melee combat, wielding either a multigrasp melee weapon (aka, Axes only,) or dual wield their weapon and their crossbow. They will only use one shield at any given time, and two bucklers. Melee preference dwarves only shoot in cannot follow orders mode.
Edit: Them actually using the axe is extremely rare in the case of multigrasp weaponry. One handed weapons such as swords and spears I have found will get used, and I suppose maces would work.

Stil. With one handed weaponry: They will prove much more deadly in melee. I think of it as them using bayonets. (Lols at the mace.)

[Girlinhat]

Curious...  Either way, it would likely be wooden or bone bows and steel axes, as I have plentiful of both and they're not intended for melee.  Why does billon work better than platinum hammers?

[trees]

Perhaps edged weapons might be more likely to be selected because of how edged attacks are 100 times more likely than blunt ones? I've only heard of that being used within the weapon (like with pommel strikes) but it would make sense to work this way.

[Roraborialisforealis]

Why is steel as good as silver? I believe it has something to do with hardness. Also. Crossbows have much higher areas then hammers, which is good in terms of damage, but not so in armor piercing. The cool part is that is that the copper hardness at silver weight makes it just as good as armor piercing it seems, but the slightly larger area and penetration leads to more organ injury's.
Edit: I looked at the raws that I had and there were wrong. I did let plot vital npc play with my DF copy..... Thus my billon does not weigh less then both the components thannnnks to himmm.... Erm. Sorry for the billon misinformation.

[Mechanixm]

Has anyone tried to equip a marskmen squad with melee weapons, in addition to crossbows?  If so, how did it work?

It has been my experience that they will only carry one of the two assigned weapons, and therefore, use that weapon in melee combat.

[Roraborialisforealis]

Ive found that they *will* Use single-handed weapons. I only claim that my billion information is inaccurate.

[Girlinhat]

Multigrasp weapons (for rather small dwarves this can include regular weapons) they will carry one, but for single-handed weapons, like swords especially, they carry both, though it gives little to no combat advantage.

[Roraborialisforealis]

They will attack with them just as much as the crossbows as the melee weapons im pretty sure I had one fort where I was forced to use obsidian and it *Seemed* to work!

[Fredd]

Actually it really depends on which is higher, fighter or archer skill