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[ClkWrkJester]

I've been training this squad since the first year... we're on year 2... and the first siege they got hacked to pieces. Couldn't even land any hits because the goblins were "dodging away" nonstop. All they've done is practice and train in the barracks... do I -have- to use a danger room to get these guys to be halfway competant?

I admit to being pretty frustrated since I've got -everything- down. I can even make fortresses that the sieges can't touch, but I -want- to fight for once and can't get the swing of it.

[SpiralDimentia]

Naw. Did you equip them? They normally get mauled if they don't have some decent armor. Give them training wepaon and shield, even if you have no metal, and let them train 24/7. Once you get something, even if it's bone, give them a breastplate and helmet. Though full coverage is best, I like to stick with

mail shirt
breastplate
greaves
boots[high or low, matters little]
gauntlets
helm shield

This gives them enough protection that even unskilled dwarves become serious threats to goblins. ESPECIALLY if they've been training a while.

[ClkWrkJester]

They had iron breastplates, greaves, helmets, and weapons.  Basically everyone but the sword dwarves got utterly destroyed, and the two sword dwarves went Samurai and killed everything solo.

And the marksdwarves charged when despite their full quivers they decided to just die.  I'm -really- annoyed because anytime I try to do a military thing at all it fails. Even when they're in full tin cans they just run out and get butchered.

[Leonidas]

Divide and conquer. Don't take on the whole siege at once. Prepare your battle space and separate your visitors into mangeable groups. Use drawbridges to create a series of airlocks. Wait until your soldiers are gathered and ready before you allow the battle to start.

Put your marksdwarves behind fortifications so that they don't go to melee when they run out of bolts.

If you're determined not to use danger rooms, then I suggest putting retractable bridges under those airlocks. When you're ready for a battle, put your soldiers underneath the invaders, then pull away the floor. The gobbos will fall, break a few bones, and sit there stunned for a few seconds while your dwarves try to remember which end of the axe is sharp.

And remember: Just because the gobbos come to visit doesn't mean you have to invite them in. If your battle space isn't ready, then tell them to wait until it's finished.

[Monkeyfacedprickleback]

Cage traps and an arena. Use a mass pitting system. Drop them into a area 1 z-level below where your dwarves outnumber the goobos 2 or 3 to 1.
There will probably be a few casulties.

[Tirion]

Cage traps and an arena. Use a mass pitting system. Drop them into a area 1 z-level below where your dwarves outnumber the goobos 2 or 3 to 1.
There will probably be a few casulties.

Or do the same, but give them uniforms with training weapons, and disarm the goblins before pitting them.

[Mechatronic]

Basically:

- put them in squads of two or three to promote sparring, a fast training method, and have less tie waiting around for training sessions
- give them backpacks and waterskins, to stop them running around so much getting food and drink
- give dwarves in the same squad the same weapon type so they don't try to teach each other weapons they don't use
- try embarking with some dwarves with military skills. I normally go 1 point in a weapon skill then 3 in each of shield, armor and dodging.
- armour them well, I use a mail shirt (breastplate leaves upper arms vulnerable), helm, greaves, gauntlets, high boots and a shield
- edged weapons tend to be better than blunt ones if you have iron, bronze, steel or adamantine. If you've just got copper or silver hammers are pretty good.

[Matoro]

If you want your military survive, full-coverage armouring and shields are most important thing. Equip melee dwarwes with full armor set and shield. Many kinds of weapons are also plus. Axes and swords are good for light targets, blunt weapons are good against armoured.

[Victuz]

- armour them well, I use a mail shirt (breastplate leaves upper arms vulnerable), helm, greaves, gauntlets, high boots and a shield

You can wear mail and a breastplate at the same time.

I know it might sound silly but after you armor them it's also a good idea to give them as much shitrts, trousers and cloaks as possible. I don't know if this bug is still present but I remember some time ago you could get a dwarf to wear 10 shirts and 10 pairs of pants, and that DOES in fact increase their "AC" of sorts.

Also helms are great but remember you can also add leather caps to that (you can't do that with metal ones).

Anyway when you get used to the awesomeness of the danger room it's really hard to go "back". I decided to do just the same as you did my last game but I got so used to legendary siege murdering soldiers that I completely forgot about traps.

[i2amroy]

I know it might sound silly but after you armor them it's also a good idea to give them as much shitrts, trousers and cloaks as possible. I don't know if this bug is still present but I remember some time ago you could get a dwarf to wear 10 shirts and 10 pairs of pants, and that DOES in fact increase their "AC" of sorts.

It's not a bug but intended behavior. As it is having lots of clothes won't protect you too much against slashing attacks, but it will pad you against bludgeoning damage. Sort of like how in real life it would hurt a lot more to get hit by a baseball bat if you were naked then if you were wrapped in 4 inches of thick blankets.

[Sutremaine]

I recommend training them in stages. First you have them train without any weapons, armour, or shield. This makes them more likely to work on their dodging. Then you add armour and a shield. Then you add weapons. What you get if you go from nothing to full kit is dwarves who become very, very good with a weapon and remain very, very bad at defence. When it comes to armour, focus on helms. Dwarves who fall unconscious will automatically get headshotted even if they're in full steel above the chin and copper below it. When the battle is over, have a good hospital (soap, clean water, medics who stay nearby when idle). The key thing is keeping them alive. With the new medical system, dwarves can often get back to training in a couple of months even if they're being held together only by wood and thread. It's not like it used to be, when a severe injury was as good as a death as far as military capability was concerned. Since novices no longer train as efficiently as skilled soldiers, this is a very good thing.

Waterskins are far more useful than you might think. Watch a dwarf drink from a barrel some time and see how long they take to finish. Waterskins refill in one turn and remove two out of three trips to the drink stockpile. Honestly, it's worth putting every civilian in a squad just to have them carry waterskins. When I stop dwarves from carrying them, I go from one to three dwarves on a booze run to about a dozen.

[sambojin]

This technique does only work for one weapon(picks), and it's an easy embark option. It assumes a few things too. The first assumption is that you will probably train up no-hopers (peasants or not-required-skill dwarves) from your second or third migrant wave. Getting them going early is always a good thing. The second assumption is that you do know that danger rooms are better than any other training technique, so don't expect them to be nearly that good that quickly.

Take a weapon training dwarf on embark, and bring along at least one copper pick. A reasonable set-up is:
Fighting(1), Dodging(1), Shield-user(1), Armour-user(1), Spear-dwarf(1), Ambusher(1), Teacher(4).

This guy immediately starts mining out your fort and will usually end up with mining 4-5+ by the end of the initial run of mining out rooms/workshops/etc. Even with other miners, he'll skill his major combat skill quickly. Once the inital mining is done then set this guy as your manager. Organisers are good trainers.

As soon as some no-hopers enter your fort (1-3 of them), turn them into miners (make picks if you need more, any metal, and turn off mining for your trainer). Designate any area you can to mine with a preference to soil/sand (it's faster to mine). As soon as these dwarves are about a skill level lower in mining than your weapon trainer, turn off mining for them all, squad them up with the trainer/manager as leader (remove manager labour) with picks, shields, any armour you can (helmets a must) and set the squad to train non-stop in a barracks with them set to one less than squad size to train.... Wait.........

Not-so-instant-but-still-quicker-than-most-ways "Pick-Squad-o'Doom".

Plus your trainer can go and train up some spear-dwarves. Or just retire as a manager eventually. Or turn on hunter in a quiet season or two and train up marksdwarves as well (note: he trains them by taking them on hunting expeditions in a military squad). You can drop the speardwarf thing, but it really is handy to have to two killy weapons on your trainer skills for a long running fort. Hammer or spear really, take your pick. 

Yes, it works. Quite well too.

Make a pick based military for your first squads. Then you can branch out to spears or hammers or crossbows. It works fairly well for the training portion, it's up to you and your resources to how well they go in combat.

[Martholomule]

- put them in squads of two or three to promote sparring, a fast training method, and have less time waiting around for training sessions

I'm totally behind this.  Once I reduced my squad size I had WAY more success.  I had 5-man squads in my last fort and training orders for 3 minimum and they skilled up pretty decently.   

[Lexx]

Just make a full squad kill every animal on the map regularly. And capture siegers/ambushers for them to practice against at your leisure in a fighting pit. With a full suit of even copper armor they'll do fine. Have them on regular blocks of training only when these things aren't doable.

[Ibid Straydrink]

Alternatively, if you don't mind cheating, you may go to Dwarf Fortress Folder > raw > objects > creature_standard and paste the following right below [can_open_doors] in the dwarf entry. This will cause your troops to train 50% faster, which usually means that a band of soldiers drafted from your first couple waves of migrants will be ready for battle (but not overpowered) with minimal gear come the first ambush.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[SKILL_RATE:AXE:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:SWORD:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:DAGGER:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:MACE:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:HAMMER:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:SPEAR:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:CROSSBOW:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:SHIELD:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:ARMOR:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:SIEGECRAFT:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:SIEGEOPERATE:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:PIKE:150:16:16:32]
   [SKILL_RATE:WHIP:150:16:16:100]
   [SKILL_RATE:BOW:150:16:16:100]
   [SKILL_RATE:BLOWGUN:150:16:16:100]
   [SKILL_RATE:THROW:150:16:16:100]
   [SKILL_RATE:DODGING:150:16:16:100]

Also, a good general rule is to customize your squads' schedules and make certain that they are always training, patrolling, or stationed somewhere, but never idle. This prevents them from making friends and reproducing, meaning that they won't be missed terribly when they nobly go forth to become cannon fodder.