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[Cyco_Chicken]

The thought keeps me awake at night wondering which is better and what advantages they hold over eachother.
I tried the wiki but it was no help all it said was "Blunt weapons are good against armor." Does anybody know what is better maces or warhammers?

[Loud Whispers]

Maces have a better chance of wounding, and since blunt weapons cumulate damage, you can guarantee the win in the long run if you're sufficiently skilled.

Warhammers on the other hand, have a higher chance of inflicting hits on organs, and is also better at damaging through armour.

Both suck at killing anything giant and armoured, so don't send them at Titans/Colossi/Steel FB's ;P

Still, smashing dragon skulls works too.

[Dunamisdeos]

Ive got a legendary iron mace. is win?

[knutor]

Maces.  Larger weapons with more heft tend to do more damage.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Weapons

Warhammer is just a faster velocity xbow that takes two hands to wield, unlike mace and xbow, which only take one.

Sincerely,
Knutor

[Bognor]

Warhammer ... takes two hands to wield.

Wha-? Since when? I see that's what the wiki says, but can anyone confirm that?  Seems unlikely given they're half the size of maces.  Note dwarves sometimes use two hands to wield certain one-handed weapons when their other hand is free, but I'm 95% sure hammers don't require two hands and can be used at the same time as shields.

[nanomage]

I've done a bit of arena testing some time before, and arena dwarves perform better with warhammers. Arena trolls on ther other hand fight more effectively with maces.
There must be a border strength value somewhere between average dwarf's and average troll's strength, a value at which maces and hammers are equally effective.
The question is whether a mighty dwarf has strength higher or lower than that!

[Alastar]

My testing had the same results as nanomage's, at least for armoured combatants. Average arena dwarves seemed to do better with maces against unarmoured opponents than with hammers.
This may be even trickier when we take into account weapon material because there's no clear hierarchy for blunt weapons - silver hammers and steel maces may be better than steel hammers and silver maces.

[Loud Whispers]

Copper is the second best for blunt weapons

Also, Dwarves are easily capable of wielding warhammers one handed.

[knutor]

mighty dwarf

Two dueling dwarfs in arena mode wasn't a variable.
STR wasn't a variable.
Beard length wasn't a variable.

I'll quote Cyco_Chicken's question again for rereading. 

Does anybody know what is better maces or warhammers?

Mace.

But a Maul would be best.  Look at the size of that thing, holy mackerel!  Has anyone ever even gotten a Maullord in gameplay, before, I wonder?

Sincerely,
Knutor

[Funk]

 i shall test it in the arena.
ok with 200 a side,no skills, iron weapons, no armor but rope reed clothing.

the warhammer side won and not just by one or two dwarfs but by good 50+ dwarfs.

[i2amroy]

Mauls, however, are large enough to require two hands for all but the largest of dwarves. This means that though they will technically do more damage, they will require your dwarves to abandon their shields in order to wield them. Also Maullords are just called Macelords in gameplay.

[Cyco_Chicken]

I have finally figured out the arena mode and so now I will do some testing of my own but rather than mace vs. hammer I will test them against gobbos. 10v10 3 times dwarves with iron armor and silver maces vs. gobbos with what they normally have pieces of copper armor with varrying weapons and afterward the same test but with silver warhammers. I will be watching the time it takes to kill all the gobbos the fatigue the dwarves face and how many dwarves are hurt/killed. Also I will do no skills in the test. For fun I will do the same tests again against elves in wooden armor to see how these weapons fair against elves, and because I love seeing dead elves
Oh and thx for the respones.

[nightwhips]

i shall test it in the arena.
ok with 200 a side,no skills, iron weapons, no armor but rope reed clothing.

the warhammer side won and not just by one or two dwarfs but by good 50+ dwarfs.

This doesn't really test anything! Because after a few dwarves die (which could be random - remember we're playing df), the numbers start becoming imbalanced, giving one side an advantage.

So do this again, 200 more times, and then we'll know.

[Garath]

i shall test it in the arena.
ok with 200 a side,no skills, iron weapons, no armor but rope reed clothing.

the warhammer side won and not just by one or two dwarfs but by good 50+ dwarfs.

This doesn't really test anything! Because after a few dwarves die (which could be random - remember we're playing df), the numbers start becoming imbalanced, giving one side an advantage.

So do this again, 200 more times, and then we'll know.

or do it 4 more times and if they win each time, start decreasing hammer dwarf numbers

[Alastar]

Even if your dwarves can wield them and have the strength to no swing them effectively, mauls are poor against armour because the contact area is very large for a blunt weapon and they're still going to be less lethal than edged weapons against pretty much anything else. Oh, and the wielders are likely to end up as pin cushions without a shield.