I had "one of those moments" in DF, just a little while ago. I play without traps, which may explain why I bother with all the fancy defenses. DF is far more fun that way.
Goblins thundered in, led by some fearsome human swordsman, ready to loot, plunder and be generally undwarvish in their demeanor. Led by a human horsebound warrior, they wanted my treasures and the blood of my dwarves.
I called back the sand-gathering crowd outside. Unfortunately, two bearded fellows were pincushioned by the green horde before they could reach safety. Revenge would be extracted in goblin blood, but with the odds at about 10-1, I avoided battle for now. Bridges were raised to keep the goblins from sneaking in uninvited. No unpleasant surprises thank you! Unfortunately, I had built some of them to retract (the default option), and even as a chasm three dragons deep separated my dwarfs from the goblins, one of the green squads snuck up all the way to the edge and began shooting.
Luckily, the merchants trading at my depot were kind enough to catch some fire for me. But then disaster! One of my lowly peasants is wounded (slightly). Simultaneously, the catapults I suddenly remembered to build were continuously being interrupted, so I gave up on them dislodging the little green pests.
That’s what elite marksdwarves are good for.
First one arrives, no ammo of course, gets shot at a little but no wounds or anything. The plate mail and the wrestling practice were a good investment. Second marksdwarf is seriously packing, and begins to shower the gobos with bone bolts. The "fighting in the shade" stuff doesn’t work too well for them, and the first row dies pretty quick, leaving the second to run forward. I noticed at that point that the group is led by none other than the swordman-ruler, on his horsy, thinking himself invincible. He reaches the edge, gets shot at and ducks… Into the moat. On his horse. I lock the service door immediately to avoid him going on a rampage down there.
At that point I should have noticed that the fall didn’t even wound him… Bad premonition?
Simultaneously, my pissed off cook decides to go berserk and chew my mayor to death. At the damn exact second he kills her, my most fancy champion rushes into the room (I sent him of course), sees the berserk and… Yes of course, runs away. Courage and valor at its best. The crazy dwarf runs after the image of bravery, and kills a useless pump operator before the hounds tear him to little bits.
With that out of the way, I decide to stick it to the swordsman. I figured, if I kill him his army will run. He’s all alone down the pit, with none of his pals to stand up for him now. Half of them are bathing in their own blood, and the other half can’t get down to him anyway.
I scraped together three legendary warriors and sent them down to the storage room leading to the swordsman. This should be easy I thought, and ordered my trio of murder machines to run in and deal with the scum. The swordsman, he wants to fight, and charges straight away. Bring it on mongrel!
But unfortunately, I had made a little mistake. You know, that grain of sand that shits up the best damn plan. The swordsman, one single guy, was more than a match for three dwarves. The first one dies before his friends even make contact with the foe. His brothers/sisters in arms try rush the human, but he keeps evading them, jumping out of reach. A second dwarf gets hit and runs away, bleeding all over my pretty floor. Without caring about the third dwarf swinging wildly with his axe, the swordsman pursues his prey, storming into the junction leading to my kitchen and workshops. Then the leaking dwarf bleeds to death, leaving my civilians defenseless, alone with his slayer.
The swordsman must have thought he hit the jackpot, all those civvies to kill! He promptly decapitates a dwarf (no big loss) before at least four war dogs jump him. He kills two instantly and, dancing around (I’m serious, he moved too quick for the dogs to even hit him), punctures the lung of a third. At that point he was still unharmed, and I was beginning to wonder if he was going to depopulate my entire fort. To support my point, he butchers another hauler so bad that chunks and limbs fly out the stairways on the level below. I counted poor Tekkud’s right foot, right upper arm, left upper leg, lower body and left upper arm. Naah, scratch the left upper arm, that belonged to someone else. Either way, it was a pretty nasty mess.
At just that moment, the hall a sea of gore and body parts, a dwarf goes fey. Nothing like the sight of your destroyed brethren to get the creative juices flowing. He/she rushes off to find a workshop while the rampage continues.
By now, a few guards and the surviving elite whateverdwarf join the fray. Together with some caravan guards the finally manage to tire him out, and wound him. In a final strike, he gets propelled into a wall, dead. (Don’t know who did it though.) Some caravan guards were wounded, but not that much.
The little act cost me 6 war dogs, 2 champion dead + one crippled (left eye) and at least 6 dead workers.
So, by now, the rest of his 60 something army should be running for the exit, right? Well, they don’t. Dr Murder was just lieutenant to the elite bowman, the actual leader, who is strolling around outside at a safe distance from artillery.
Well crap.
That’s when I also realized I should have recorded everything.
Anyway, that was a nice moment in DF for me. Maybe you’ve got some fine war stories of your own to share?
[ December 28, 2007: Message edited by: Krash ]
