Bay 12 Games Forum

As I know, armour user is used to make dwarves move faster while wearing armour, very useful for dwarves in full steel for example. It is trained primarily through the dwarf letting his armour absorb the hit, which begins to become problematic for elite dwarves who can parry and block most attacks through sparring or live combat with ease. After seeing Skullsploder's ingenious barrack design in the Ultimate Melee Dwarves thread, which involved the dwarf falling down 2 z levels when they dodged during sparring, so the impact itself would give some armour user skill. I applied this to my current fort, and it was worked decently well although it delayed sparring a bit it didn't matter since they were already at the peak of their ability in most other skills (Axedwarf, Shield User). For fun, I decided to just give them each 2 master work wooden shields to perhaps train misc object user on the way (useless in fort mode usually, but I thought it would help their shield bash when they are in live combat). Now, I forgot about this and believed them to be having a master work steel battle axe, so regularly sent them to kill an isolated human soldier, which is where it gets weird. As expected, once the human was subdued I checked the reports and they were hilariously bashing him in the head with their wooden shields, which was deflected by his bronze helm. But during this, they were actively gaining armour user at a hugely rapid rate, going from Great to Master in mere minutes of  bashing him in the head with wooden shields. They are gaining armour user skill as I speak. Is this common knowledge? When I searched up dual wielding shields on the forums, I didn't get anything mentioning this.

Edit: Both my axe lords are legendary armour user right now, from great armour user. They are gaining quite literally hundreds of EXP from just bashing the human with their shield, almost as fast as Danger Room gaining speeds.

Picture of the report for clarity:

Well, I was playing the new version and reclaimed a fort. I was discovering the insanity of the past owners, until I got the message "An ambush! Drive them out!". It centered on a single eagle, and afterwards had no status message/bar of "AMBUSH", and nothing else happened. Has anyone else encountered this?

Just wondering, was this changed in the updates? I remember before it was insanely easy to get a free apartment by threatening the landlord, but now it always fails.

Can you have a squad with dwarves with both a crossbow and a melee weapon?  Would the dwarf know when to use which effectively?

I was just wondering if anyone here plays it, please notify and close this thread i there is already one made thanks

I have tons of alchohol, but the water here freezes during the winter, anyone know how to have an everlasting supply to water that doesn't freeze?  Because if my dwarfs get injured they are pretty much screwed to dehydration.

Another newbie question, I've let my dwarves loose on the wildlife lately, and I had a massive foodsplosion.  Its not that I'm sad, but now I have so much food it is starting to rot away.  Is there a way for my dwarves to eat more?  Selling it to caravans is still a little long considering the long periods of time between each caravan.