Abomadible snowmen and ice wolves. I wanted to try and settle an evil glacier fortress, so I embarked on a haunted glacier tile. Anticipating fun, I brought a trained axedwarf fighter in the initial 7. I designated my miners to begin digging the entrance hall and everyone else got hauling duty. I realized from the units screen that there was a yeti corpse walking around on a remote corner of the map. I let him be, but kept a close eye on him. Suddenly, I noticed he was walking towards the entrance while the militia commander was taking a break far off at the wagon. I ordered her to get her ass in gear and fight this thing and I burrowed everyone else inside the tunnel. All the dwarves ran inside as the yeti chased them. They were now cornered inside, with the yeti standing at the entrance. Suddenly from behind him came the thwack of a mighter dwarven... fist. I hadn't assigned a uniform to her single-dwarf squad, so she hadn't bothered to pick up her bronze battleaxe. She managed to get a few good punches and kicks in, but was soon vomiting on the ground begging for death. The yeti turned to the rest of the party and proceeded to coat the snow in dwarf blood and vomit. On closer inspection of the combat reports, I noticed that the yeti seemed to be using a glove as a dwarf-killing implement.
Not to be discouraged, I instantly reembarked on the glacier (I didn't reclaim or even use the same tile; just the same evil glacier). This time I brought a trained swordsman who was also good with a shield. I didn't bring a shield because I figured my carpenter could make one cheaper with one of the many extra logs I brought along. When they arrived, things went as they had the last time. The miners got to work, the guard kept an eye out, and everyone else were haulers for now. There was a pack of three wolves waiting for us the instant the wagon hit, but, like the yeti, they wandered around on the outskirts of the map a bit before engaging. Suddenly, the wolves began charging towards the wagon. I ordered the swordsman to engage the wolf in the lead head on, away from the wagon. He fought bravely and managed to take out one of the wolves before giving into the pain. Below, the miners worked safely and had a barrel each of prepared fish guts and wine waiting outside their tunnel as they dug. Above, the other four dwarves ran around frantically, constantly getting frightened and changing direction. I thought about burrowing the surviving dwarves inside the small tunnel (ice takes a while to dig), but the only nearby supplies were the two aforementioned barrels, some towercap logs, and a bundle of cloth. Everything else was back at the wagon, and even the stuff outside the tunnel would take time to haul in. I decided to let the dwarves run around above ground and kept their hauling orders, to get some more supplies into the bunker. I was placing all of my chips on the two miners; the other dwarves were basically sacrificing themselves to try and bring the miners some food. There was only one entrance into the to-be fortress, so I figured the two miners had a chance at killing a single zombie with their picks. Above ground was pure chaos: all of the livestock I had brought had died and been reanimated, along with the bodies of the swordsman and the wolf he killed. The 4 dwarves above were slowly picked off, and didn't succeed in hauling a single good to the tunnels. The zombie swordsman, now swordless, wandered through the tunnel into the entrance chamber of the fortress that had almost been completely dug-out. I drafted the two miners into the militia and sicced them on the zombie. Unfortunately, since I had their uniform set to "melee weapon of choice", both soldiers immediately dropped their pickaxes on the ground and ran for the wagon and the sword that was left in the snow when the guard first died. Both miners ignored my kill order to equip themselves, and tried to run right past the zombie. The zombie caught one of them and mercilessly beat him to death, giving the other an opportunity to escape. The remaining miner ran from zombie wolves, chickens, cats, dogs, and dwarves until the sword was finally in view, lying in a pool of dwarf vomit. The miner had almost reached the sword when a zombie horse attacked him from behind. The horse decimated the dwarf completely. Dwarven ribs were strewn all over the snow (I think I counted 7 separate ribs scattered around) as the horse swung the dwarf around by his arm until the arm was finally detached completely and the miner bled to death. There was only one survivor now: a farmer who, somehow, throughout all of the chaos occurring above ground, had survived without a scratch (he was a hungry and dehydrated, but I would still consider him lucky). I decided to send him on an extremely risky mission, but one that might allow him to survive. I drafted him and ordered him to run into the half-completed entrance hall to grab the miners' picks. This would be difficult; the reanimated bodies of the swordsman and his victim both dwelled inside. The brave farmer didn't even make it halfway to the entrance before he was mauled by a zombie wolf and and killed. I am thinking about reclaiming the second site with a crew consisting of as many armed and trained military dwarves as possible.
Author
Topic: Your Archnemesis (Read 7850 times)