My perference is not playing "fair" with the goblins. Chop them up a bit with traps, shoot a bunch of their mounts down with crossbows from behind fortifications, force them down into tunnels to negate their flying mounts, etc. Then hit them with with a melee ambush from close range that includes a majority of well-trained and well-armored dwarves. Harder to do early on in the fortress life cycle, but you do the best you can.
In a recent ambush I actually took on a mounted goblin squad in the open with a bunch of melee dwarves (about a dozen - master level in weapon or better, steel armor and weapons, mix of sword, spear, hammer, mace, and axe.) The "rush" was from a tunnel entrance about 10-12 tiles from the goblins.
The lead two dwarves got mobbed and spent most of the early stages of the combat getting knocked down by mounts charging them while they dodged or blocked multiple attacks by goblins and mounts. Both went into martial trances, but the only offensive strike they made was one axe lord chopping the goblin squad leader's lower leg off. (And I think this is the fate of even master dwarves getting into a fight against cavalry when heavily outnumbered - knocked around until a lucky hit takes out their shield or weapon and then they get swarmed and killed. In return they might inflict a wound or two.)
Once more of the other dwarves waded in the goblins rapidly took a beating. Few initial kills, but lots of broken bones, bruised organs, and lower limb chopping. Then the mounts started dropping and things turned into a rout with the dwarves pounding the squad and their mounts into mincemeat. Two goblins and four mounts escaped, and both goblins were missing one or two limbs.
Goblin infantry, on the other hand, appears to be dead meat to small numbers of legendary dwarves. They're not big enough to knock over the dwarf as easily, and the counter strikes tend to take out attackers and whittle them down. Add in martial trance and you see the "dwarven buzzsaw" effect too. (Best case I know is watching a Level 7 axe dwarf caravan guard obliterate a goblin ambush team single-handed.) For handling goblins with missile weapons or lashers a bit more care is taken - use traps, elite marksdwarves behind fortifications, or get them close to a closed drawbridge and use that to set up a set-piece close range assault so that they only get one shot each before the melee troops are in their faces and the marksdwarves are firing into them as well.
And with 34.11 I think I have seen two "fixes" to make goblins slightly more dangerous.
First, all I am seeing right now is cavalry. Even with the goblin general appearing and then going away they still are all mounted. (Though I have not seen the goblin civ leader yet - perhaps both have to go.) It used to be that I would see a cavalry unit or two, but most of the goblins were infantry. And after their general died it would all be infantry from then on.
Second, this goblin civ is wearing chain shirts and helms. Previous experience was seeing combos like breastplate and metal cap. (Is this a general fix, or does goblin armor preferences vary from goblin civ to goblin civ?) This makes the goblins a bit better protected from attacks in general, but also makes hammers slightly more useful for beating them up with as compared to axes.
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Topic: Migrants? Useless? What are you talking about? (Read 2939 times)