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[Arcvasti]

The thing with shellplate is that its super heavy, which makes it inferior to lamellar in my experience. Definitely easier to make early on though. Definitely bring seeds. Rope Reed, Wood Stalk, Blade Weed and Fisher Berries are my usual choice of crops. Kobold bulb is pretty important too. Dimple Cups are really important late game[NO_EMOTION blue warpaint is super good] Anvils are a pain to make yourself as kobolds, so bringing one might not be a bad idea. I also usually bring well parts with me so I can get it set up quickly. Kobolds could TECHNICALLY dig stone now, but WHY? With how slow kobold diggers go and how quickly shovels break, its not worth it. You can do everything that you would normally do with stone with leather or bone or clay or the Thieves Tunnel. Generally sticking to soil layers works best. Embarking on a cave is thematically appropriate and makes getting to caverns really easy, but its pretty dangerous. I would definitely recommend bringing a bloodsteel machete and some pond turtles for that embark. Also, the new kobold workshops all build out of generic tent or worktop buildings using DFhack. And I forgot to mention the Woodcarver, which lets you make mechanisms and querns and stuff out of wood. Its also important early on.

[vcordie]

Yep, I played through a game of kobolds doing what you suggested. I t was pretty fun, but I found myself stalling. after I got the camp all set up and the walls done, I just...couldn't really figure out what to do next. How to better fortify myself. Furthermore, I found myself not getting many migrants. at all. I think the kobold civ died shortly after I embarked.

[NeoxDark]

If the civ died out then rely on your breeder warren for new blood. 1 unit of meat for spawning the newborn and 1 year for it to reach adulthood. After that use the thieves' tunnel and steal the heck out of the other civs in order to try to induce some sieges for some !fun! (and end-game workshop plans) You could cheese it using cage traps and trap spiders but eh..that would make things a bit too easy.

P.S. If the kobold civ really died out then you would stop getting caravans too wouldn't you? Not too sure about this, perhaps the caravans come from dfhack. 

[CyberSpyder]

Huh.  A contingent of elves showed up about a year into my first game with these guys and basically slaughtered everyone.  Not sure how I'm supposed to approach defense for them.  Without being able to dig out a living space, I can't funnel invaders into traps, and similarly my access to metal to make decent weapons is extremely limited.  Pets, I guess?  Though I don't know if I could have had enough of them to make a difference by that point.

[Arcvasti]

Wars ogres are pretty badass. Training and equipping them works really well as a defense. Trap Spiders + Owl-signs with iron machetes can kill almost anything, positioned properly. And melting down the slings that hunters bring will keep you in minimal metal equipment. And funneling invaders into traps through above ground constructions works fine, albeit with substantially more work. Mithral and bloodsteel fully armoured foes are VERY tricky to deal with. Don't fuck with the drow. Or the elves. Dwarves make good targets because they usually show up with shoddy armour and weapons made of unsuitable metals and raiding them gives you useful metals. Plus, they're not THAT much bigger then you, which minimizes the size disadvantage. You can actually make some really good fortifications from smoothed wood planks alone. Slowpoke poisoned blowdarts help a ton. As do slow hexes. In 34.11, speed is ESSENTIAL. Kobolds are naturally fast, so slowing enemies can turn combat into a massacre.

[vcordie]

>trap spiders+owl-signs with iron machetes can kill almost anything, positioned properly
Could you give us examples of such positioning?

[slay_mithos]

Secured towers, with safe vision of a wide field, with fortifications, just like your standard archer towers.

It's just that you might want to restrict the vision from/to this tower to the max range of your spiders, with walls, so that they can't get shot at from out of range.

[vcordie]

how far can spiders shoot webs and can they shoot them across z levels?

[Arcvasti]

My preferred positioning goes more like this:
--EE--
T|  |T
T|  |T
--   --
The T are trap spiders, the | are fortifications, the - are walls and the E represent the entrance to your fort proper where your militia resides. You should also maybe have TWO layers of fortifications, to ensure they can't be skilled easily by returnfire. For best results, place weapon traps in the corridor, although non-Air sign kobolds WILL get killed if they get webbed on top of them. Owl signs are the best melee fighters of the Air-signs, given their high combat learning rates. Kestrel or Bluebird would also technically work, in a pinch, but their signs are best put to use elsewhere.

[vcordie]

Late but why choppers instead of pointy sticks? Better armor penetration and their drawback that they dont disable enemies as easy is nullified by the webs. Also if enemy is webbed all the shots should be headshots and spears are great at damaging the brain

[Arcvasti]

Those would probably work better for this purpose. Machetes are just my go-to weapon because they're the most versatile. They can stab AND slash and the latter is more broadly useful most of the time. Pointy sticks would work better for this and they can be made out of cheap bone early on, in an emergency.

[NeoxDark]

Those would probably work better for this purpose. Machetes are just my go-to weapon because they're the most versatile. They can stab AND slash and the latter is more broadly useful most of the time. Pointy sticks would work better for this and they can be made out of cheap bone early on, in an emergency.

pointy sticks could also be made from clear glass which is iron grade. Clear glass and the inferior green glass are fairly easy to obtain early on.

[vcordie]

not as easy as just making ironbone, I think. I mean, pearlash requires ash anyways to make potash,, then you turn that potash into pearlash, and then the pearlash and sand into clear glass. Alternatvely, make ash, take bones, make ironbone. easy as that.
edit: arcvasti, now that you know you can make slowpoke poison without stealing a workshop, does your initial plants you bring on embark change? do you bring say, kobold bulb over rope reed (Which I don't much see the point of, to be honest)?

[NeoxDark]

Other than the wood oven and the firepit, is there a better and more efficient way of obtaining ash? The kobolds does not get the 3 ash for 1 log reaction like the dwarves do. 

[vcordie]

weird, I thought that the custom reactions to the smelter would affect all races since all races have access to the smelter (ince that;s hardcoded).
I don't think there's any more efficient way of obtaining ash. peat gives some ash sometimes when burned to coke, so if you're using it as fuel its a 2 for one deal. anyways.

are witches/witchers immune to their own shadow webs? what about regular webs? the manual states them to be ranged attackers but with slow hexed+slowpokepoisoned blade and their natural abilities to slow down or entangle enemies in webs I feel like they could be really killer in melee. How do they actually fair in melee? what about druids? druids are pretty easy to get up in a short amount of time, a lot faster then training owl signs to properly use pointy sticks. Would druids with maybe some supporting (but crappy) marksman with slowpoke poisoned blowdarts be able to wreck sieges?
trying to figure the best early defense possible that doesn't require dealing with the absolutely crappy militia screen and equipment screen and all that general, horrible, bugginess.