so after my last fortress died a horrible fps death, i started a new one on an evil area (has the skeletal type wildlife, though that seems to be about the limit of its evil).

the primary creature in its fauna is skeletal horses. i dont know if its normal for areas like this, but normal horses and groundhogs appear as well, though when they leave the map, skeletal versions appear, usually horses (strangely there's also pixies and fairies sometimes, arent those good area creatures?)

naturally after a few ambushes and stuff the place is littered with goblin parts and equipment. so i let my dwarves out from the hatch to pick up all the stuff cause i dont want to die another fps death. the first times i avoided the skeletals - when they appeared i ran back inside. then i decided there was no way i'd pick up all the shit before there was more left so i tried to fight them - and got horribly slaughtered.

so i go into arena mode to try and figure out what equipment or skills might help my dwarves deal with them. after a few trials, i figured i need at least twice the dwarves, with full or nearly full iron armor and weapons, to fight skeletal horses and have noone die (even though about 2 of them get horribly butchered anyway, on average - that's for 3 horses and 6 dwarves). so i tried a grand master dwarf with full steel armor and weps. i pit him against a bunch of different monsters and he did awesome. even those that push him back and stunned him never hurt him - when he got the chance he slaughtered them easy.

so then i try the horses. i had several grand master dwarves around the place so i can try 1on1s many times. turns out, horses charge real hard and if the dwarf is lucky, the charges will stun him repeatedly and eventually he'll kill he undead horse. sometimes, the horse will hurt him real hard though, before it goes down. tried this both with long swords and war hammers (cause i wanted to have the shield too). and then there was this guy that had killed like 30 other random monsters and was even legendary in a few skills. i thought he'd own the horse easy, but no, whole bunch of weird monster kills under his belt without a scratch, but a skeletal horse? yeah he got horribly hurt even though he killed one.

so if a grand master with steel can own a bunch of weird shit and 1 skeletal horse with no skills can kick his ass, isnt there something a bit odd about it? i mean, i had a hydra against 3 horses and they hurt it, while the same hydra had killed a bunch of shit before just fine, no damage.

and i did check, they weren't tired either. the horses all had no skill levels or mistakenly placed equipment.

i'm not whining or anything really - i do think its part of the challenge to deal with this kind of thing and it is interesting tbh, but i am also interested in what other people think on this particular monster/animal (cause both skeletal and normal horses are kick ass strong).