Chapter 4: Never a Dull Moment

So there I was last night, playing. Everything was going swimmingly. The arena was nearing completion, my new strip mining project was progressing well, when I receive the familiar "An Ambush! Curse Them!" message. Huh what? The screen zooms over to the ambush. I see about 5 goblin crossbowmen and a blue "guard" (whatever that means) at the edge of the map. But I don't see any dwarves. And the goblins aren't moving. What's going on here? Well, it turns out, the human diplomat decided to wander to the side of the map furthest away from civilization for no goddamn reason and got completely destroyed by the goblin ambush. I'm ambivalent towards this. However, for some reason a planter was out in that direction and ran into the goblins. The crossbowmen shot him down, then decided that hey, there must be something fun in the direction the dwarf was running to, so they start meandering towards my fortress. Oh great, now I have to deal with this. Ok, everyone inside. Of course, this happens right when I'm moving goods outside to meet the dwarven caravan, so I need to clean this up quick. The goblins are advancing, high-fiving each other, fist-pounding, talking about their new beer bongs.

Alright, marksdwarves, get out there and shoot them. This should help clear up my bolt problem and get the marksdwarves some experience. The 4 marksdwarves that aren't eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, take one shot at the goblins and then run at them swinging their crossbows like clubs. Good god, you guys must be the "special" unit. The goblins kill 3 marksdwarves while the fourth manages to limp away. Goblins have taken no casualties. Goddamnit. Alright, melee unit. Kogan deserves a break, so I activate my other melee unit, the group with 3 legendary champions, a mace lord, a mace dwarf and 2 elite wrestlers. It's captained by a dwarf named Momuz.

So the 3 dwarves not eating/sleeping/drinking/being useless head outside, including Momuz. I figure I'll at least lose 1 dwarf. Momuz leads the way and first hits the goblin guard. The guard puts up a good fight, but in the end he's no match for Momuz. Momuz starts tossing around the goblin like a rag doll, all the while dodging barrages of crossbow bolts. The goblin guard falls dead and the crossbowmen decide that discretion is better part of valor. Oh no no, you started it, you're going to finish it. Boys, go get 'em. My dwarves manage to chase down 3 of the retreating goblins and destroy them.

Now there is a trail of corpses leading from a side entrance to my fortress. At the moment that entrance is relatively undefended. A goblin snatcher jumps out and makes a beeline for the fortress, bag in hand ready for a dwarf child. And he runs smack into the face of one my Royal Guards heading outside to pickup a piece of equipment from a dead dwarf. Oh this ought to be good. Half my guards are champions, that snatcher doesn't have a chance. The goblin snatcher then stabs the guard with his dagger and the guard goes down like a sack of bricks.

Wait, what?! What the hell? Oh wait, let me guess, that wasn't one of my native guards. It was one of the guards that came with the king when he arrived. Meh, good riddance, scab. The goblin turns to run away and finds a stray war dog leaping at his face. MWAAAHAHAHA GET HIM BOY. The dog does a better job than the scab guard. The goblin injures the dogs paw and runs. The dog is relatively unharmed, but is slowed down by the paw, so the goblin gets away. I'll get you yet, you bastard.

Two seconds later, a different stray war dog is sniffing around and leaps into action. He found another goblin snatcher. The dog goes to town and the goblin dies horrifically. Thas a good boy. Thas a good boy! Ok, let's designate the goblins gear. Dump, dump, dump, melt, dump, what the... Goblin CHUNK?! THAS A GOOD BOY! THAS MY BOY! He took the goblin apart. Literally.

At this point there is a stream of civilians passing through the area, picking up equipment to store/dispose. It's a great setting for an ambush. So I station Momuz's unit in the area to defend the civilians.

And now we meet the STUPIDEST GOBLIN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. The civilians are passing through the gates to the side entrance when a goblin snatcher decides this would be the perfect opportunity to jump out of the bushes...Aha! I've come for the children!...right into the middle of three of Momuz's dwarves heading back inside for a drink. Two champions and a mace lord. I can't be certain, but I believe later a puddle of goblin urine was found on the spot. The snatcher proceeds to throw his snatching bag at the dwarves and run for his life. I'm not even remotely joking. One second the snatcher is jumping out into the trio of badass dwarves, the next second there is a bag icon on the ground and the goblin is 3 tiles away. It has to be one of the funniest damn things I've seen in this game so far. The goblin didn't even try to stab any of them with his knife. Just dropped the bag and sprinted. Not fast enough though. The dwarves caught him and, well, let's say there wasn't too much to clean up.

The reclamation process is going well. I conscript a few of my more useless dwarves into the army to replentish my marksdwarves unit. Despite their stupidity, they are useful under certain situations. Later I get a message that a marksdwarf is throwing a tantrum. I figure it's one of my new recruits, upset about being drafted. But it's not. It's the marksdwarf that limped away from the fray where the rest of the unit got wiped out. Ok, what's the problem. I know you saw death, but it can't have been that bad. Oh. I see that a steel crossbow bolt is sticking out of your right arm. Well, I can see how that would make one upset.

The marksdwarf gets jailed for throwing a tantrum, which isn't a bad thing. My jail is a pleasant place, it usually calms tantruming dwarves down, plus it'll get him out of harms way while someone comes to remove the arrow. While someone..comes...to remove the arrow. Someone. Anyone? So the dwarf is sitting in jail with an arrow sticking out of his arm, getting progressively more pissed off until he loses it all together and goes berserk. That's bad. If he breaks his chains he could hurt other more useful dwarves. I just sort of...lock the door. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to see. Move along, move along.