So I've been playing Dwarf Fortress pretty much to the exclusion of everything else, including sleep, so it must be STORY TIME!

So I've got two squads, one full of axedwarves and another full of marksdwarves. The axedwarves are mostly champions, so I wasn't expecting much resistance when I'm notified of a goblin siege. And indeed, everything's going great until this Fist of the North Star marksgoblin comes out of nowhere and takes down three axelords and injures three others before he goes down.

Now, a little while later, I'm mopping up the mess, recruiting some new soldiers to replace the fallen, when I get notified that a bronze colossus is lumbering towards me. Oh, well, great. Grab what's left of my axedwarves, and ... what? I can't select them? Oh, their leader is sick in bed with a pierced shoulder, and all the recruits are just huddled around him. In fact, EVERY axedwarf who isn't a recruit is in bed recuperating. Where'd my marksdwarves go? Oh, they're still in the tower, forgot to tell them to stand down. Good, they can shoot it from there. Just a little closer, little closer ...

BUT NO! They decide, as a unified hivemind, to go on break and sleep ALL AT ONCE, evacuating the tower. So I ready the ballista I've got situated in a little building in front of the entrance to the courtyard, which of course misses spectacularly, and the siege engineer gets spooked and runs off before he can get another shot off.

So I briefly consider raising the bridge on the moat before the bronze colossus can get to it, but then he just goes and rips off the hatch cover I've got over the secret entrance I've been using for my axedwarves. Wow, ok, note to self: pave over that. So he's skulking around the underground tunnels, punting dwarves left and right, and oh no the tunnels come up right near the bedrooms, and THERE HE IS, spreading doom and destruction everywhere!

Now, an aside: I never put much thought into the fortress guard. I never bothered equipping them with weapons, and pretty much told them to just wrestle any miscreants they find into submission. I've always just thought of them as glorified rent-a-cops. Well, the colossus happens to run into one, and this "glorified rent-a-cop" LEAPS onto this giant metal abomination and WRESTLES IT TO THE GROUND AND SYSTEMATICALLY BREAKS ITS LIMBS ONE BY ONE. These guys apparently spend any time they're not eating or sleeping beating each other into submission as training.

Just then one of my marksdwarves wanders by and tries to help, having "conveniently" forgotten to stock up on bolts, but no, the credit for this one goes to Dastot Ishlumdakost, her first kill. Other people may have to WORK UP to something like that, maybe kill a few dozen goblins first at least, but Dastot? Fuck that! Her first kill was a bronze colossus, WITH HER BARE HANDS.

And then I notice that nearly every single one of the fortress guards are legendary wrestlers. I don't even NEED a military. Anything comes through the front door and these guys will be all over it like flies on stink.



Anyway, uhm. I love this game. =I