How do you kill a dragon

[CrazyCreation1]

I just had a dragon 1v40 my entire military and then it strolled into my halls and killed everyone else including like 20 kids chilling in the tavern lmao

Tried reclaiming afterwards but the same dragon came back like 2 months after embark and killed everyone again

Dying is fun as ♥♥♥♥ but how do I not die to dragons

[BeardsAndBrews23]

well, dragons can be hard any time, but a few spears can work wonders against them. can corner them i tight spaces where you can atack from multiple sides and he cant burn your dwarfs before they get into meele. or traps, magma, pits, carts to the face, many options

[McFuzz]

Depends. There's a lot of variables at play. What did your dwarves have equipped, how trained were they, what was the arena. Steel should be resilient but, I mean dragonfire's dragonfire lol. A well trained and well armoured dwarf who can get close without catching fire should be able to deal with it, or at least distract long enough for the rest to engage.

....Last I played DF, you could catch dragon in normal cage traps. I assume that's no longer the case haha.

It's kind of cool that your world just has a dragon racking up killstreaks lmao. Hope you get him one day.

My tactic would be; set two or 3 squads to hide around a corner from two different directions, then gank him in close range.

[Soul4hdwn]

try cage trap, should still work. there wasn't a mention of it in OP as of this post so i assume that wasn't tested.

cage traps can capture anything hostile so you can figure it out later or tame wild beasts.
can't tame dragons that have already killed your dwarves however (although the tame activity can still be done, it won't be real)... and i personally haven't done breeding research yet.

otherwise more creative traps, like custom stuff such as minecart rams, drowning chambers, magma, other megabeasts... could do the job more =p.

and hey, once caged, you could setup a flame turret defense against sieges using the dragon XD

[prof_mista_ape]

a shield will block dragonfire 99% of the time, incl wooden shields
make sure to train and drill your military dwarves a lot, quality is better than quantity. aim to have a few spearmasters in your military, because spears are significantly better for dealing with large creatures like dragons than blunt or slashing/hacking because they puncture vital organs rather than shattering bone or severing limbs

keep in mind the exact opposite applies if its a large undead creature, blunt weapons will work best but there really is no best case scenario if you end up with an undead dragon for your next fort

[Avloren]

Shields are essential for blocking the fire breath. As already mentioned, spears are pretty good at piercing big creatures and hopefully hitting some internal organs. So if you want to take him out the hard way, some really well trained/equipped shield+spear dwarves might do it.

But there are easier ways than direct military confrontation: lot of clever traps you can engineer. And I mean both literally (cage traps sometimes work, weapon traps might help) and more figuratively: you could build a more imaginative 'trap' out of drawbridges, flooding water, magma, etc.

[Nahui Ollin]

Caging works, but i think you need adamantium or some good metal.

Another trick from version 40D, the age of the dinosaurs:

1. lead dragon into a chokepoint, any will do.

2. This chokepoint has a ballista pointing at the opening

3. Use a lead arrow head, so you not only gets badly injured but it cant get away easily

4. Beat the injured dragon to death

I dont know if it still works, this is from 10+ years ago.

[prof_mista_ape]

Originally posted by Nahui Ollin:

Caging works, but i think you need adamantium or some good metal.

a wooden cage will work just as well, theres 0 difference between the metals in regards to how it traps creatures. its a cheesy aspect since you can pretty much capture anything with just a wooden cage trap

[rkjesseryu]

build a long draw bridge. crush it.

[Soul4hdwn]

Originally posted by AF. rkjesseryu:

build a long draw bridge. crush it.

if its an old dragon, this might not work. dragon size varies greatly and elephant size counters bridge smash, last checked.

[CrazyCreation1]

Originally posted by Frank McFuzz:

Depends. There's a lot of variables at play. What did your dwarves have equipped, how trained were they, what was the arena. Steel should be resilient but, I mean dragonfire's dragonfire lol. A well trained and well armoured dwarf who can get close without catching fire should be able to deal with it, or at least distract long enough for the rest to engage.

....Last I played DF, you could catch dragon in normal cage traps. I assume that's no longer the case haha.

It's kind of cool that your world just has a dragon racking up killstreaks lmao. Hope you get him one day.

My tactic would be; set two or 3 squads to hide around a corner from two different directions, then gank him in close range.

I had my main squad of axedwarves in full steel armor with steel axes and shields, the rest were just dwarves I quickly organized into squads with whatever weapons and armor we had lying around

That damn dragon will be slain one day, by Armok, we will avenge Roundmined

[McFuzz]

Originally posted by CrazyCreation1:

I had my main squad of axedwarves in full steel armor with steel axes and shields, the rest were just dwarves I quickly organized into squads with whatever weapons and armor we had lying around

That damn dragon will be slain one day, by Armok, we will avenge Roundmined

Got one gamer dragon running round getting mad K/D ratios.

[Avloren]

Originally posted by Nahui Ollin:

Caging works, but i think you need adamantium or some good metal.

Another trick from version 40D, the age of the dinosaurs:

1. lead dragon into a chokepoint, any will do.

2. This chokepoint has a ballista pointing at the opening

3. Use a lead arrow head, so you not only gets badly injured but it cant get away easily

4. Beat the injured dragon to death

I dont know if it still works, this is from 10+ years ago.

Forgot about ballistas. Not the most practical, but IMO the most fun way to deal with any unwanted guests. Up to and including dragons. Just point the ballista down a very very long 1-tile-wide corridor and force enemies to path through it to get to your base, hard to miss.

[rkjesseryu]

Originally posted by Soul4hdwn:

Originally posted by AF. rkjesseryu:

build a long draw bridge. crush it.

if its an old dragon, this might not work. dragon size varies greatly and elephant size counters bridge smash, last checked.

You right. it'll just break the bridge.

Better just seal that mfer up asap then I guess.
try an get a ballista up asap

[crazyabe111]

Have you tried dropping a *mountain* on it? That tends to kill things dead.

[Thom293]

Originally posted by CrazyCreation1:

Originally posted by Frank McFuzz:

Depends. There's a lot of variables at play. What did your dwarves have equipped, how trained were they, what was the arena. Steel should be resilient but, I mean dragonfire's dragonfire lol. A well trained and well armoured dwarf who can get close without catching fire should be able to deal with it, or at least distract long enough for the rest to engage.

....Last I played DF, you could catch dragon in normal cage traps. I assume that's no longer the case haha.

It's kind of cool that your world just has a dragon racking up killstreaks lmao. Hope you get him one day.

My tactic would be; set two or 3 squads to hide around a corner from two different directions, then gank him in close range.

I had my main squad of axedwarves in full steel armor with steel axes and shields, the rest were just dwarves I quickly organized into squads with whatever weapons and armor we had lying around

That damn dragon will be slain one day, by Armok, we will avenge Roundmined

This is why you should mix weapons. People will tell you axes or swords are best, which can be true, but blunt and pokey weapons have their place.

I had a human maceman in full armor kill my Militia Leader and 2 other untrained but Armored dwarves because he broke their bones before they were able to get through his armor with axes and swords. Once they were all on the ground he just smashed their heads. Then a speardwarf came up and skewered him in 2 shots. Speardwarf also owned a giant agitated moosed in just a few hits.