wrestler military

[»Freak™]

how strong/weak would a squad of wrestlers be?

[DoubleG]

Wrestlers are best used in combination. They hold the enemies in place while someone else smacks them in the face. :P

[AlP]

Originally posted by »Freak™:

how strong/weak would a squad of wrestlers be?:gorlak:

Terrible. They will not kill anything.

[Fel]

Wrestlers are decent enough against targets of their own size or smaller but they are absolutely useless against big enemies.
Silver Warhammers (since silver is heavy) plus shield is usually way better.
Alternatively steel weapons for the piercing/cutting ones works well as well but they tend to lop off limbs all over the place, making the post-battle cleanup longer.

[Naryar]

Wrestlers used to be seriously OP in early days of yore, and they're great fun in adventure mode where you can target specific bodyparts, but they're not worth it in fort mode. Unless you're fighting weak enemies like kobolds, elves (IF your dwarves are well-armored and even then you'll need things to handle their war beasts) or crundles, don't.

Wrestler squads do have their uses, as in reservist training for the military or training your civilian dwarves' skills so they don't die immediately when they get caught by a random FB or dangerous wildlife, but they have no place in a serious military.

[Fel]

Armour and shield skills tend to be good enough for civilians, if you have enough materials to equip them of course (a shield for everyone is a good idea in most cases because they can both block and attack with it).

[DoubleG]

Wrestlers might be good for you Captain of the Guard squad. You don't really want that squad to be too strong else they will beat dwarfs to death when they get assigned to punish someone, so being a wrestler might be a good alternative.

[Fel]

You often make their weapons as hammers made from the lightest material you can (usually some wood unless you can spare adamantium to make the ultimate non-lethal hammer).
Wrestlers can be surprisingly lethal against civilians.

[harlequin_corps]

Originally posted by DoubleG:

Wrestlers might be good for you Captain of the Guard squad. You don't really want that squad to be too strong else they will beat dwarfs to death when they get assigned to punish someone, so being a wrestler might be a good alternative.

ummm. Wrestlers are specifically FOR punching people to death..
And to answer the OP, There is an issue with Wrestlers. TLDR: Once a Wrestler gets to a certain skill level, they will, right before a fight, wearing full armor/weapons, completely strip nakies before charging the enemy. While hilarious, this inevitably results in a dead dorf.
When you make your military squad, when picking uniforms. If you see the term "Not a Wrestler, or, Novice Wrestler or something similar" it means the dorf's only closest skill set to the uniform is Wrestling and the uniform isn't setup correctly. What will happen is your dorf will skill up with the weapons, maybe even becoming an Axe Lord/Hammerlord etc.. but they will continue to train as Wrestlers, until some point you send them against the enemy, strip nakies and die in Molten Metal Breath attack, because they dropped their shield.
So, to address this, if the uniform is setup correctly and other dorfs say Axedorf or similar, but one or two dorfs say Wrestler, you train them up with the weapons, then remove them from that squad and place them into another squad with the same uniform weapon. They should, if their Axe or Hammer or whatever skill, then state the correct soldier skillset because they have enough training with the weapon to offset the Wrestler skillset they had before.
or.. you know.. just wing it and pop some popcorn. Thanks for reading.

[Smurf-O-Pax]

I often use Squads of Wrestlers to train fighting of my normal dwarves. I give them no uniform and just let them train for a couple of months every year. I have seen dwarves in full Armor going Tantrum, just to get killed by a passing miner who broke their arms and legs and punched out both eyes ^^. Wrestling combined with a legendary miners strengh is a okish first line of defense IMHO :)

[Fel]

Well, mining is also the skill used when using a pickaxe as a weapon so legendary miners are killing machines, especially if you give them a better pickaxe (masterwork steel for example).