40d:Military

About drafting

You can draft any dwarves in your fortress by pressing v -> p. Then you press A (note: 'A', not 'a'), or alternatively via the military screen m and then a on the dwarves in question (note: 'a', not 'A' on this screen).

If you draft dwarves without any (non-dabbling) combat skills, it will generally produce an unhappy thought. Dwarves with little or no (non-dabbling) "normal" skills will not like being undrafted.

Promotion / Squads

Pressing m will lead you to the military screen. Here you can promote dwarves and create squads. This is done by pressing 'enter' on recruits. You cannot task a soldier with leading dwarves more skilled than they are.

Choosing weapons / Armour

Pressing m and then w will show you a weird screen containing:

• Shortened names for weapon types.
• A number indicating the number of weapons you want them to carry (note: this is not dual wielding, this is the dwarf carrying a backup weapon slung across their back in case the first weapon becomes stuck in a combatant)
• A Shortened name for the level of armour they should aim to wear and the shield they should carry.

Note: Giving a dwarf a weapon will affect their non-military professions, if the weapon in question conflicts with their labour tasks. E.g. Issueing a mace to a dwarf, will cause them to discard any axe they may be carrying for Woodcutting, or a pick they might use for mining.

Controlling your squads

By pressing x you will select squads near your marker. You can station the squads at the current cursor position if the squad in question is on-duty. Unless ordered otherwise, squads will fight and pursue animals and enemies until their death or they leave the immediate closeness of the stationing-marker. For more information on fighting, see Combat.

Training / Sparring

Squads that you marked as "Off Duty" by the squad-management screen in the military screen will head to the barracks and begin sparring to train their skills. It is possible to get horrendous injuries by letting your dwarves spar with weapons, so it is strongly advisable to make them train first without weapons to improve their wrestling skill, and then outfit them with armour before you give them real weapons to practice with. m then select the squad in question, press v to view the squad's setting and then t to toggle their on-duty status.