Editing Undead

The undead cannot bleed out - puncture wounds do little good for this reason, and likewise, choking is obviously ineffective against their lack of breath. Pulping or severing ("flies/sails off in an arc!" etc.) an important structural body-part (head, neck, upper body, lower body) is guaranteed to kill an undead. [[Attack types#Blunt weapons|Blunt]] weapons are effective against animated corpses because they inflict pulping damage, mangling the zombies so badly that they cannot rise up again, without severing body parts that might reanimate. Of those commonly available to dwarves, [[mace]]s are more efficient at pulping than [[war hammer]]s. [[Flail]]s are better still if one can acquire them. Beheading appears to sometimes work less reliably – this is possibly related to the neck being cut off rather than the head itself, which the game does not register as decapitation{{Verify}}. Cutting apart the physical form of undead can be dangerous if the source of reanimation is still active and present. The more body parts are about, the more fodder for animation is present. In this case, it is wisest to either butcher the corpses (if they can be butchered), throw them into [[magma]], or [[dwarven atom smasher|pulverize them with a drawbridge]], which will destroy the bodies so thoroughly that they cannot be reanimated again. A thrall may be "safely" fought with cutting weapons however, as long as there is no risk of infection at hand. Undead animals can be disposed of by cage-trapping them and trading them away to passing merchants. [[Crossbow]] bolts and other ranged weapons are essentially useless against undead of even moderate size, even if they can theoretically kill them if one of the previously mentioned important body-parts is destroyed by the shot. Against particularly small enemies like a kea or raccoon, bolts and arrows can be capable of severing limbs and ultimately finishing the job - but against anything more substantial like your average goblin, a squad of marksdwarves can spend multiple ''years'', and quiver after quiver of ammunition, before ever dealing a lethal blow. This can be useful for rapidly training marksdwarves with a small number of targets, but may be undesirable if you're making a last stand, or had intended to thin the horde before the melee started.  

Of course, the undead do not have to be beaten through direct combat - [[trap]]s and [[dwarven atom smasher|atom smashers]] are among the many indirect ways to neutralize them. [[Magma]], that traditional solution to all dwarven problems, is another effective weapon, as is fire in general. The sheer heat of the magma will eventually destroy the corpse, rendering it unable to rise again - it kills zombies fairly slowly, though.  

 

As unintelligent undead do not make any attempt to avoid attacks, they are particularly susceptible to even low-quality weapon traps. This property can be exploited in [[trap design]], as no-quality weapon traps will still be lethal to the undead hordes, while typically allowing the horde's masters to leap out of the way, potentially [[cage|somewhere]] [[Pit_trap|nice]].  

[[Discipline]] is a big obstacle to directly confronting a zombie horde. Without enough discipline, a troop sent to fight them may instead decide to flee in terror from such... abominations of nature. As you may imagine, this can lead to endless amounts of [[Fun]], for, unlike your dwarves, the undead cannot feel fear or any other emotion, and any dead dwarves may, in turn, rise up and add to the horde's numbers. It is important that any undead-fighting squad consists of severely hardened and disciplined soldiers. Any soldiers you bring to embark on an evil biome should have ''at least'' two points in [[discipline]], as morale is currently buggy and leads to ordinary dwarves fleeing even from living wildlife{{bug|7161}}. This may also be worked around with a little [[modding]], by adding at least {{token|NATURAL_SKILL:DISCIPLINE:1|c}} to all civilised races and trainable pets. Additionally, the very act of fighting undead makes dwarves more vulnerable to insanity (particularly if the undead was acquainted with the dwarf fighting it in its former life), which must be countered with as many sources of good thoughts as possible.