Goblins have excellent timing

A bunch of goblins show up before the elves are even halfway to the fortress, lets see how this works out...

As my ranger legs it, he shoots an arrow and hits one of the goblins, I suspect that if my part time crossbowmen can critically take them on his own, they won't be much match for my marksdwarves and my secret weapon:

Uh oh, another ambush group jumps my wood haulers :/

Kill the elves! they are expendable. The ambushes take down a siege mechanic and one of my top metalsmithers, the elves scatter, some are committed to getting into the fortress, the rest turn and run.

A THIRD ambush at the very south, they chase the lone ranger who is out of bolts and running for his life.

The migrant axedwarf bravely throws her life away standing on the battlements doing nothing of note. Another dies because he ran too far away from his station (admittedly my fault for not changing the option).

Two of the goblin ambush teams are held off with one left at the south of the map regrouping for another assault. After killing another two marksdwarves, the last 6 remaining goblins leave peacefully (which is a good job as only one marksdwarf was still alive). There's a lot of dead dwarves. The elves didn't survive either.

My secret weapon never saw any use as the siege engineer died at the start of the battle and the other engineer was too far away to operate it.

Curse them!

Another goblin ambush shows up. Curse them!

Mobilize the troops! PULL THE LEVER!

My loyal wardogs hold the bridge, holding them off until the bridge can fling two melee goblins into the moat.

Unfortunately my brave kobold-crushing wardog Athelducim was struck down. With nothing else to do, the goblins unleash their rage on the family of cats living in the moat. The horror! These goblins truly are evil, thinking nothing of slaying innocent defenseless kittens.

A marksdwarf named Atir takes sweet crossbow vengeance on the heartless kitten-killers. The rest of the ambush is either crippled or running.

My mayor demands a green portal in his bedroom, luckily there is some sand hanging around on the top floor of my fortress, bag it and bake it!

Spring comes around, and some elves show up JUST as I start a major logging operation to replenish my wood supplies, how do they ALWAYS know? I should probably expect another monkey attack in the next few days.