Can I equip my military dwarves with one of two weapon types?

Question

My fortress recently fought off a siege almost entirely composed of Goblin Lashers, so I've got some extra whips and scourges laying around. Naturally, I want to start a lasher squad of my own. I created a new uniform for this squad, and I noticed that whips and scourges are in separate categories, which seems weird. I selected both for the uniform, but is there some way to have my lashers carry a whip or a scourge, but not both? Alternatively, if they went without shields could my lashers dual-wield whips, or would that cause my game to implode from sheer awesomeness?

Answer 1

A slightly less micromanagement option is to have two uniforms for the Lasher squad; both with the same armor setup, but on one, have whips, and on the other, have scourges. Then, you can assign the dwarves in the squad to one of either of those two uniforms, depending on how many of each weapon you have.

The trick is to not use the "shift-Enter" command when applying a uniform to a dorf, otherwise you risk overwriting previous assignments.

Answer 2

You could assign them specific weapons instead of letting them pick from the category. It requires a little more micromanagement, but would ensure they were using the type of weapon you wanted.