Defeating the spider on impossible

[Metathron]

I just gave up in about round 20, cause those spider stacks kept piling up in greater numbers, to the point where I couldn't afford to attack the giant spider anymore, but had to focus all my units on the summoned spider stacks. By round 20, the giant spider was left with some 38,000 hit points (of 50,000). Jeeez!

I have shamans, royal snakes, giants, cannoneers and inquisitors.

Any tips?

[DGDobrev]

Well, you can try putting him into a position where he either can't summon more spiders or they can attack your chars in a way you want.

I remember beating the spider on impossible with giants, shamans, archmagi, inquisitors... Don't remember the last one, but it was ranged too. Shamans put totems all around the army. Then you try to diminish the enemy troops around the totems to like 1-15 units (and you don't use earthquake) only leaving your giants to tank with shield from the archmagi. That will make the small troops of spiders to attack your totems (careful with the totems that attack, make sure you put them around the giatnt and the healing totems around the weaker troops).

It will take quite a bunch of rounds, but you will do it. I managed to do it with only a few archmages dead (because they happened to be close to the giant spider and he started attacking them). You will manage as well :)

Another thing to do is to try and get some royal thorns. Spawn as much thirns as you can and this battle is a breeze.

[Metathron]

That sounds like good advice, I'll probably go back and get archmages again, for the shield, and provoke the spider to attack the giants (much like I did with the kraken).

If all the spots on the battlefield are full of one thing or other, and if none of your troops are standing next to the spider, what does he do I wonder?

[DGDobrev]

HE will attack the closest thing to his line of attack - be it a totem, a thorn or whatever :)

[Metathron]

D'oh! Silly me, there has to be something within his line of attack, if all of the spots are filled! :grin:

[Metathron]

Well, tried battling the spider with my current army composition, but lost my temper at about round 40. Spamming totems every chance I got did not help in the end, the huge spider stacks overcame them easily and more and more reinforcements kept coming. Frustrating, to say the least.

[Vilk]

I recently done the giant spider in impossible with no death and a mage level 14 by using this team:
Royal Thorn and Shaman that are the base of this fight, Archmage, Polar Bears, Inquisitors. Clearly I should have used my Horsemen stack instead of polar bears because their mobility is a plus during first phase of the battle.

The tactic base is very simple, it's to occupy all free space of the board and attack the giant spider from long range:

The first phase of the fight is to occupy asap most cases with summoned thorns even if it's a very small stack, plus few totems.
The second phase is to replace dead thorns on border of the board (so close to giant spider) with totems that the giant spider doesn't attack.
The last phase is just to kill the giant spider from long range.


That tactic makes this fight very easy even in impossible mode. A few teleport to solve some encumbrance problems can help do the job during first phase. During this first phase I also used once mass haste to solve some speed problem. This fight bring me about 7700 xp. :-)

[Metathron]

Guess what, there aren't any royal thorns in my game, so that strategy's out the window.

I could leave the spider for later, when my hero is stronger...and has elves.

I could split the shaman into two groups...

I could hire thorn hunters to raise new plants from dead spiders...

Not sure which of these I'll do, probably the first one.

EDIT: I defeated the spider by going the double shaman route, closing up those empty spaces. Took 45 rounds and lost 15 royal snakes, but that's a small price to pay for my sanity, I'd say. :D

[Vilk]

Yes there isn't always Royal Thorns, myself I got 4 in pirate isles and used sacrifice to increase the stack. :-)

The double shaman stack is a nice alternative, three stacks with one of one shaman that you take care to protect could work too and be easier... or not. For the thorns that could be probably more hazardous if the last stack get killed. You could use gift to restore the summon talent and used thorns fighters and hunters.

[dainbramage]

Lacking royal thorns (there was a huge 1 royal thorn in darion, none in the freedom isles, and I didn't get sacrifice until scouting demonis), I kept a stack of vampires in reserve from when I bought them from enemen. At the spider, I stuck the rest of my army in Taron and the castle in lower Kordar (I've forgotten its name; where you can marry Gerda after rescuing her), parked them in a corner where the spider couldn't hit (however, even with only ~6k leadership, they would've been fine with 6 stacks of spiders hitting them until the stack sizes start getting up to 500 or so) and killed the spider with greasy mist + flaming arrows, using magic spring whenver I was low on mana (generally I used it once each time greasy mist's vulnerability ended).

This was the same strategy as I used for the kraken, incidentally.

[Metathron]

Now playing as mage on impossible, defeating the spider was much easier. My army consisted of sprites, dryads, elves, ancient ents and evil beholders. I'm not saying it was easier because of the army composition necessarily, though I thought these units did a great job. I think I was also a higher level than my last time as paladin, and also, my magic was naturally stronger (used greasy mist + fire arrow).

[Zhuangzi]

I recently beat the spider in my Impossible Paladin game, but not without losses. As others have said, the easiest way to win is with Royal Thorns (spamming the whole map with thorns so that the spider can't spawn any more spiders), but without them, it's a little harder.

Basically you need to get the battle finished by turn 20 or so, as the spider stacks get unmanageable by then.

To do this, you need a mixture of direct damage on the spider (spells, ranged units) and tank units to mop up spiders. I am a big fan of the Ghost Blade spell, which costs 10 mana and does quite a bit of damage on single units. Maybe 1200 by this stage of the game with Distortion 3. You will need mana regeneration for this to work though.

The best all purpose unit for this stage is probably the Royal Snake (no retaliation) as it will do a lot of damage on the giant spider and not be retailiated against. Then I would have one ranged unit like Cannoneers or Archers to hit the giant spider every turn, leaving three tanks or two tanks and Shamans. Good tanks are Griffins and Dwarves at this stage.

So a team of Royal Snakes, Cannoneers, Griffins, Dwarves and Shamans is a good balanced team. With mana regeneration (let's say 4 per turn) you can use Ghost Blade maybe 10 times if you are lucky. Royal Snakes and Cannoneers attack the giant spider every turn, and Dwarves and Griffins mop up the small spiders. Shamans cast totems as decoys every time they can, and dancing axes on the giant spider. They are a good tank too if required.

I should say here that Frenzy is a very useful skill in boss battles in general. It stacks, so your tanks should get stronger and stronger, which partly compensates for the larger spider stacks.

This won't get you a zero loss win, but it will get you a win providing you have sufficient mana and leadership. :)

[iregev]

I usually do it with no losses around level 15/16
Simmilar strategy to what Zhuangzi decribed but perfect it wich Necro Call on the dead spiders every time you can (instead of ghost blade) With Shamams and Necro call the field covers up rather quick and besides the spider queen just loves attacking the undead spiders near her.
Also when the green spiders attack your decoy spiders they get poisoned (freee mana with mana spring.)

So basically my stragey is actually to focous on the green spiders at first build up a baricade of dead spiders and shooters kill the queen.

[Elwin]

yeah i used same set of units for this

[Razorflame]

the spider is HORRIBLY easy

shamans and rest of your army doesn't really matter

first round CAST PHANTOM on your shaman
then keep spamming those totetms until the board is filled

and the spider won't summon anymore spiders

and keep castinh phantom it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EASY