Getting past the bloody spider.
 

Gritting my teeth here from trying to beat this creature so bear with me.

I'm at my first 'real' boss fight. Cave of the frozen tears is the location. The largest issue I have with these is the take-away of rage powers for bosses (this comes across as lazy by the way, more on that later). I'll provide some statistics here first:

Level 17 Warrior.

9/14 alchemists (no more to buy).
78/78 bowmen.
12/12 Jarls.
65/65 Berzerkers.
32/32 Axthrowers.

550,000 gold in my pockets.

Because more focused on warrior tree, I don't have memorized level 2 or 3 tiered spells. I think I'm at a standstill because I cannot access any of the other continents to continue grinding my way up the levels to possibly come back and unleash hell on the arachnid. Incredibly sloppy to have the message 'Sorry, we know this seems unfair but the bosses need a chance to fight too'. When I try to access the rage powers. Really? Why not make the boss sectioned timed so that rage-powers worked after countering an assault of baby spiders?

I have not found the game to be a significant difficult yet. Found the challenge to be similar to the last two Kings Bounty games. It's on hard mode, yet I'm just scratching the 'yellow' on the big spider when the last of my units fall.

Is there anyone out here who's actually beaten this spider from this version? I've beat the same spider (also a little frustrating cutting and pasting previous bosses) from the previous games by doing two things not possible:

KB 1: Using a mage and double spellcasting.
KB AP: Progressing further into the game and getting paladins/knights who worked incredibly well on the creature. I've not noticed those at all in the game yet.

Anyone give me a bit of a hand? Really would appreciate it.

defeating the spider
 

Learn the warrior skill frenzy...

then try to kill as many spider stacks as possible without attacking the boss...
when you have killed sufficient stacks, the attack of all your troops will be tremendously high

then start attacking the boss to make each attack do as much damage as possible. use defence runes to reduce damage from the spider boss's retaliation

YUP GOOD LUCK! :)

Warrior here too, took me a couple tries to figure it out.

Put your ranged units in reserve and hire two more stacks of melee units. I also first brought two stacks of ranged units to that fight and found them constantly being tied up in melee by the spiders.

I was able to replace them with about 20 warrior maidens and a couple jotuns, and finished that boss fight easily. In my game there were a couple huts at the high mountain ridge that you can only reach via flying horse, and I think one of them was labeled house of jotun in the same map with the cave of frozen tears. Jotuns are 780hp melee tanks, and one of the huts also had trolls for sale, so you might find some more heavy melee units.

I just used a stack to stay in the middle of most spider spawns while rest of my units bum rushed the boss. Took some losses but it's doable.

Also, you might want to switch your ranged stacks back in after that fight, and replenish your troops, because there will be another more conventional encounter with a npc hero shortly after. Put your reserved stacks back in town if you want to use them later, because a certain event will wipe out your entire army. I didn't expect that, and lost my stacks of maidens and jotuns.

I still havent try this game, but in previous KB spider had same characteristics : it`s head attack were poison and did lots of dmg to all non poison resistant units, but it you attack it from sides left/right legs retaliation is physical so get some high def troops on it`s sides cast stone skin/magic spring if available and start hacking.
As windezz said try that hut for trolls or jotuns, but if fight is underground troll is better choice with his regeneration, and i`m not sure if this still stands but every retaliation is in 2 hex area so dont attack with 4 units at same time, because when you hit 1 spider leg it retaliate on 2 hex dmging 2 of your units (to much losses for your no revive unit setup). Good luck :-)

Thanks for the replies.

Tried killing the baby spiders till round 20. Not very effective as the boss continues to pump out higher and higher strength baby spiders. I've got level 2 frenzy but with baby spider batches coming in drops at 200 strong, it takes its toll. In just two rounds from attacking the boss (it did go more zippy, but at a heavy cost) I lost half my Royal snakes (tried them out since I found critical damage happened more with them) and 1 of my jotuns. I'm still making no real progress. Boss also spits out that goo which does 3-400 damage at will. Nowhere is selling trolls I'm afraid.

Use Vikings and Berserkers. Make them berserk when fighting spider. They will hit huge damage to the spider (> 2000 damage).

Did not use much spells (I am a skad). Using this strategy, I got the achievement - killing the spider in less than 15 rounds.

I had to cheat. I just couldn't do it any other way. I tried for over 2 hours (plus made an account here, so I feel it a tad justified).

Here's what I did:

shift + ~ key to bring the menu up during the game. I had the bear warrior chicks in group one. I did 'doublyarmy 1' so I had 38 or so of those ladies. I only had enough leadership for 19. When the battle started....

The bosses won't fight anything that's over your leadership limit. So she basically beat down the boss while the rest of my ragtag crew fought off the babies. Yet the babies went for her too, so when the boss spider died she was down to 24 ladies. Just killed off a few extras and the battle was won.

Feels good.

i had some issues with this spider too... (warrior - impossible)

waiting and killing those spider stacks does not work for me... because the stacks become higher and higher...

so i tryed the boss with a different lineup...
polar bears, ancient bears (with stone skin huge defense and they do some good dmg - especially with the warrior skill double dmg - you have to be a little bit lucky)
sea dogs (for some good aoe dmg against those anoying spiders)
canoneer (you can use any ranged i guess, but these can take some hits from spiders and still do good)
vikings, berserker (for some insane crits and attacks)

i tryed to kill as many spiders in every round, but i also tryed to focus on the boss and hit him at least 2 times every round...

i hope this helps!

Skald, hard. I did all previous content before fighting him, and was level 20 or 21 when I fought him, with 22/22 Jarls (for comparison)

I used Jarls, Soothsayers, Royal Snakes, Battle Maidens, Jotun's.

I used Valkyrie to give more leadership (900) and stomped the spider fast enough to get the achievement.

I think the problem you have is that your troops look very weak. Axe throwers and Berserkers really don't cut it that far into the game. Need some stuff with higher damage and health.

Did it with a lvl17 Soothsayer. After 2 failed attempts I killed it on the 3rd.

Jarls
Warrior Maidens
Slingers
Assassins
Skalds

What did the trick was a change in tactics. All my troops only focused on killing the small spiders as soon as possible - except for the Jarls. The Jarls got Stoneskin+Hell's Breath+Persistence (amazing underrated synergy with skalds, made my buffs last 9 turns!) and meleed the spider. Her counterattacks only dealt about 50-100 dmg this way and he kept hitting for about 1K.

The trick with skalds is to FIRST buff your unit manually, then use their ability. It will almost always cast persistence on the unit that has multiple buffs.

No other troop except the Jarls attacked the giant spider to avoid counterattacks, save for a few spears from the Maiden. I spent the turns hacking away small spiders and casting flame arrows on the spider. Took about 20 turns, lost around 30% of my army.

This fight is an excellently balanced progress check imo. It's not easy but if you don't mess your character up and think a bit, it's doable.

I found for a Warrior it's crucial to rack up as much leadership as possible. So I got me a Grand Strategist 3 medal, the warrior valkyrie, Glory 3 skill and some items with leadership. With that all I was able to get to 6,5k points and that's enough to kill the spider WITH the achievement.

As ppl before me pointed out, the best way to do it is with high def melee units like bears, jarls and jotuns, although jotuns are quite disappointing so far. I'd probably recommend warrior maidens (if you can get enough), all three kinds of bears and jarls. The jarls would wreak havoc on the baby spiders with their area attack and the bears would maul the boss spider to death in no time.


By the way money in this installment is horribly unbalanced, you have always like 100x more than you actually need. Weird.

Jarl is usually avaiable in decent number but Warrior Maiden can be problematic. Early game they are the best unit for me but sometimes I cant even get 10 of them...

Most of the Viking troops level 1-3 in shop are fixed, but the level 4 is random while they are crucial at this early time.

I was almost no-loss before this fight on mage/impossible. I'm glad I didn't try for a no-loss playthrough because this boss showed me I'd have to concede it anyway.

I went in with Jarls/Jotuns/Berserkers/Axethrowers and Polar Bears (kept all my range in reserve), lvl 16 soothsayer afair (I up to this point still have only 2 maidens in shop :/).

After 3-4 really bad tries the fight ended with me killing the boss with everything wiped out except my leftover 2 Jotuns, who then valianty defended in the corner of the map vs 6 leftover stacks of spiders, 2 being 200+. A lot of heals were used.

I'm glad I pulled it off at all, scares me to even think of doing this no-loss.

Yeah, the spider is a no-lossers killer :)
I strongly suspect certain WoTN can't be done no-loss although I'd love for somebody to prove me wrong.

18/mage/hard

trolls trolls trolls. abuse these suckers hard. they are boarder-line cheating IMO. I managed to squeeze 3 into a stack with some leadership items. just had them hit the boss every turn, backed by some offensive magic for about 1k damage a turn. 1.5k with double cast.

the trolls usually shurgged off the damage and full healed at the beginning of the round, although once the baby spider stacks get big enough you could get unlucky and lose a troll before there turn starts to full heal.

the other stacks are simply throw-away troops to tie up the baby spiders. hitting the boss with anything else just gets them counter attacked and chunked badly. the boss is even capable of multiple counter attacks per round.

try parking your baby spider diversion troops in the corners so they cant get surrounded and mobbed by more then 2 baby spiders at a time.

what makes excellent tanks in this battle are snakes. you can mass purchase them from the witch chick in the cave. snakes have 90% poison resist and the baby spiders are 100% poison damage, so you buy 3 full stacks of snakes/swamp snakes/royal snakes.

another suggestion would be to pick up the calm rage spell. turns useless rage at boss fights into usable mana. the conversion ratio is like 2 rage for 1 mana.

Great idea with the snakes! I need to pay attention to resistancess more - the info is way too hidden on the unit chart imho.

Every Boss in previous games had multiple retaliations, this is not bug or new thing in WotN.

Killed the giant spider on impossible in 4 rounds with viking. Tried to finish the fight with no-loss, but no matter what approach i tried ti seemed 'impossible' so i gave up on it, so guess ill do the very low-loss run :)

I didn't expect that, and lost my stacks of maidens and jotuns.
http://www.rdox.info/01.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/02.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/8.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/04.jpg

No trolls on first four islands in my game. :(

Anyway, I managed to beat the spider (Impossible Skald) at level 18 with 6600 leadership. I always prioritise leadership in KB games, so I have the Valkyrie that gives leadership up to level 3 and as the leader. I wanted to try for a 'bear team' but I had a real problem purchasing anything decent in quantity. This is really annoying as I just don't have access to high level units (other than Jotuns) on these islands. Even Jarls were in fairly short supply.

Anyway, I had to go with a hodge-podge team of Jarls, Jotuns, Blue Snakes, Axe Throwers and I forget the fifth unit. Not a good mix, and Morale was not great either, but it did the job within 11 rounds. My tactic was a simple one: go for the big spider as much as possible, and whack the small stacks if I have to. I had Frenzy Level 2 which helped a bit, and Distortion 3 (which I always go for early for Mass Haste + Stone Skin, Trap etc). For the boss I just cast Mass Haste on turn 1 (which is needed for when the spider moves location) and Stone Skin thereafter. Then I just whacked the big spider for 1k-2k on a critical. Jarls seem to be really useful here. Lost about 1/3 of my troops but it wasn't too hard overall.

Would you mind posting your strategy for the battle (which seems to work very well)? Looks like many people have problems beating it...

Just killed him as Viking on Hard at level 13. Three types of Snakes, Bear Riders and Trolls (3). Only the Trolls engaged the Spider himself, the other four stacks spent the battle fighting the baby spiders.

Frenzy (level 2 for me) was very important here. My Snake stacks got to ~100 attack, after a bit, and the Trolls got up to a whopping 259 attack (from their own property, though, not from Frenzy).

It should be noted that without the snakes (poison resistance) and the regenerating Trolls the fight would be impossible at this level.

Pretty sure it's doable. I did it with minimal casualties when I wasn't trying to no-loss. You just need to have a high armor stack get stone skinned and hopefully mana spring'd. Have maiden's around for ressurrect, and other units that are good at killing spiders. It doesn't look like the big spider does ranged attacks except as retaliation. It'd take a while, but is probably a fairly good sure bet.

Also, you can get exactly one wanderer scroll before this fight, so that might be an important thing to twink. Get it early, of the right variety, and then duplicate it a few times with the bird.

@everyone talking about warrior maidens... darnit darnit... my game I didn't have any! although I think it may even be due to some sort of bug because one of the shops in the game spawned them, but with 1 and only 1 maiden for sale? which made them unusable... thats one thing I don't like about wotn... first four islands don't have a done of random troop variety... difficult boss for which you don't have many choices of troops to bring? not fun! I might give it another try tho with jotun/berzerker/polar bear/bear/royalsnake the only problem is... the first four islands combine to give me ONE CASTLE, with THREE garrison slots... so I don't have enough space to really store my entire old army that easily :(

also no trolls either... strategies that only work with specfic troops are usually fine for bosses in king's bounty games because usually you can bypass the boss explore a ton... have so many places to recruit from that eventually randomly you'll find what you need... but in wotn half the shops on teh first 4islands have basic vikings troops... I'm really sad I couldn't get warrior maidens in my playthrough ... by the time they become available in my playthrough I'll probably have something better like paladins or something..



actually wait nevermind: here is flat out the one and only flaw with this boss fight! the first time you fight this boss you will probably lose, at least depending on random happenstance, what's the problem? well you can't do go anything else! you realize frenzy would be a great ability to use against the boss? oh well too bad by the time you first encounter the boss there aren't enough enemies left in the game to fight to gain even 1 level, so if you don't already have exactly what you need, it's just not fun! typically in king's bounty you can fight a boss, lose, think about strategy, go acquire a different army, maybe level up once or twice, get what you think you might need, and then try again!!!

for example I went for learning rank 3 early because it can pay off in the long run, I could've had glory rank 3 instead but I didn't realize that the bosses weren't things you could come back for later, crossworlds campaign is 90-95% all about skipping every boss and coming back for it later?!!?!!!!!!!!

Dunno I beat it with a normal Slingers, Vikings, Soothsayers, Jarls and Scalds.

Lost about 1/5 of my army total; but just went and bought more; not going for a no-loss play through.

However, after beating the Spider and getting to the next islands I have lost maybe 20 troops total due to Rune Mages/Paladins and mostly lost units due to carelessness (didn't res all...or one died and I didn't see it...didn't want to restart battle).

I guess I should clarify, I won the battle, I just don't like the design whereby you can't fight the boss until you've done basically everything else first, I'd probably have preferred it if that boss were on island 3 but you couldn't "win" the battle until after island 4 just because that's how the old king's bounty bosses usually went

Holy cow that was a nasty fight! I spent most of the day trying to take that spider down and finally managed it just a few minutes ago.

I managed to do it on my fourth attempt.

Level 16 soothsayer on hard. I went in there with 3 jotuns, 3 trolls, 30 polar bears, 15 jarls, and 19 soothsayers. Everyone died except my three trolls. I think the fight lasted about 40 turns.

On my third attempt, I entered a rather comical loop; on about turn 60 everyone died except for my stack of trolls. The spider kept casting web on my troll, bypassing his turn - again and again. This went on until about turn 120, when I finally got a turn. I waited, and about every 10 turns the spider wouldn't use web and I would get a single turn. This kept going until about turn 190, when both spider groups adjacent to my troll got criticals and put an end to my trolls.

I'd question Jotuns (never tried them, stats don't look that impressive) and soothsayers (they seemed not much use in this fight). I used a standard army of Jarls (only 11, that's all that were sold), Axe Throwers, Warrior Maidens, Berserkers and Trolls (Soothsayer, hard, lvl18 ). Came out with losses of 1 jarl, 1 warrior maiden, 5 axe throwers and 28 berserkers on turn 11. The berserkers really do a lot of damage against the spider (stone skin and use their rage ability), trolls always hit the spider as well, the rest takes care of the little spiders (well, maybe the jarls hit the big spider once or twice).

I came up with a loss-less solution for the giant spider.. (at first I thought it WAS impossible) :) (am playing impossible)

Here's how you do it..

- Get rune magic level 3 (you need the spell gift)
- Next get the scroll "song of the wind" I believe you get it as a reward for fulfilling a quest for a map
- Then use it until you get "Royal Griffins" (as in travel to a map cast it and reload a new map if you don't get "royal griffins") I would also recommend only loading this with MAX leadership as in it's time for the fight.. the more royal griffins you have.. the more units you create.. I had 23 of e'm creating 53 heavenly guard

- I would also recommend level 3's in magic on transmute and concentration (I say recommend but transmute is probably a must have for no loss :P)

I would also recommend you pick up the griffen banner at fastland.. (I believe it's always there?) because if you equip you get about 5 more griffins then normal leadership..

Anyway, all you do in battle is kill spiders and continually reload "royal griffins" at 20 spell points a shot.. I had 5700 leadership (mostly with equipment) and was level 18 protect your units w/ griffins/heavenly guard or use the "maidens" to consistently restore any lost core troops

(I think this is obvious.. but do NOT attack the spider with your core troops only heavenly guard because he counter attacks half the time killing your units.. only do this for no loss anyway :P)

Also it's helpful to have the spell "phantom" and use it on maidens which will allow you to restore every troop including maidens! :)

Actually, wish I took a screenshot.. (had like 8-10 heavenly guards) could show you too.. anyway.. I won no loss with giant spider.. but before I figured that out.. I did think it was impossible.. my battle went to like round 18 or something and I'm a mage.. but I'm sure there are faster/better ways?

sorry to burst your bubble but the wanderer scroll you get is random and the griffin banner same random in shop.
For me the setup was berserkers, ancient snakes and jarls, plus whatever you can find for spiderlings.

It's 2 castles one where you start.. one at fastland :P
My game came with about 30 on fastland.. not sure if completing the zombie quest created "more" ? :confused:

It's my understanding because there's no random rolls.. then everything is supposed to be fixed..? I haven't started a new game yet.. so I don't know yet..

But on my mage game "impossible" I have 30+ maidens on fastland.. (between 2 recruiting points) :rolleyes: The trolls in my game were hidden at one of those small shops on the side of the mountain.. the one at vestlig So your bitching about how hard the game is?? :confused: :rolleyes:

Usually, in the olden days a game kick your ass.. (like it did mine!! many times those 4 islands were tough as nails) but you take some time you re-think.. and you conquer/persevere..

You want a easy game against them..? see my how I beat the turtle "no loss" on royal griffins above :P

I want to be clear.. I had to cheat to beat the turtle.. and what I mean is.. I didn't want to start all over and get "rune magic" cause (I didn't choose it) so I used cheat codes to give me the runes.. but starting over as you call it/mentioned above.. was the other option..

Sometimes it's just easier to cheat a little.. the command for giving you better runes is shift + ~ and then rune # (choose your number 1000 if you want :P)

So it's not that I feel I cheated really.. I just didn't want to start over like your bitching about above.. :rolleyes: I just chose to side-step the games flaws by using "the matrix" I mean re-structuring the game to my liking..

The thing is once you have the knowledge about the map and units.. you will make educated decisions even in say "crosswords" or kings bounty the original.. if I had started over.. I would have focused on "rune magic" as a priority for a no loss boss-fight.. but simply entering a cheat code.. by-passed hours of boring work just to beat him.. fairly.. :rolleyes: :D :P lol

smart solution:)

Ohh.. well, sorry to hear it.. :P

I guess, I got a lucky setup :P

Or there is the idea.. you create your own luck! :D

Is the wander scroll really random? I wonder.. :P

If the game really is semi-random..? happy to provide my 1st save of mage on impossible.. so that you can have a match up for what I got.. :P

The new "gift" spell is probably one of the most powerful in the game I think.. :P or of the new "rune magic class"

I was considering using it mainly for "maidens" but then I realized that "phantom" a spell I have never used in any other king's bounty games.. :P gives you her restore ability and it only costs 15 spell points.. vs. the 20 that a level 3 gift does :P + you get a free unit for 3 turns

I think it's possible to beat him no loss with maidens and phantom maybe too :P

I used biggest DMG dealers (pirates and sea dogs, i also had weapon called driller which gives 25% DMg bonus to melee troops and maxed berserker skill)
i almost did 9k crit dmg on him :)

here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-undkI6d-Xs

my game spawned 1 maiden, also there is only 1 castle, saying there are 2 is a bit like lying :-p

I don't want the game to be easier, I'm saying that the boss should be on island 3, so that you encounter it sooner, so that you have more time to plan your skills and recruits around it's specific challenges, then IF this was done they could afford to make the boss EVEN HARDER, the lack of time to adjust to the boss is something that's caused them to scale it DOWNWARDS!

of course then you beat the spider and the entire game is a joke because rune mages are broken, although I think a person could just play without any rune mages and the game might be fine? although I'd prefer a mod to just restore rune mages to their CW state.


anyways you didn't correctly understand what I was trying to say, I blame my own poor writing skills, none of your responses were really on point to my points.

I'm afraid it's not this. :D

For anyone having trouble with the Giant Spider, here's what I did. This took me a bout a week of frustration. I read up on the posts here that going into the might tree is a must. However, I had about 3 skills in might as I was a soothsayer and pretty much put all my points down that tree, which was pretty useless in this boss fight, except for maybe level 2 distortion and level 1 creation points. Here are my stats:

18 Soothsayer hard mode
13 attack
16 defense
18 int
3964 leadership
--- talents ---
3 might
8 spirit
18 magic

Thought I was screwed because this is an attack damage heavy fight and I had mostly magic (destruction was useless because units were too mixed up) So here's what I went with;

66 berserkers
99 vikings
113 skalds
19 war maidens
8 jarls (had possible 12 but couldn't find any more)

The biggest problem most people don't realize is morale. If it's poor you will get -10% attack/defense. If it's positive you will get +10%. Skalds were very important in that they boost morale of all vikings by 1. This plus the racial morale bonus gives you 2. The spiders will automatically lower you morale with their attacks so this is crucial.

The main trick I did was to bring the Giant Spider's health down as fast as possible to avoid the strengthening spiderlings.

Here's what you do:
First put your vikings in the Giant Spider's head, put him on berserker and watch the super crits. He will always attack the Giant Spider. Buff him with a stone skin or blessing to max damage. Group him up with your jarls for the jarls aura. Just have the rest of your party kill the spiderlings.

When the Giant Spider switches positions, have your Berserker ready and do the same thing.

The third switch will be tricky because you'll have to maneuver your damage dealer around the spiderlings.

On the fourth switch go all out; have 3 units attacking the Giant Spider to finish him off.

Hope this helps. Took me a while to figure it out =/ (also got the achievement for beating it under 15 rounds)

So anybody found a way to kill this boss without any losses? Is there any way to kill with the console or is there any way to cheat?

As a soothsayer I coved the entire ground with ice spikes the spider adds couldnt fall /profit

I did this as Soothsayer without trolls using Jarls, Warrior Maidens, Royal Snakes, Polar Bears and Swap Snakes. I found I can buy trolls at the map AFTER I killed the spider (the dwelling is not shown on map). The idea is try not to melee spider much with any other units than Jarls and Bears. Snakes and maidens should clear spiders, while using ranged/bite attack on boss when its ready. Use protection spells on jarls and bears and offensive on the boss. You will kill him eventually, but if you aim for some achievements or dont want to lose many units (as you will), use the trolls and profit.

That was something I had in mind... so it's possible... I'll try it.
That's the point - it's easy to kill him, but I want to kill without any losses. I have 3 trolls but they don't seem to deal a lot of damage :(

The spiders fall from sky but die instantly lol too funny

Yeah well..I was talking about impossible difficulty :D

I have only first level of rune magic, so my Ice spikes magic gives only three spikes and it's impossible to fill the whole battlefield. And I can't think of anything else :( Is there no other way to kill the spider without losses? Doesn't nobody managed to kill it without losses with different tactic that filling the battlefield with spikes? I've beaten all the previous games without losses on impossible, and now I can't even kill the first boss on Normal. WTF?
edit : just killed it. Used only trolls split into three groups of one. Easy but long battle - around 50 rounds. Didn't like it, seems the tactic with the trolls is the only designed way to defeat the boss without losses.

Finally beat it last night on impossible my icespike trick took while and lots of luck. Needed him to not drop spiders down a few times to catch up on the ice spikes. Trolls are so awesome with their instant life return on start of next round.

I needed a quite a few tries.
Initially I used assassins and maidens, but i kept reloading because i didn't want to lose any of those.
Then I used Trolls (3), Jarls, Polar Bears, Royal Snakes and vikings.
I used the trolls, snakes and bears to attack the spider (boss). Jarl allowed me to attack twice the spider with bears. Then in the middle of the battle I also used vikings to attack her (all of my vikings died)

I defeated the spider in 11 rounds(achievement) on impossible.

This is what i used: (Warrior - Impossible)
I had to restart a few times because he kept using range attacks in almost every rounds and both maidens had resurrect in cool down.
But in the last battle he got busy with the ancient bears from call of nature spell
Just before the final blow , the snakes made a critical hit of 11 000 dmg on him.
I didn't got the achievement but at least was a no loss battle.

11000? :shock: HOW?

level 22? wow? I was like level ~18 when I did it (had massive loses too but similar army except no warrior maidens because my game didn't spawn any, which shouldn't've even be possible at all...... limit first 4islands to 1race then don't even assure that race appears?)

I did everything and only got level 18 or 19 and thats with xp items found and skald talent so this just dont seem right perhaps thats on hard?

Sorry but I don't think it's limited to 1 race. :) On Vestlig I think there are some dwarves too.. I had miners, alchemists and engineers. Also there are snakes in Isstereng at the witch and wolf/bears/thorns in other places. And lets not forget trolls. But that sucks indeed if you didn't find any maidens. They quite useful in the opening stage of game. :)

I was 20 at boss spider on impossible with learning 3 20% xp made asap and lvl 3 Medal for another 15% and Treasure searcher medal for another 5%, and 1 item with 5%.

Just some thoughts... If you are on hard and only reach lvl 18 or 19 I think you are not doing the medal for 15% fast enough. Also maybe take learning even faster.

Never said I was on hard

Warriors has a skill called Absolute Rage (+50% critical damage)
Beside that , the snakes killed most of the spiders. With the help from Jarls ability they where able to attack twice per round , when the ability was available . Frenzy skill allowed the snakes to build up a large amount of Attack Power after each kills, therefore they got insane damage at the end of the battle.

Or maybe they simply did not care about a way to defeat the boss without losses, and why should they? This is just some additional restriction some players like to play with, so if they manage to do it somehow, congratulations, but if not, bad luck.

edit: @the one below: Vestlig, hidden store on the cliffs

Where do you find the trolls? I only found Jotuns and polar bears in the House of Jotun on both Isterreg and Nordig.

Hint: the dwelling is not shown on the map and is only accessible by flying horse.

The shop is in Vestlig. Here is the map with the location:

Thank you. Found them and used them as a no loss solution! :cool:

Does absolute rage 3 increase the multiplier to 225% or 200%? I assume the former as it was multiplicative in CW, but I'm not sure if it still is in WotN.

I'm not completely sure, but it is completely worth the upgrade!

Berserker skill does multiply directly, so a tiny stack of paladins can easily do crap tons, so even if Absolute Rage 3 was additive, it is still terribly powerful.

I'll run it through my spreadsheet when I have a chance.

Just killed the spider as Soothslayer level 18, without frenzy.

I went Jarls, Trolls, Royal / Swamp snakes, and assassins.

using snakes vs spider boss ??? very smart...
never thought about poison resistance?

search for a cave in the snowy mountains on Vestlig (the north side i think) accessible only by air from the sea... (it's kindda hidden)

Royal Snakes does physical damage.

I haven't beaten it yet because I need higher level first but I have an idea. With Soothsayers you can charm a spider unit(unless it's undead) and it will create chaos among the other spiders.

If you were lucky and got a Colossus call scroll you can use it to summon a lvl 5 troop, which varies depending on what island you cast it on. But first make the crow copy it so you can make more. I managed to get a Black Dragon with it. Otherwise there are some really nice tips here. I think I will use Royal Snakes myself. :)

Btw, Is there any way to get a map to another continent before beating the spider boss? Would really love to go somewhere else and level for awhile(also, to get free goodies, hehe). So far I have the first four islands.

they are all undead. No dice.

And no, you can't get anywhere else before the spider.

I noticed you don't need poison resistance because the Spider attacks with physical and magic damage. The dark cloud he casts is magic damage. How do I know? He cast it on my Black Dragon and it only received around 80 damage. Black Dragons have 0% poison resistance 80% magic resistance. So the snakes are pretty pointless since their lunge attack still get retaliated by the boss. They also go down very fast because of their low defense. I started with 72 and at the end (before I gave up) I had only 14 left. I would recommend something stronger or a ranged unit instead. Units that can summon other units, for example engineers, is also a good idea because they can help tank the ever growing swarm of spiders.

Snakes are great against the spider minions though which do deal poison damage.

Dark Ball is magic, yes (noted) and retaliation in melee is physical.

Speaking of call colossus, what about ice dragons? Resistant to poison, immune to magic, and could spam ice minions everywhere as they kill stacks. I guess that's probably outweighed by not being able to heal them though.

Well, if you have the ice snakes spell, you could heal them...

Well, I have Ice Dragons too but they can't be healed by that spell unfortunately since they are immune to magic, even if it's an ice creation(a mistake by the devs?). You can have one minion at a time but you can heal it, and they get a 50% attack penalty in caves, so it's not as good as you think but still worth it because they can tank the spiders really well.

I managed to beat the boss as a level 17 mage on hard and also got achievement. Here's what I had:

1 Black Dragon
2 Ice Dragons
3 Trolls
15 Jarls
80 Royal Snakes

Items: Healer's Jacket (20% poison resistance). Bought from pirate captain on Isterreng.
Spells: Ice Snake(cast on boss), Magic Spring(to get more mana for Ice Snake)

The Dragons tanked the minions while the rest attacked the boss whenever it was possible. I used the Jarls ability to give another turn to the snakes and they did a few really high hits on the boss. They even managed to use lunge without getting hit a few times, but don't attack his head because then he will use his magic.

Hard fight
 

I am new to KB and I must say, this was a hard fight. I first tried it with lvl 13 (warrior, normal), but had no chance.

Now I tried it again with lvl 15 and meanwhile frenzy skill 1. I needed several attempts but at the end beat the bloody spider in round 18 with the following armies:

- Trolls (3)
- Berserkers (~67)
- Vikings (~110)
- Royal Snakes (~60)
- Swamp Snakes (~110)

I lost all of my berserkers and vikings, about half of the snakes but no troll. This fight was hard for a warrior not able to use the rage skills and a KB newbie like me. But I'm glad that I succeded now and look forward to continue the game. :mrgreen:

I'm actually at this point in my second play through and having a bit of an effort. On warrior impossible I did not find this fight so difficult (dont' remember level); but on mage impossible level 17 I'm finding it rather difficult.
-
Troops:
royal snake 57/60
jotun 2/2
beserker 60/60
ancient bears 45/45
Jaris 11/11
-
sucky spells (titan armor, titan sword)
sucky other spells (fire arrow only does 450 damage); only useful spell I think I have are
heal and stone skin
-
Oh well I've failed twice but will try try again. I think maybe I should swap the jotun (which seem useless) with polar bears.I don't see any method to get to level 18. I could try leveling my baton for more leadership. Hum. Doesn't look good....

4400 leadership rage warrior. Spider Boss
 

i cant kill the boss
most of my talents are useless

best try was 3000 hp left on the boss, but i got really lucky that round
is there nothing else i can do to move past the boss?

also can i get into house of jotun?
cant figure out how if its possible

Soothsayer level 17, Impossible, No loss:

My army:
- 3 Trolls in 1 stack as the main damage dealer. (my leadership could have 4 but in my game I could find only 3 of them).
- 1 Ermeral Green Dragon (taken from the Rekos Shield).

Spell used: heal, Magic Spring, Stone Skin & Fire Arrow.
Strategy: Troll attacking the big spider. Magic Spring on troll for additional mana. Do NOT attack the small spider as the more you kill, the more of them show up. Green Dragon serves as bait and sometimes grab the small spider out of the way for the Troll to move up to the big spider. Cast Fire Arrow on the big spider for more damages.

Another strategy which takes a long time but ensuring is the 1 troll + magic spring in the centre being surrounded by small spiders with the main damages dealer being you with attacking spell.

Hope it helps.

Soothsayer Level 18, Impossible, no loss

My Army consisted of 3 Trolls divided into three stacks and one stack of two Green Dragons coming from a Call of Colossus.

I did not have Magic Spring. The only spells I used were Heal Lvl3 and Stone Skin Lvl1.
Special Skills were Creation Lvl3 to enhance the Stone Skin to 5 Rounds and Transmute Lvl2 to get some more Mana,

The three Trolls were placed in the three corners of the battle ground. Two of them attacked the spider and one was always waiting for the next move of the spider. I did not attack the small spiders. The Green Dragons were used only for mana generation.

The battle took around 86 Rounds with around 200 used Mana.

I am curious how you are going so long (86 rounds) because I found after 20 or so rounds the spider stacks where big enough to kill off my trolls. Anyways I personally finally manage to get past the spider (i was able to get to level 18 via leveling items) and tha was enough for me to get over the hump (though I was far from no-loss).

you don't need to kill the spider stacks only attack boss with 3 trolls

That is what I did. I only attacked the Boss.
The spiderling stacks had a size of 300 at the end.

My tip: Take two armies of snakes with you (royal/swamp), which you place in the middle of the battlefield to take care of the spiderlings. They are poison-resistant.

Just curious how much damage these trolls should do on the big spider, when I was trying kill him with this tactic my trolls were doing something between 190 to 250 which is not much. So I gave up that and kill him with the axe, the trolls were just for mana regeneration.

With the help of this thread, I choose my troops. witeAnd I finished the war with this and luck under 10 rounds.
Make Hilda senior for leadership,Then I used the wanderer skill (flaming eyes)which gives +%20 leadership. Also have gloves which gives +10 poison resistance.

I use ancient bears, polar bears, vikings, berserkers and 4 jotun. There were good choices except jotuns. I used berserker and stone skin. It is an amazing spell. With my luck when I use berserker, the troops always attack the giant spider with 2000-2500 hit points. I can't beelieve this and The giant spider dead quickly. Bears ann the others kill the babies immediately.

Soothslayer, impossible, level 22
Didn't have glory. Around 5500-5600~ leadership
Went with Maidens, 3 types of snakes, 3 Trolls(out of 5).
Everything got slaughtered but a few snakes and the trolls. Ended up with stacks of 500...
But I still got it :)

Snakes aren't 100% poison resistance, but those units are still good since they can usually attack without being counterattacked.
But for that strategy to work, frenzy seems a must (I didn't have it). Trolls will be good regardless.

I can give this tip through
I got the high level by getting learning asap and using XP items and A.K scrolls.
I also sacrificed items to the rage valkyrie who at level 4 will give a quest to kill 10 orcs around the northern islands.
It will give high amounts of xp and +2 Intelligence from killing 10 orc groups (for soothslayer).
The strength of the orcs seem to scale at the level at which you pick up the quest from the valkyrie. The experience scale on their armies.

I went from not being able to beat the Spider to doing it no loss using the Trolls. I think it ended around Round 69 for me.

soothasyer level 19 -leadership 4800 - beat it with :
royal snakes 80
jarls 15
jotuns 3
polar pears 32
assains 33
distoration magic 2 order magic 2 with no defensive spells except avenging angle
using 2 wanderd spells : gift of stone and fortinue smile

I loss most of my unites exept 1 jotun 28 snakes 24 assains

Spider fight hot to get trolls always?
 

Hello
On this movie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KgxbBBrdRw
I explain no lose tactic for mage and how to get trolls ALWAYS when You got scroll call 5 level monster.
On my youtube channel You can find a lot movies with fights against hardest oponents in the game (Von varro, Magnikant,Dedred etc.)
All battles and all the game no loss 8-)
BTW Any1 of You know anything about WotN editor? There it is any chance to get?buy it?

Without Mana spring ?
 

The trolls solution is good if you have the mana spring spell. Without it, you can't use 3 trolls to do no loss.
3 of us succeeded with 3 different solutions, related here :
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=36157

1. I used 4 trolls not 3
2.I havent used any mana ressurect spell just bought all offensive scrolls on the map from all vendors, it should be absolutly enough.

Finished all game as mage on impossible difficult with no loss then I really know a little about this game.

Visit please Jarcik bounty Youtube channel. There is a lot of HD movies about that including all hard fights.

Most of your grievances are quite justified. But I am pretty sure there are 2 castles - on on Nordlig, one on Fastlands. (Yes, you can go back to Nordling - it's a weird thing but Runolv actually goes back to his house and you can enter the town. The smith Grunorm will have moved into the Castle (so you lose access to his sales - buy them before this event)

Also, the three Houses of Jotun (one in Vestlig, one in Isterreg, one in Nordlig) accessible after you get the winged horse) sell Trolls with a good chance. They are hard to find unless you check your maps... another weirdness with the designs.

Axethrowers are some of the worst Viking units - due to the 120 Leadership. I mean, cannoneers have the same leadership, have more HP and can attack at any range and without melee penalty. The "nimble" skill is not worth it for that... As I noticed, their damage output is fairly low since you can only get a few. In comparison, other Level 3 units with 90 HP have much lower leadership (Cerberi, Griffins, etc.)

Jotuns are quite good - I usually start a fight with freezing mace, and switch to life-steal after they get damaged. 10% may not sound like much, but they can quickly get their HP back.
Also, they have 35% cold resistance... throw a Snowstorm over them, and it will increase their attack and defense significantly.

EDIT: Oh, I see now, the Spider spawns Undead Spiders... that makes life-steal a no-go. Still, the high HP of the Jotuns+Healing would make them good tanks against the small spiders. Right now I am trying to get Ice Dragons - once I reach 2200 Leadership I will spam those Call Colossus scrolls... (PS: check my bugfix, the scroll can now give you Jotuns).

Wow, nice. Can you tell us some basic tips about how to get through the first island without losses? It's more manageable afterwards (but depends on luck - me, I still don't have Resurrect scroll and only a few Warrior Maidens) - but Nordlig was only doeable until the Butcher - he ALWAYS Poison Skull-s some of my units and I cannot stop him in 2 rounds (undead cannot be Fear-ed) to stop him from casting it on 2 troops.

I went with on impossible with no losses until the last six fights (I might replay them just to get the bragging rights). On top of that I finish the game 100k short of level 70 so it is possible to get level 70 on impossible since I didn’t use any equipment which increases experience and I got my “learning” not as a priority.

No question about it the first island is the most painful if you trying for no-loses, besides luck of the draw (opponents’ army strengths and units varies from game to game), BUT there are few things to change the fight:
1. different unit
2. different equipment
3. different level
4. different action (for example wait instead of walk or vice versa, atack different unit)
5. if you having very though encounter with a boss try to come back after you killed another wandering enemy.