Getting past the bloody spider.

[Donnylicious]

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)