The Hunter Spiders are pretty cool - the rider has 13 HP with 22 prot (from memory - may be a little off), but the spiders themselves have 55 HP and 15 prot so they can Last a big battle or a couple of rounds of lightning. They get 2 attacks per round, plus the lance, so they can take out multiple lesser troops each round.
And of course they are holy with or without the rider, so with a Fire 9 Nature 9 pretender they are really powerful. They have that Lion King pretender with starting Fire 2 Nature 1, so this isn't as costly as a GM 9 Earth 9 Nature. +4 AR, Flaming Weapons (+8 damage), Regenerate, Beserk +3 when hit. Lots of fun...
I wanted the + attack (and +8 damage) to reliably get the spider bite attack to hit, since it has a web effect. The hope there would be to immobilize the target, so the spiders would get free attacks from then on as long as they could still hit. They could still get swarmed and are vulnerable to magic, but the freeze and feast would be really good at killing supercombatants.
Or so I thought on paper. I've seen the web effect on lesser troops, but usually they die from the poison so it is not important. But I set up a battle against some blessed Niefel Giants (+9 Earth +9 Nature) in neutral dominion, and the web effect never seemed to get them! In a 10 NG versus 12 BH fight, the BH only brought one NG down (mostly lance damage in the first round) and then stalled and got taken down hard. Lost all 12 of them, 1 NG casualty and a couple of afflictions
So how exactly does the web effect of the spider work? Does it have a MR check (NGs have very high MR), or is there a poison check (the NGs had 50% Poison Res thanks to the bless), or is there something I am missing? The BHs were hitting the NGs almost every turn, but I didn't see the web graphic and they were definitely getting counterattacked.
On the plus side, the BHs with this pretender can get ARs in the 20s and hit for over 20 point of damage twice a round with great defensive power, so are just lethal versus normal troops. Also size 6 to stop tramplers. If the Rider dies, the Spider stays with you after the battle, so the 13 HP is only a start. The commander Version is not that expensive, so you could have a lot of them setup with some artifacts to create some fun there too. And their assasin as a prophet is a really nasty fellow... just don't understand the web attack.
oh, well, lunch is over, so back to work! Have to try this again with those fishmen troops with the nets next time...
Machaka and the Hunter Spiders - web effect?
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