I have been sitting on my notes for this fight for a while at this point and today is finally the day that we return to the Gormpital to take on our most difficult challenge yet.
A lot of things fell into place for me to even consider going for this Lvl3 fight and I did fully expect to go hunt a Lvl2 Spidicules for most of my preparations, so just keep that in mind whilst reading the settlement and set-up bits.
So, without further ado: Lantern Year 9:

With our victory over the baby-spooder during last Lantern Year’s hunt in the books, I was well and truly itching to finally move on to taking down more powerful foes. But could this Lantern Year finally provide us with a third survival action to do so?

***

Despite how little effort we had put into last Lantern Year’s hunt, the team arrived back at home in the Gormpital with their creativity bubbling over, gaining 6 endeavors for the settlement (4 returning survivors, Cooking I and 18 population).
As far as events were concerned this was one of the quietest Lantern Years in a while. First we drew our random settlement event:
Open Maw!
This would end up being such a complete non-factor for us that I didn’t even take a picture of the card!
Followed by the annual Gorm Climate: I rolled an 8 – which gave Mrs Gorm her 3rd courage, made her a Matchmaker and gave us another endeavor – up to 7!

And just like that we were already in the develop step and preparing for the first major turning point of the Lantern Year – innovating!
Still desperate for either of the 2 additional ways to spend survival during the fight, I drew my 4 cards:
Partnership, Family, Inner Lantern or Forbidden Dance.
FINALLY!!!
A survival action!
There was no choice to be had this time – I picked Inner Lantern without any hesitation!
Of course both Family or Forbidden Dance would also have been nice to have but seeing that I’ve started regressing in my hunts already there really was no choice this time!

With that huge weight off of my back I looked towards building and rebuilding new and old items – unfortunately I also noticed at that moment that I had not gotten enough additional hide from the tiny Spidicules to make everything that I would have wanted.
More specifically, this meant not only that we couldn’t build the Stone Macuahuitl but also that I would need to stretch out some silk to even get back the Rawhide Headband as well.
We could still build the Silk Sash though, so that was something at least. And I ended up using 1 endeavor as well to turn the remaining Web Silk into a basic Monster Hide, so that I could still rebuild the lost Rawhide Headband.This one did feel bad, but with Surge finally acquired, my mind was already made up to head to the spooder again anyway.

With the most important stuff dealt with, I started to get stupid ideas again .. like doing some more Gormchymy!
We hadn’t done any Gormchymy for quite a while at that point and there still were a couple of great potions to get from that table still! And whilst I knew deep-down in my hearts of hearts, that I should be keeping the extra organs to build a Barber Surgeon soon-ish .. I mean.. this is Fullmetal Gormchymist, or is it not?
With 2 dice we needed something between 13 to 18 (inclusive). And after the Feline Entity finally was ready to relinquish the cards back to me, I spent the 2 organs and just went for it .. a 13 was just enough! A Wisdom Potion had been distilled for Aeneas!

This item would change a lot of things for us! And whilst activating the Wisdom Potion would be a little tricky without another organ for a Lucky Charm, we did have options with the Rawhide Armor sets and Bandages.

I then had Gormvoc, a returning Matchmaker, do his thing (5 & 7) and shortly afterwards Gormly and Mrs Gorm had another child: the girl Ligorm.

Finally, with the large amounts of survival left for the team, I sent most of them to do some Nightmare Training.
Gormward was up first and he overdid it .. he instantly rolled a 10 .. so he was up to 6STR.
In an attempt to get Gormecca going as well, I had her use Drums (I) once for 2 survival and sent her training as well .. but she did not manage to roll over a 7 and almost died twice throughout the ordeal. This sort of training clearly wasn’t for her.
Finally, Shaogorm joined then as well, but she just rolled a 9 and was done, progressing nicely towards axe mastery (5/8).

Out of endeavors, I then stuffed everything else we still had left over (1 Skull, 1 Serrated Fangs and the Pyrolytic Light) into storage and started wondering what to hunt and who to send out to hunt it.

The Hunters:
Shaogorm – blue (silk bits, Greater Gaxe)
Gormecca – green (Rib Blade, Amber Edge)
Gormward – red (Rawhide Armor, Bone Blade)
Aeneas – purple (Rawhide Armor, Riot Mace)

After I putting these grids together I first started thinking about actually going for a Spidicules Lvl3 instead of Lvl2.., and all things considered, I came to the conclusion that this team should be able to reliably keep wounding it fairly easily.
Spooder Lvl3 only has 12TGH, and mostly ramps up danger by making the Spiderlings more potent (3SPD & 2DMG) and by adding large amounts of bleed via traits and the staring mood in play. So as long as we were able to keep the Spiderling population in check (surge being particularly important for this) we should be able to do this quite nicely, I figured.
Add to that a constant source of Hit Location scouting suddenly available to us and with Aeneas around as well, the question probably wasn’t as much “if we could do it”, but more of a “how much would it cost?”
And whilst I didn’t like not having dash for this (and 4 grids with armor would have also been nice as well considering we could awaken parasites from taking severes) at least the “killing the big spider”-part should be easy enough.
We’ve also not seen much of the trap from Spidicules either so far in this campaign, which was both a little uncanny in a way and worrying.

But ultimately, considering it was only Lantern Year 09 a this point, I opted to go for another Lvl2 monster this time, vowing that I’d be upgrading to fighting a Lvl3 spooder in the not too distant future.
Aeneas could still gain a bunch of LCK from her personal stony and once we got dash as well, we’d be set-up well to get an early indom.

Ah.. Fuck it, we ball.

The Huntphase:
The group left the settlement with a particular kind of bravado this time .. one that fizzled out immediately as the survivors found themselves in a ravine. The Way [was particularly] Narrow this time and before they had left the area Shaogorm had vanished, taken by the Spidicules! This meant the survivors had to press on as a team of 3, but it also had a couple of hidden perks .. like nobody would get knocked out by a sudden Cave-In.
Seemingly the thought alone was enough to have the ceiling crumble, and soon Gormward stood before the shimmering Crystal Lake Magorm had told him so much about. He did squander the opportunity by rolling the only bad result on a 4 and got the Unlucky disorder instead of anything helpful.

Moving on, Gormecca was trying to think of Something to Pass the Time (basic HE72) with during a particularly boring stretch of terrain, hoping to the lift the group’s spirits. But the song she had made up was so annoying that the monster ambushed the hunting party straight from the darkness just to put an end to it!

Getting ambushed was, of course, rough .. but honestly? Unless we’d get our own ambush in, skipping such a long hunt didn’t feel nearly as bad as it probably should have.

For its Lvl3 fight the Spidicules has the typical +2/+2 for stats but no additional tokens. Instead the singular new trait, 10.000 Teeth adds bleed 1 to all of its attack profiles.
Meanwhile the starting mood is Necrotoxin, which also adds bleed 1 to all Spiderling attacks. That’s a lot of bleed!
And whilst the Lvl3 spooder also has Indomitable, this is mainly to get the resource after the fight as it can’t be knocked over to begin with.

Drawing terrain I was surprised by “the Dude” showing up as well! A Forge Priest was collecting Iron in the area!
Finally, rounding out the set up was a duo of Acanthus Plants.

To survive the Lvl3 Spidicules we needed to hope that we’d get an early mood exchange in and then keep the Spiderling population under control, like we did for Lvl2. Surge would be helping us a LOT here this time.
I also figured that if necessary we might need to focus down the monster over collecting all the Web Silk on the board.
And additionally, I had quickly made up my mind before the fight that I would be leaving the Forge Priest to do its own thing at the back of the board and ignore it as best I could. It was probably a good bit more dangerous than then Spidicules at this point in the campaign.

With an active Wisdom Potion amongst the group, I revealed the top Hit Location card and started the fight.

With 21 (22) cards in the deck, the monster ambushed the startled survivors in the midst of their song. As Gormecca gained a +1LCK-token for her Beginner’s Luck (FA) and the first Spiderling was put into play, we were blessed by getting the best case scenario imaginable: a new mood entered play immediately – Jumping Spiders (+4MOV to Spiderlings)!
Gormward was chosen as the target for the basic action and during the flow he quickly yelled at Shaogorm, who then surged to attack the Spiderling by her side. And whilst she hit it only once (4+) she killed the minion (4+) right as the Spidicules rushed towards Gormward!
3 hits for 3DMG each, tore open his armor at the chest and waist as he dodged once to avoid a severe injury.

In the distant corner of the board the Forge Priest collected the first of the 2 Ore Veins unbothered by the fight somewhere behind it.

Still at 21 (22) cards, the monster attacked again – exchanging the mood again already as well! Caustic Pheromones entered play and as the basic action targeted Gormward again, Shaogorm surged to smash up another Spiderling.., again.
Gormward also took the chance to get a hit in as well, surging in the flow, taking out the first of potentially 8 legs!

But the monster’s retaliation was quick and brutal as Gormward got pounded by another 3 hits, marking him as Priority Target and knocking him down, bleeding, despite him dodging another hit to his chest.
Meanwhile, in the far corner of the board, the Forge Priest trundled towards the second Ore Vein, almost done with its job here already.

As our first actual turn started, Gormecca was first in line to swing at the monster from underneath it, but the curse on this Rib Blade persisted and she missed.
And before Gormecca could truly consider surging, Aeneas was already under the monster as well and she was ready to be the hero we needed! A single wound turned into a crit and put a persistent injury into play that meant the monster’s TGH would go down with every following critical wound it suffered. And, more importantly, it was limited to its basic action again for its next turn!

Aeneas then attempted to surge and attack another leg, but double 1s ended that early.
Gormward was then get encouraged by Aeneas (regaining her survival) and he moved forward to strike with the Amber Edge for the first time, hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+. He cut off a Cunning Foreleg(s) but was stopped on the second attack by only rolling a 2 to hit already!
Finally allowed to surge, Gormecca managed to deal one more wound as well!

To end our turn, the comparatively heavily armored Shaogorm opened up the Egg Sacs next to her in an attempt to take the Priority Target token from Gormward. She rolled a 5 and managed to get it alongside a Web Silk and a Spiderling. Having already surged this round, she then used her 6MOV to get closer to the group.

17 (18) cards remaining, 3 legs cut off, 2 Spiderlings on the board, the monster was forced into using another basic action. Before it could run over to Shaogorm; Gormecca and Gormward each surged in an attempt to deal some more damage, and whilst Gormecca failed outright, Gormward dealt 1 wound and was stopped by another roll of a 1. Luckily! As the next card on top of the deck was revealed to be the trap!

Shaogorm was then savaged by the Spidicules and its extra minions spawned by the surge, leaving her on 5 armor total and heavily wounded at the legs.

Finally the Forge Priest picked up the 2nd Ore Vein and left the board for good.

With the trap on top of the deck, the only thing we could really do this turn was to kill as many Spiderlings as possible to lessen its impact. The plan made and understood, Aeneas smashed 2 Spiderlings right out of the gate with a surge, whilst Gormward dealt with the third before Gormecca was tasked to get the highly sought after 4+ against the monster to trigger the trap!

As the Spidicules ran away, a singular, freshly spawned Spiderling jumped at Gormecca, knocking her over. Shaogorm then swung her mighty Greater Gaxe to fell the offensive minion and moved towards the Acanthus Plant close by.

Ideally, or so I hoped, due to the distance put between the monster and its Priority Target, the next AI card would just fizzle out.

16 (17) cards left, 3 legs removed, 1 Spiderling present, the monster drew Echoing Screech. Suddenly back up to 2 Spiderlings, both of them rushed over to Gormward to yell at him. He took 6 brain damage (his exact amount of insanity) and fell over before the little minions were drawn away by the Priority Target token on Shaogorm.

As we were back to killing Spiderlings with the monster so far out of reach still, Gormecca still had to surge to hit even once, whilst Aeneas killed her target outright.
Shaogorm then picked up the Fresh Acanthus next to her and immediately ate it for +1 survival.
Finally Gormward was encouraged by Aeneas (regaining her survival) and he opened up another Egg Sac, revealing a dead Spiderling inside!

I really should have used one of the Rawhide Headbands this turn – but I didn’t. It never really crossed my mind at this point. But.. I will be in a little bit.

16 (17) cards remaining, 3 legs removed, 1 Spiderling on the board, hopefully the monster would come back to the group this time: and
Feed would do just that!
The monster rushed back towards us and just fell short! Only 1 step further and it could have attacked Shaogorm! As if I had planned it.
With no more Priority Target on the field, the freshly bred Spiderling rushed towards Gormecca, who had to dodge to avoid a severe injury.

With survival dropping lower and lower (3/2/5/6) and armor almost non-existent beyond Aeneas, I was starting to feel like really we needed to get a move on!
Her eyes on the revealed knee joint, Shaogorm swung the Greater Gaxe – and achieved 3 hits, amongst which were no legs and more importantly: no trap! A perfect hit also activated barbed 4 and she was wounding on 2+: 3 wounds were dealt, including 1 crit lowering both the monster’s TGH and DMG by 1 each. This in particular could be big for us in the long run!
But, unfortunately, the final wound reaction also had the Spidicules run away again!

With the monster beyond our reach yet again – this is why I would have liked to have dash as well – Gormecca and Aeneas killed the remaining Spiderling in a combined effort as Gormward opened up another dead Spiderling to collect another Web Silk!

Before the turn ended, I decided to be smart for once and had Aeneas surge to use her Rawhide Headband – she put Fling on top of the AI deck to avoid a legendary mood entering play. She then moved “into position” .. to be equally as far away from the monster as Shaogorm.

13 (14) cards remaining, 3 legs cut off, 1 Spiderling freshly spawned, Fling was played .. as had been foretold!
The monster moved into the far corner as Spiderlings then attacked both Aeneas and Gormward, taking out his last shreds of armor at the legs.

With the monster even further away, there was still only little for us to do other than kill more Spiderlings, move up closer and take deep breaths in an attempt to not panic.
Aeneas did use her Rawhide Headband again to put Pulverize on top with Gormecca offering herself as a potential target for the attack to draw the monster back in.

13 (14) cards remaining, 3 legs cut off, 1 Spiderling in play, Pulverize was played.. as had been foretold! With nobody quite range the Spidicules still ran over with his 13MOV and I had managed to space it out correctly yet again – it fell just short!

The new Spiderling then attacked Aeneas afterwards, but she dodged the hit to her arms.

Finally able to reach the monster again, Gormecca rushed over to it but missed the attack .. surprise, surprise.
But Shaogorm – always the reliable one – followed after and scored 4 hits! 1 leg, no trap, she wounded 3 before the Spidicules raised its body out of reach!

Meanwhile Gormward opened up another Egg Sac and was rewarded with the Priority Target token for his efforts, before he surged to kill the emerging Spiderling as well.

Gormecca then also surged, but failed to hit yet again! Following that up, Aeneas ran after the 2 Spiderlings still running towards Shaogorm to kill the one lagging behind a little.
Of course, Shaogorm also surged, dealing 2 more wounds before she was flung away by a reflex, knocking Aeneas over in the process.

Finally Gormward encouraged Aeneas so she could use her head band once again and I put Puncture on top instead of the other legendary card in the deck (the stalk-one) and we passed the turn over to the monster.

8 (9) cards remaining, 5 legs removed, 2 Spiderlings on the board, the monster played Puncture .. as had been foretold .. and ran towards Gormward, but it was unable to reach him! And there wasn’t even anybody in the zone of legs either!
With Priority Target removed from the board again the Spiderlings were vicious and attacked the closest survivors each, going for Aeneas and Shaogorm. Aeneas’s Rawhide Armor was paying off more and more as yet another spent survival to dodge had been refunded to her!

As Gormecca and Shagorm got back up, Gormward was ready and waiting to attack the leg on top of the deck! Trying to not hit too often he stood to the side of the Spidicules and dealt only 1 wound with the Amber Edge before he lost the flow of the attack.
Aeneas quickly surged to smash up a Spiderling in between actions whilst Shaogorm moved to the backside of the Spidicules.

Seeing how small the hit location deck had gotten again, I hesitated a little but ultimately still attacked with her. She hits 3 more times and found the last 2 legs in the deck! Naturally, the Greater Gaxe went to town on these spindly monster bits and with axe spec she cut off the last 2 large legs with ease! The critical wound amidst this flurry of blows was just sugar on top by that point – decreasing the monster’s ACC by 1!
But even more importantly, the monster was down to a fixed 3MOV and we were set up to gain the Legless Ball (I) at the end of the fight as well, should we survive.

With the trap spotted on top of the deck as the next card, Aeneas took her proper turn and moved around the other Spiderling towards the nest attacking it as well. But the Spiderling survived the hit wit the Riot Mace on a most unfortunate 1!
At this stage I felt it would have been foolish to not surge another activation of the Rawhide Headband with Gormward to avoid the possible return of the Necrotoxin mood. Revealing the 2 cards, it wouldn’t have been the next card, but it was in there – so I put Puncture on top again.

4 (5) cards remaining, all 8 legs had been cut off, 2 Spiderlings were in play, I drew and played Puncture.. as had been foretold! Gormward was chosen as the random threat and that inspired him to surge an attack.. if he was going to die here, he might as well do so being a hero and soak up the trap!
One Spiderling missed him completely but the 3 hits he did take (on 5+) all hit his body!

That was 2 severes! A 3 and a 10 – the lucky bastard had somehow survived this onslaught and a Guilt Whipworm writhed within him.

With Gormward still alive, the AI continued and the Spidicules rolled back over to him, hitting him hard and killing him with the bleed from 2 more severe injuries.

Before more bleed could come in, in a somewhat desperate attempt to kill the monster, Shaogorm spent her last survival to surge and attack! She hit it 3 times which was 1 too few! A clutch crit applied a 2nd -1DMG-token to the Spidicules and the following wound knocked Shaogorm away from both the bleed and the Spiderlings!

With our actual turn starting, greed was starting to first settle in – there were still some Egg Sacs to collect on the board!
First I sent Gormecca to pick up the last Fresh Acanthus and she ate it immediately, at least giving her a valuable +1 survival so late during the fight (her only one at the time).
Then Aeneas attempted to remove all remaining AI cards by attacking with the Riot Mace – in theory a sound plan .. in practice .. well, the monster rolled away after the first wound as Aeneas had failed to crit it.

Finally, Shaogorm was encouraged and she moved towards the remaining Egg Sacs, killing a Spiderling that had found its way towards the back.

1 (2) card(s) remaining, 8 legs removed, 3 Spiderlings in play, the monster was set to replay Puncture over and over again, targeting Aeneas as the only valid option for its first itteration.
Hitting on 5s Aeneas took 3 hits (1 of which she dodged) and suffered only 2DMG in total as the monster was back down to dealing only 1DMG per hit thankfully!
With both 1 bleed and Priority Target applied to her, the greed fully kicked in and I let the monster trample around on her to maybe get 2 more Web Silk before killing it.
The small spiders then came swarming in, hitting on 7 and the 2 next to Aeneas contributed 1 hit each for 2DMG.

Back around to our turn, Gormecca knew the plan: let Aeneas finish the monster and collect the last 2 Web Silk. It was a simple as pie – so she gathered the silk and thought nothing of it as she was tripped up by the emerging Spiderling. Still Aeneas shouted across the battlefield at her to get back up and use that final survival to surge which failed.., obviously.

After this slight hiccup, instead of blindly going for more Silk, I let Aeneas go first and have her just kill the Spidicules – we were almost out of survival (except for Aeneas) and we needed to leave this place alive. She got 2 hits in, this could be it!
The Wisdom Potion already revealed the next card in the deck to be the trap! This gave us a choice of 3 Spiderling attacks against Aeneas (at 7+ to hit) if she didn’t crit the 8 or wait it out with 1 more spooder on the field instead! Without a reroll for her to use – I opted for the slow & steady approach: one more wound was dealt as the reflex drew all 4 Spiderlings to Aeneas’ side!
Neither of these options had been particularly great, I will say.

Before we were done for the turn, Aeneas surged to kill one of the Spiderlings next to her before she backed off towards the edge of the board, keeping the Spidicules just out of range.
Finally, Shaogorm followed the recently spawned Spiderling but missed her attack to kill it!

0 (1) cards remaining, 8 legs cut off, 4 Spiderlings in play. The Spidicules rolled forward but couldn’t quite reach Aeneas with its basic action, removing the Priority Target token from her by doing so, splitting up the focus of the Spiderlings! Still set upon by 2 of them, luckily none hit Aeneas with more than a 6 and subsequently they missed all of their attacks!

Gormecca on the other hand was hit twice and forced to spend her last survival to prevent a 2nd severe injury! She still suffered a Gaping Chest Wound (4) whilst Shaogorm had her hip broken (7).

Funnily neither of them fell over or had parasites awaken from this trauma, but it did attract the attention of the Feline Entity!

Trying to be sensible in my approach – to minimize the amount of Spiderlings attacking, Gormecca hit and killed 1 Spiderling as Aeneas surged to take out another!

Then Shaogorm stepped up to the monster and attacked it – hopefully clearing the way for Aeneas to win the fight! She was the only one I could safely rely on triggering in – and whilst I said my silent farewell to 5 points of axe spec, she was swarmed by the Spiderlings.
They tore into her with 2DMG each, hitting on 4+! 7 hits connected, 4 of which going into her arms!

She suffered 3 severe injuries from the onslaught, including a severed arm, gaining only 3 bleed (up to a total of 4) and a parasite stirred as well.

With Shaogorm barely alive, the trap had been successfully cleared and the Wisdom Potion revealed the Segmented Arms as the next spot to hit.
Aeneas swung the Riot Mace in response, hopefully for a last time this Lantern Year and as she only hit the monster once, she dealt a critical wound to kill the monster!

Whilst it did cost us 6STR-Gormward and an arm from our two-handed-axe-main .. we won! After just over 3 hours (including my note- and picture-taking) the Spidicules lay dead.

As for rewards we gained 2 hunt xp from the ordeal, which had Shaogorm (+1STR) reach age 2 and Aeneas was also set to ponder once we arrived back home in the Gormpital.
For weapon proficiency, both Shaogorm and Gormecca had wounded the monster successfully and had grown slightly more proficient for it.

And then, from one moment to the next, Gormecca was gone – Taken and nowhere to be found!

Moving on to rewards proper, the Moonwolf Charm Aeneas was carrying activated and she got her first pick from the monster’s resource deck, choosing a Venom Sack from the 3 revealed cards.
I also took the chance to draw the Indomitable Resource as well at this point, gaining the Aggregate Silk Gland and the Pattern for the Poison Partisan – which was partially why I wanted that Venom Sack in the first place – nice!

Furthermore, we then drew 4 basics & 8 spooder resources, gained the Silken Nervous System and a Black Lichen.
Together with 5 Web Silk that was definitely a decent haul to be carrying back home!

But we weren’t done just yet either: there were 2 more things that still needed to be resolved:
#1: we needed to let Aeneas have her snack: she wanted to eat 4 things to remain content this time – and I do think she deserved it.
And #2: Spidisisyphus! With all legs cut off the Spidicules we had managed to trigger the event to roll the bruised, legless body back to the settlement – but did we actually get to keep this Legless Ball (I)? Or would the way home be filled with tragedy?
Shaogorm rolled an 8 and we gained an additional Skull basic resource as the Spidicules threw it up on our way back home! The innovation had been secured!

Good job, Shaogorm!

***

All in all, this had felt like a balancing act on a tight-rope for most of the fight, with the mood that gave out the Priority Target token being probably what had helped us the most ultimately. But beyond that, just not having to deal with the extra bleed from Necrotoxins was nice already!
Aeneas’ Rawhide Armor set was probably following close behind that (she made like 80% of her rolls on that ability), together with the Wisdom Potion, Greater Gaxe and the ability to surge.
And without surge we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off this early – that is for certain. Granted, the Spidicules Lvl3 fight is one of the easiest in the game as far as Lvl3 monster are concerned, in my opinions, and keeping the Spiderling population in check will prevent a lot of damage and pressure from building up.
Still, just imagine how much easier a Lvl2 would have been!

We, of course, got a little lucky on the AI the monster was drawing, but in the end, just spreading out the damage sensibly and killing off Spiderlings did apparently do the trick for us!

Next Lantern Year we are back to hoping for dash and we might as well build ourselves that shiny new spear. That’ll also prevent Aeneas from eating anything too important.

***

But that will be all from the Gormpital for today, I’ll try to get Lantern Year 10 up next week, which could be a Gorm Lvl2.., or a birb?
I guess, I’d like to have dash for either of these 2.

As always, thank you very much for your time, keep an eye out for that Forge Priest – it might not notice you whilst listening to all its sick forge-beats and wailing!
Amathul