Executioner's Chariot

Goes by in a blur

    Confession right off the bat here: I couldn't find this guy. Not on my own, anyhow. I honestly thought it was farther along the game, and I didn't realize you could fight him right after getting to Huntman's Copse. I came back waaaay later, after beating the dual Dragonriders in Drangleic Castle. As far as the actual difficulty, it was most likely nerfed for me. If I fought him earlier, it would have been pretty difficult I think. But I never realized there was a spot in Huntsman's Copse that I had missed, so I eventually looked it up. I only knew about him in the first place because he was one of the first bosses that was showcased early on in the  development of the game. I'm sure everyone has seen him in some pre-release/promo footage.
    After finding the other area in the Copse, it's a real bitch to get through. Let's talk about it briefly: I died on the run-up to the boss two, or even three, times more than I did fighting the boss. There's a total of five tough enemies to fight. They are tall, skinny, leather-bound (I couldn't help but think of Judas Priest. Weird? Some DID have whips. Sorry, off topic) guys with various dark-imbued weapons. They are SUPER fast and aggressive, and a pain to kill. After dying the first time to the boss, I just ran past all the enemies. Which would normally be fine, except, as I said, they are fast, and they will follow you, and they WILL kill you from behind as you're walking through the fog gate. And it is INFURIATING after this happens over and over again. Seriously, you can't fuck around. I had to start smashing the "X" button before I got to the fog gate, so I knew I'd have enough time for my slow ass character to saunter through the gate. 
    On to the boss itself. It's on the gimmicky side, sort of, but it's no Bed Of Chaos (still the dumbest pure fight in the whole series). The area you fight him in is a long, circular hallway, broken up by a hole. When you walk in, you see a brief cut-scene of a  gate opening, and then the executioner and his chariot come roar out. Firstly, the chariot continually goes around in a circle, so every 5-8 seconds, he comes by. He rumbles the SHIT out of your controller. I honestly thought the vibrations would wake my wife up! The chariot either has spikes on both its wheels (Ben-Hur style), or the executioner has a long, sharp spear. Maybe both. It's really tough to get a look, because he goes by so fast (so please excuse these shitty pictures). But, if you are on the side of him, you're getting smashed. There are tiny alcoves to hide in that let you escape that damage. Which would be fine n' dandy, if not for the skeletons all over the place.

Rough picture, I know. Here's the Executioner flying by

    They like to swarm you when you are hiding in the alcoves, which gets annoying. They aren't super powerful (again, if you fight them earlier they are probably much more lethal. I had a hell of a time with the skeletons in Huntsman' Copse my first time through), but they get very aggravating. There are two or three (three I think) mages that resurrect the skeletons. If you kill them (the mages), the skeletons won't respawn. I only found two mages, so I always had to deal with some skeletons. So you slowly make your way around the circular hallway, killing skeletons/mages, hiding in the alcoves to escape the chariot (it should be noted the chariot WILL hurt the skeletons as it goes by, but not much), and just trying to survive. Eventually you'll get to a lever. Pull it, and the gate that opened in the cut-scene will now close. Apparently the executioner needs to get the chariot's brakes checked, because he will smash into the gate, without even trying to slow down. This will take a small amount of its health, but more importantly, it will destroy the executioner and his chariot. All that's left are the two hellish dark horses. They have glowing red eyes, and they huff dark mist from their noses. Suffice to say, they look awesome.

See? Awesome! Again, sorry for the bad picture

    So now you're pitted against the horses and any remaining skeletons. The horses aren't too tough, but their dark magic breath attack is pretty powerful. Otherwise, they do a head attack, where they thrust their heads at you. They are similar to the iron boars of the first game. I basically just ran up to them and attacked, and dodged when needed, and ran away when they were gonna do that magic breath. That's really about it. Their physical attacks are kind of hard to dodge, but I managed well enough. Not too tough overall, but a bit tricky. Again, running back to the boss if you die is the worst part. The boss only killed me twice, but I must have died an additional six or seven times just running back to it.  This boss is optional, but it opens up the path to a covenant (a covenant with an ABSURD requirement to get to rank 3, I might add) if defeated. It's a pretty interesting, fun battle, and the boss is great to look at (even if he's only a blur).

Times I died: 2
Difficulty: 4/10
Rating: 7/10

Okay, back to the Castle! Time to finish up the second leg of knight boss battles

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BOSS SOUL DESCRIPTION: "...that holds control over the Undead Purgatory; The chariot was created only to torment Undead, and it took the form of a horrendous mad steed, a window into the soul of its master." 

 

Chariot Lance

 Chariot Lance: "The perverse design of the spear mirrors the chariot from which it came, a merciless creation that endlessly tortured the Undead."