I happened upon the Updated Creature Rules (available in the Support section of FFG's Battlelore site) and, as I glanced through them, noticed a clause on page 4:

"Lore rolled by a creature may never be held by a creature to be used later, or stored in a player's Lore Goblet" (emphasis mine).

Does this supersede the rules outlined in the original book regarding the Power Up operation (page 44 of the rulebook)? Or does Powering Up not count as "holding?"

For example:

My Giant Spider attacks a Blue Banner infantry and rolls a Blue Helmet and a Lore symbol. The unit takes the hit. I would then opt to "store" the Lore rolled and wait until my Spider rolls another Lore to trigger the Poison power. On my next turn, the Spider rolls a Sword-on-Shield and a Lore. She is then, to my understanding, able (and required) to make her Poison attack.

Is this correct? Or is the Spider now required to use the Web power when just one Lore is rolled?

Yup, the new creature rules are intended to supersede the old ones. The reason for introducing them (I surmise) is to make the creatures' interaction on the board simpler to resolve, and therefore an improvement (though I disagree ) over the old rules.

The creature most affected by this is the Giant Spider. Its movement is still an asset, but the inability to store a lore and then release a web on demand robs it of its dependability (~30% chance of rolling at least one lore on its normal 2d, ~40% with 3d and ~50% on 4d boosts) (plus Battle Savvy has diminished the web's power somewhat anyway - the inability to battle back only directly applying to the unit webbed, and not any newly unsupported units as well) (back to back to back parenthetical statements, always a joy to read ). The new poison rules, however, are an improvement in the effectiveness, and I've considered playing the Giant Spider with those in addition to the original rules, but on the whole prefer to play it the way it initially was presented.

The inability to place rolled lore into ones goblet affects all creatures, of course, and there may be some unwanted triggering of abilities from the Hill/Forest and Earth/Rock Elemental, but the Troll, Hydra, and Dragons are built for the new rules. I presume that any additional creatures released will be tailored to the new ruleset as well.

EDIT: In my ranting about the neutering of the Giant Spider, I didn't directly answer your question about the Blue Spider - in the scenario you presented, it would be required to web the unit each time. If the unit were already webbed, nothing would happen as the result of further lore rolled, as a) can't stack webs on already webbed units (unless this has changed as well) and b) and c) (respectively ) can't store lore on the creature nor in ones goblet. The change with Poison is that now, when two or more lore are rolled by a spider, the afflicted unit is both webbed and poisoned. I am unsure if Poison now operates in the same fashion if inflicted by the Spiders as by the Wyvern, but that is a possibility as well, in which case the opposing controlling player could have the poison removed in subsequent turns by ordering and paying 2 lore, etc., and I suppose then it would be possible to poison a single unit multiple times - as I said, though, not sure that is the intention here.

Hmm. That's interesting.

So what I'm getting is that 1 lore rolled = Web, no matter what. Is the rule card for the Blue Widow Spider also meant to change the rules for the Giant Spider as far as Special Powers go? Because, as toddrew stated, in this instance (as per the BWS rule card) if you unleashed Poison you would also unleash Web. And actually, I hadn't given the BWS card a thorough read-through, but when I did I noticed it does not say (as the Giant Spider card does), "If the unit is also hit..." It actually says to just Poison and Web the unit. Also, it does apply a hit whenever the Poisoned unit rolls a lore, in addition to hits taken when lore is rolled against said unit.

If this is the case, then does the Giant Spider no longer need to score a hit to unleash poison? Is the back of the original Giant Spider card now null and void? Or do all the new rules regarding storing lore apply, in addition to a hit required to unleash the Giant Spider's poison?

Like toddrew said, I am assuming the back of Blue Widow Spider card (where it details the Special Powers) is intended also for the Giant Spider and so will play it thusly.

Also, in answer to your question, it should be possible to Poison a unit multiple times. All other Creature powers allow for multiple results, the most notable being the Dragons' Breath Abilities, but also the Spiders' web, the Giants' Pushback, and the Elementals's Tremor. So if a Spider rolls 4 lore, then would it be Poisoned twice and Webbed twice? Or would it be Poisoned & Webbed, then take two hits from the two remaining lore? Or would it be Poisoned once and Webbed thrice?

Going on this line of reasoning, would 4 lore rolled by an Elemental (Rock or Earth) cause 2 hits and 4 retreat hexes on every surrounding unit? Or just 1 hit and 4 retreats?

Oh the joy.

The original poison rules for the Giant Spider were that the affected unit suffered hits on lore rolls for the remainder of the game - no way to remove it. If one were to poison that same unit again, no additional effects. However, in all the games I've played involving the Giant Spider, I've never seen a unit poisoned once, let alone twice

I'll hunt up the post by Richard Borg which encourages (instructs?) players to use the new poison and web rules with the Giant Spider as well as the Blue Widow.

As to Creatures being able to unleash multiple instances of particular abilities, that was a bit fuzzy with DoW (and, I suspect, one of the motivations for revising the Creature rules). For example, with the Earth Elemental, one could invoke as many Tremors as lore rolled, but the Earthquake ability was limited to a single instance. If the EE were to roll 4 lore, there would be one Earthquake (all adjecent units retreating one hex and losing one figure) and then two Tremors (retreat 2 more hexes). In the old days, if one rolled 4 lore with the EE, one would have several options - an Earthquake and two Tremors as stated, four Tremors, or store as many lore as one saw fit and release any abilities one could still pay lore for with the remainder of the roll. One could even store a lore on the EE in order to trigger Earthquakes (but not Tremors) in future rolls (though DoW discouraged this practice in the Creature Compendium for some reason). It is unclear to me whether under the new Creature rules one would be able to choose between an Earthquake and two Tremors or four Tremors (and yes, there would be some instances where one was favorable over the other, this isn't a purely mastrubatory exercise ), but I would guess that only the Earthquake and two Tremors would be the result.