Hey guys! I work at an independent hobby shop and we got a pre-release copy of the spider in, and I built it.
The instruction booklet is 11 pages! It's definitely something you build one piece at a time instead of laying everything out, building one part while another dries, etc. That being said, so long as you're patient, it shouldn't be that hard.
Yes, you can build it without all the goblins on it, you can also build it without the howdah (i.e. just the spider)