I was a play tester, being taken through the Devil's Pass sandbox, alongside a group I regularly play a variety of games with - predominantly Call of Cthulhu. Compared to what we usually play there was a much geater emphasis on combat, and the nuances within that, but we still got to roleplay and investigate which played to our strengths as a cautious party.

Character creation was a little more in depth than I'm used to, normally random dice rolls, in this system you choose a path as you level and this dictates available skills and the price of abilities etc.. You will learn that your life path ties in to everything, and having a varied group with differing strengths was a real win for us. First time character creation was a bit slow, I had to look back and forth through the book a few times. By my second and third character I was far more confident, and had a much better grasp of how to optimise my spending. That's another aspect you will need to take to heart, you are supposed to optimise, to try and gain every advantage, and ALL the bonus dice.

The combat feels brutal, with elements of player skill and the luck of battle coming into play. Quality of armour and your weapons play a big role, so does preparation and teamwork, the use of cover and propping of ranged weapons all matter. In one fight, I grappled a guy down so that another player could finish him, one of my teammates disarmed a crossbowman and promptly shot him with his own weapon, another used a trained horse to distract a thief. Be flexible with your thinking and you will be rewarded, but maybe that's down to a good GM.

Overall, it took 9 sessions, probably totalling over 20 hours of lunatic slaughtering, and by the very skin of our teeth we survived. We definitely got to a place where the combat felt very fluid, without losing the sitauational precariousness. Having experience, and knowing your character better, things like deciding to weapon swap rather than reload the arbalest when you're short on time, will help you a great deal. I did very little damage with my normal gear as I was a poor hunter, but improvisation made up for that - apologies to those on my own team I wounded. As an archer I was constantly falling back, and when I was in melee I took an absolute beating. I scrounged better gear, spent more MP moving, and let the more "tanky" members take the brunt of the attack.

Definitely worth running with some reliable friends, with an advisory of caution - you aren't the unkillable hero, survival takes effort and a little luck.