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My wife has played Kyra in both a two character run-through with Seoni, and a four character run with Seoni, Valeros, and Merisiel. We've played through the starter box. (Expecting the rest tomorrow!)

We've only failed one time, when Seoni had several really bad runs of luck with the dice during Approach to Thistletop. We ran the Blessing deck out due to Kyra wasting too many turns to heal Seoni up, which was probably my fault for extending too far with the erstwhile sorceress.

We periodically check each character's remaining deck, and if it's low, Kyra uses a held divine card to patch the character back up. She also carries a Cure since that saves time in healing up multiple characters. I believe she's currently using two Holy Light and one Cure on the two player game and she's using two Holy Light and two Cure in the four player game. None of the other spells particularly interest her. She uses the Spyglass for scouting.

For advancement, she's taken +2 to STR to boost her melee. She hasn't found any magic weapons in the four player game, but carries the Flaming Mace +1 in the two player. For her Power advancement, she's boosted her Healing power. For her Deck advancement, she took an extra spell.

Her basic tactic is hold on to one Divine card at all times, and wade in with the mace or a Holy Light when exploring. She'll take multiple explores if she has the resources in hand, but tends to do more one explore turns than Seoni. In the four character game, she tends to explore more than in the two character game.

To answer the poll: I did! Oh, and fancy meeting you here, Lord M.

My wife and I put a bunch of games on our Christmas list this year. Mostly Euro-games, dungeon crawlers and card games. My wife hadn't expressed much interest in PACG, but got it for me for Christmas.

Turns out she loves it. We've played through the complete starter box with a pairing of Kyra/Seoni and a quartet of Seoni, Valeros, Kyra and Merisiel. We're getting the Character Addon Pack and decks two and three tomorrow (if tracking is accurate...). I suspect we'll be finishing all of the new stuff before we get to any more of the new games, including making a new four character group with some of the new classes (thinking Barbarian, Hunter, Paladin and Druid for that group).

Rulebook shenanigans aside, my wife had little trouble picking up the game. She's played a lot of CCGs with me in the past, and a simple "would this be cheesy?" test solved most of our rules questions in play time, without having to resort to the FAQ or errata.

Our verdict: The game's great, just needs better editing and the quality of the cards could be stepped up just a notch. We plan to consume the whole thing. At least twice. And do the same for Skull and Shackles.

I've been playing Valeros in a four character group (wife and I each using two characters) consisting of: Valeros, Seoni, Kyra and Merisiel.

So far, we've run through Perils and the first three scenarios of Burnt Offerings.

My basic approach to Valeros is that there is no such thing as "overkill," only "kill." I've put both skill advancements into his Strength. I put his Power advancement into a five hand size, which I'll be playing shortly in Approach. I'll be putting his card advancement into Blessing.

I've noted three things about Valeros:

1. He hits like a truck. I've been getting even more damage from him than Seoni. So, does he need the extra +2 to STR? On average, no. Let's look at his average attack: 1d10+3 for Melee and 1d8 for an average weapon. (Most of his current weapons are 1d8/1d6, though he just picked up a Bastard Sword last scenario.) That gives an average damage of 5.5+3+4.5 = 13. So, against almost anything, he has a bit better than even chance to win. Recycle the weapon, and it goes up to an average damage of 16.5, still better than average odds against anything I've seen so far (and we've run through the whole AP with a Seoni/Kyra pairing prior to this run through.) Adding a +2 to STR only ups those averages to 15 and 18.5. Not a huge deal, but it does give better odds. BUT . . . there's also Minimum Damage. His base minimum damage is 1+3+1 = 5, or 6 with a recycle. That's decent, but a bad roll could mean failure. With +2 to STR, he's sitting at 1+3+2+1 = 7 minimum, or 8 minimum with a weapon recharge. That's fairly huge if you look at the monster, henchmen and villain cards. Auto wins mean less time spent healing and less blessings being used to boost attacks, leaving more explorations for the group.

2. He's tough. That four hand size means he's great at running through what we lovingly call the Temple of Brain Damage or through monster-heavy locations. But . . .

3. He's SLOW. He tends go move through locations the slowest out of our group due to a low number of Blessing and Allies in his deck, and the small hand size. So, that's why he's getting the hand size bump and blessings bump on level up.

Overall, I've found him to be a solid, durable character who's become the go to guy for killing the villains in our runs.