I think this scenario is a hoot, and I applaud the designers. I wish it was harder -- I think the henchman should not offer an opportunity to close the location. But I really enjoyed it, all the same.
I beat this with my solo group of Athnul, CD Lini, S&S Alahazra and CD Ezren. I was worried the spells would end up in the wrong hands, and Lini would have no way to fight whatsoever, but I got lucky. Lini had an animal ally and Charm Animal in her opening hand, and in her deck got the monk's Frog and a Snake from the box(!). Plus she had at least one of her attack spells and a Divine/Arcane attack spell of Ezren's. She was fine. Ezren and Alahazra both had usable spells, and Ezren drew Swipe from the box.
Lini closed two locations, and we beat the scenario with many turns to spare.
One reason the scenario wasn't harder is the characters have such big hands at the moment (Ezren and Alahazra both have 7) that many of their good cards were in their opening hands.
My game group beat this with Olenjack, Maznar, CD Seelah and CD Sajan. Again, we were lucky. Olenjack and Maznar, who could have struggled with others' weapons (like Sajan's -4-for-non-monks Temple Swords), both drew both their weapons in their opening hands, and both ended up with their Cures.
We cruised to an easy victory with over 10 turns to spare. There were fun moments like when Sajan drew Elven Boots from his deck and ALMOST was able to acquire one of his Acrobatic weapons (he closed the location 1 card before hitting it).
The Olenjack player hated this scenario. "It's too much based on luck," he said, after being very, very lucky in his opening hand (in addition to his weapons, he drew a poison item and his masterwork tools, as well as his Cure). He felt a different draw could have saddled him with a very difficult scenario. (He then also complained the scenario was too easy.)
In addition, he is a player who loves building explore engines (hence Olenjack: reveal poison for combat boost-reveal masterwork tools to auto poison AYA check-use power to explore again). He didn't like the scenario messing with his carefully built engine.
The Seelah player also hated this scenario. I'm not sure why. I'm suspecting it's the long set up and take down.
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I really enjoyed this scenario, too. We played with Varril, CD Alahazra, Mother Myrtle, and Alain. Granted we were somewhat fortunate in that Alain always gets Donahan, Alahazra can do combat checks with any cards, and Varril can do anything with any cards. I also ended up with a lot of my own cards. But it was loads of fun to see where stuff ended up.
I'm enjoying SotRu quite a bit so far. I think it's my favorite season yet. We were having fun adding some rp to 2-4E tonight. "Alain, if you acquire that boon, I will punch you in the face." And we still came out with two 4 blessings!