Cool game that is oozing with soul.
I ran it for the first time tonight and it was good clean fun. The knights and seers are really cool and such a great source of inspiration for backstories and pc/npc-related plots. Likewise the Myths are really well done. They are quite interesting adventure seeds and the plots they offer could easily be adapted to any length of campaign, be it a single session or many. The scar table was really fun to play with (One player lost his thumb, while another had his cheek sheared off!), but I'd definitely add more entries to it in the future to add some more effects (or maybe just add more sub-tables as seen under 'Tear' and 'Disfigurement' to some of the other results).
The 2d12 Spark tables are delightful, and I foresee myself borrowing them for use in many other games.
I like the Guard/ Vigour HP system. I think it does a good job of simulating the back and forth of battle not being about stabbing each other over and over, but instead about wearing down your opponent in order to eventually subdue them with a few decisive strikes.
Combat is also really neat, my favorite part of which is the gambit system. It turns combat into more of a puzzle where your players get to stop for a second and consider their options. "Should we take the extra damage now, or try to get his weapon away from him after what he did to Frank?". It's such a breath of fresh air actually having decisions (that matter) to make in combat as opposed to games like D&D 5e where most turns feel like a problem that has already been 'solved'.
Feats in general are pretty neat. For my one-shot session I started my players with pretty high virtue scores, which was probably a mistake. Feats definitely feel a bit overpowered at high-virtue, but I suppose if your characters got to that point over the course of an entire campaign then that's probably what you'd want. Smite and Deny were heavily used, Focus was used once and then I think we forgot about it.
One note on Smite is it wasn't quite clear how it actually worked. On page 186 in the crocodile example Smite is clearly used as just an extra attack die, which is what seems is the intended usage of Smite. However, in the marketing material on this very page it states "... Smite for extra damage ...", and again on page 187 it reads "Ref: Yeah how about we do it as a Smite but instead of the extra Damage ...". Both of these statements make it sound like when you smite you add 1d12 to the attacks damage. This interpretation seems ludicrous when you consider how fragile characters are to incoming damage in the (potentially) double digits. The rules should definitely be more clear on this.
There is a good bit of the system we didn't use in the one shot so I have no comments on the realm-management side of the game.
I'll close my thoughts with once again praising the Knights, Seers, and Myths included in the book. They are so freaking cool and just chock-full of fun character and plot ideas. Mythic Bastionland claims to be "Flavour heavy", and it absolutely is.
Great work to everyone who had a part in making this, and thank you for a fun evening with friends!