It was funny especially, he tried to hurt me, but I only wanted to pick up my halberd from the floor because my sword was useless. I might upload video one day.
Same, lost to Kunesh in vanilla and beat him down in hardcore however the Runt battle…holy cow. I won my first go but it took forever and it was close. I did however die a few times to archers in the original battle due to bleeding out not long after I killed them all. I’m not the best archer but shooting them was the way to go ultimately lol
Well, after the boring tutorial i enjoyed the game for 50-60 hours. But after killing the first boss in the bandit camp with one hit on his head and playing some hours on, its become a superman in bohemia game. Even heavily armored guards with 4-5 can´t kill me if i just do nothing, because my stamina doesnt go down fast enough. And everbody is dead with one hit… I also have best weapons, armor, horse …The point is, i like the feeling to become more powerful and i trained a lot and do anything possible beside the main quest. Normally in those games, of course you get reward for your work, but its not like this. Also before start i had a lot of respect because of the fighting mechanics, i just read the reviews and topics from all that noobs saying the game is that hard an fights this much difficult…i couldnt know, that it was too much levelling. 
So, everybody knows, after the first playtrough of a game, the feeling is no longer the same. Think about stop now and re-start on hardcore mode. After killing the bald head it should be in the middle of the game?!But before i do this, i want to know if it is really a more challenge. My thinking at the moment is, that at the beginning you need double or more of the time to get the same results in total but after this hurdle it is nearly the same like on normal? Any helpfull Experiences with the last patch version?
The balance of current 1.9.4 is good in hardcore. Not too difficult, but different enough from the main game. The most annoying thing is no map markers. Henry should know where he is. It adds extra time but not content to the game. No fast travel actually makes the game easier since you aren’t failing checks to avoid on the road hazards at low levels. It’s incredibly easy to dodge carts in the road and simply run away from randos trying to assail you in the road.
Some times it does go bullshit. Certain characters have “plotarmor”. Hans capon when he challenges you to a duel can take a dozen warhammers to the face. Dangler is similarly invincible with the added flavor of throwing masterstrikes every microsecond. You can beat both of them, but it feels cheap. The game tonally breaks in these moments.