The cleave mechanic is brutal when a dwarf under a Growth potion hacks away at low HD monsters with a magic sword that has the added benefit of a Striking spell.
In the latest few sessions the party have slaughtered giants in an ambush, entered a dimensionally shifting tower for the elves, and are next planning on liberating some of the occupied towns of Geoff on their own, because they can.
They are now in the thick of killing giants, having wiped out two supply caravans, ‘liberated’ a village, and are currently fighting off an ambush. They are levels 6 to 8 now, and proving more than capable of dealing with anything I am throwing at them, giants, dragons, all slaughtered!
They’ve been lucky. Almost killed three off a couple of sessions ago, and if they didn’t have access to Restore Life & Limb spells, they’d have some seriously crippled PCs (as it is, one has both night-terrors and constantly mumbles himself, another is now turned as a Wight; only the cleric has avoided any side-effects).
My Against the Giants campaign is currently at 91 sessions and counting, with the PCs currently between levels 6 and 8, giants slain, dragons slain, and a whole load of other monsters slaughtered. They keep a ‘kill list’ of what each person has killed, are competitive enough to kill steal at times, and prefer fighting giants than dark elves.
Two PCs retired and have been replaced by new PCs, but none have actually outright died yet: plenty of scars and maims though.
After 91 sessions I can say that I like the ACKS rules. They are simple, cover everything we need, and I have all I need to run and play the game with the core book and the companion; used the Domains of War to work out how a battle behind the scenes went too. It all works rather well.