Very nice read. Im always looking forward to reading about you guys SoBH campaigns, so its nice to see you getting some more games in.
Making any characters with a base combat of 5 "Personalities". This is a clever rule that balances things by not outlawing hard-hitting characters but greatly reducing their numbers.
This is a rule we used when we held a local gaming day, which I think is very good. And it feels like a sort of unspoken rule between us anyways. In the scope of the kind of games we play and like, where a human soldier is between 2 and 3 C, a C 5 (or even 4) fighter *would* be a personality. And mechanically, even a C4 character is kind of a big deal in SoBH (as my own warband experienced in
recent games).
Another similar rule we tried out (which I think works well in regular SoBH but not advanced which has more reliance on traits) is counting any character with *more* than 3 traits as a personality. The reasoning again being that anything with that many traits *would* be a "personality".
In game terms it shuts down the tendency to overload characters with traits. But that's mostly a personal taste thing: I like it when characters have very clear designs that are easy to read.
Apart from that I've found that playing scenarios that can be won without killing high C characters work very well. Its as you observed: It's very much up to the players to craft the gaming-experience they want.
SoBH continues to be a gem that, as you put it, almost always provides an entertaining game.
I've been on a bit of a painting low lately, but I guess Ill have to go and lob some paint at a miniature to represent that latest profile i wanted to try out now. Its inspiring to read other peoples battle reports, after all.