[KCD2] I still don't get combos

After 600 hours in KCD 1 and a 100 in KCD 2 I still can't for the life of me use combos effectively in a practice fight, let alone in combat. Some people swear by them, that they are the best thing to do in combat but I can't for the life of me figure it out. It's either:

• I land all the strikes to a combo in a chain, but I Henry doesn't actualy perform the special strike

• The opponent disrupts all my comboes and dies before I can get one in. i.e.

  • I deplete their stamina trying to get combos, thus can just hack at them any way I like
  • They die from clinches, master strikes, and the unsuccesfull combos

I otherwise find the combat in both games extremely trivial but I simply have not ever been able to land combos consistently. They are this curiosity that I might sometimes get right, or even by accident, but some people swear that it is the thing they rely on in combat and I wish I could too but I just can't. Am I doing something wrong or what the hell is going on?