Ill try and set the scene for you all as best as I can.

I have been working as the sole Tester on a suite of 13 related applications which is the end result of 5 separate developers work. Basically we operate on a two week update cycle (was originally weekly updates) with the client providing us with new features to implement as and when they require them. We are currently using the 'Agile' methodology of a Kanban board to keep track of all the work items.

My problem is that I find myself struggling at times to keep on top of everything, a lot of the applications have dependencies on the other applications. So even when one application hasn't technically been updated chances are that it has still been affected by a change elsewhere.

Also because of the constant development on the applications it is very difficult to get a stable build to test. To counter this I have tried to introduce a sort of 'cut-off' period where no-one can merge to my test branch 2/3 days prior to a release (however this delay period doesn't strike me as particularly 'Agile').

Obviously I don't want to be doing complete sets of regression tests every 2 weeks just to ensure a tiny change to a database view somewhere hasn't broken a page load in one of the related applications. A while back I spent a fair amount of time working with Visual Studio's Coded UI tests in an effort to use automation to help but I found the tests it created to be very fragile and having to spend more time maintaining them than actually testing the applications themselves.

Does anyone have any experience in similar working environments and has any advice they can offer because this is getting to the point of frustration, obviously more hands on deck would be nice but that is not an available option.