The first thing I noticed after opening the box was that Corvus Belli moved from the usual card board boxes to hold the minis. I don't have a copy of Icestorm myself so not sure if this is actually new, but I remember the USARF Army Boxset minis came in the card board boxes. But the plastic tray worked just as well. My WarCor copy also came with a poster and bunch of Quick Start Rules featuring the Red Veil.
The intro book is actually quite nice, it has some new artwork and as with Icestorm, I love the mission progression. It takes people from the very basics and introduces something new each time. The Quick Start mini book is very similar, but its more compact with only the basics covered. Another thing I love is the tokens sheet. Would be great if this was something we could buy on its own, with more options for token types. You don't get the flamer templates in this though, like you did with the USARF Army Boxset, which is bit surprising considering most Haqqislam units have Light Shotguns.Though it might not be covered in the Intro Rules so it might not matter.
As you might expect from Corvus Belli, all minis came in baggies. The D20s are really nice, I am glad they went with good colours to contrast with black numbers. Hard to read dice are annoying! I will be trying them out soon, see if how well (or badly) they will roll. At first glance the minis looked great, but I will get to them later.
Since it came out I always thought the card board terrain was a great idea. It makes starting with Infinity so much easier and they are not bad for tournaments either (or home boards). We played on a board full of them before and it worked well. Design wise I think this new set is amazing. It has lots of cool details and it really fits with what you'd expect from the Infinity universe. Putting them together, however, wasn't that easy. The instructions were not very helpful and they missed out the bridge completely. Its not that hard to figure out though. The bridges are a neat touch to add something to the terrain and the square boxes are actually pretty sturdy once they are built. You can still put card board boxes into the building for extra weight.
Last but not least, the best part of the set, the minis of course. Lets start with Haqqislam.
There is a nice selection of units for Haqq and as someone who started collecting the factions, I was very happy with the new sculpts for some units. Like all the new releases, these minis have lots of nice details. Unfortunately putting them together was bit of a pain and some needed lots of cleaning up. The biggest problem I found were the minis who are holding guns with both hands. On both Ghulams and the Tuareg the arms do not connect properly, leaving space around shoulders. Its not a new issue for any mini like this, but it was surprising because it wasn't an issue with other recent releases, the USARF especially. Its not something bit of greenstuff won't fix and I don't think it reduces the overall quality. It just might be frustrating to new people. But it also might be my fault for missing something when cleaning the minis.
Also my other issue was with the Zhayedan. The mini itself went together nicely, but you couldn't put him on the base like everything else. If you put his leg with the slot to the middle of the base, his other leg will go over the base. So I had to cut it off and just glue him by his feet. I am guessing it might be an overlooked mistake, because if the slot was the other way around, it would have fit fine into a slot with both feet on the base. (I am realzing only now this would have been easier to explain with pictures, my bad.)
Funny thing I noticed, the Al Fasid's HMG is smaller than the Azrail. Which is amusing because they are both wearing the same suit of armour, more or less. Maybe its like a snub-nose HMG, more killing power (thanks to the attached Light Grenade Launcher).
To my own surprise I preferred the Yu Jing models. The two Heavy Infantry guys went together really well and look proper beefy. The Ninja and Tiger Solider designs are also super cool; very much in-action looking poses. Probably my favourite thing though, is the fact that two of the three line infantry are female soldiers. I am pretty sure they are the first faction starter set that has two female line troops, usually its two guys.
The male Zhanshi has the same problem as I mentioned previously, it was hard to glue the arms holding the gun and will need some greenstuff to fill the gaps. The one female Zhanshi was fine though, maybe because she isn't aiming. All of the other models were no problem to put together. Even the Hsien Warrior spikes on the back slotted really well.
Overall I would say the Hsien Warrior is my favourite model from this set, and likely the sole reason I will be playing Yu Jing. Even next to the Al Fasid, he just looks so much more boss; in my opinion anyway.
That said, I am definitely looking forward to painting and playing all of the minis!
I had similar positioning problems with both the Khawarij and the Zhayeden. I fixed the Zhayeden slot issue by cutting the tab into a square peg as if I were about to make a tab pin. The Khawarij I had to cut one end of the slot off, so the front foot wasn't poking off the base. I didn't have the shoulder gap issue with the models holding guns in both hands, but my Khawarij had a bit of a gap around to top of the back pack.
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