It depends of the kind of new player asking (coming in a club, beginning with anothere friend in a garage...) but it seems to me there is already a lot of information. The easier answer is already : "Wait two weeks for November 18th". But we already know the roster of all vanilla armies, we know what sectorials will be here at the beginning and we have hints of what sectorial will be more or less deeply reworked so that they can avoid them to wait and see (ISS and Onyx are stated to be reworked, TAK and Tunguska received the bulk of new units for there faction, both ALEPH sectorials will have new units...). We also know the planning for the Essential line (not in full details but already with TAG and characters names, REM boxes, Support boxes...). Just with that, there are already ways to direct new comers depending of what they want (if they want PanO and/or JSA it's just : Sandtrap and/or Essential). Yes, Warcrow has the advantage to start from scratch but also with a lot less parameters to manage than Infinity (two factions with a couple of boxes a month). Infinity has to rebuild all the "start here" line without sculpting new miniatures as Essential is replacing Code One and some miniatures from Code One are no more in the game.
I will disagree with the idea, you look at warcrow at post launce state and N5 at pre, pre launce state, officially N5 release is November and at November 18th the state will be quite clear.
I am looking at Infinity at the middle of the promo campaign state. At this point players, old and new, are supposed to be counting the days until the rules drop and finalize orders, so they arrive by the launch date. Instead, if a player asks me which pack should he get to start a vanilla Nomad, or Ariadna, or Aleph army, I can't point a single pack in which all the miniatures are legal for that. And shrugging and saying "I don't know, wait two weeks" is definitely not how attracting people to a hobby works.
At this point, the new edition has not been launched and there are no "generic list" products yet, what exists is sectorial products.
Yes, but that's one of the many problems! All the previews showcase vanilla and there are no entry products for vanilla. And sectorials, outside of two, have not been showcased, so we don't even know the existing sectorial starters are good, or even still valid, for them.
Well... CB just pulled the Nomad action / reinforcement / whatevs pack which contained the Taskmaster, Kriza Borac and Perseus models. Taskmaster is no longer available in any shape or form :( . (I was just cataloging every faction's HI boxes when I noticed that they don't exist anymore).
I don't think waiting until the official date has ever revealed anything different from the 'leaks' we have pre launch: see Uprising or the N4 launch. I think it's more than fine to provide feedback now, during the launch hype that Corvus Belli is attempting to build. Or is it only worth discussing their marketing materials in a positive way and nothing else?
Keeping my fingers crossed that Taskmasters are about to be re-released, then :) ...probably in plastic / Siocast.
Given S5 models - and Taskmaster (at least up to N4) is one - are currently being released in Siocast, I would consider it unreasonable to expect its re-release in metal. A re-release / resculpt in Siocast or Unicool plastic - that seems the best we could hope for.
Since I have totally no influence on what material CB choose for their models, it mkaes no practicla difference to me. Haven't had anything in Unicool yet, true. And as for Siocast, I did a number of Infinity models in various grades and shades of it. Some were lousy, some were absolutely acceptable.
This is the wind of change :D ! But more seriously, I built yesterday the brand new, high tech sculpted Shang-Jis (who are gorgeous) but their material was loathsome to deal with. The sword was bent into a circle, casting numbs in delicate places where one could barely file it (I broke some fingers that way), arms not aligning (hmg arm and the opposite holding arm: they perfectly fit in the shoulders yet there is a 3mm gap between the hand and wrist), glue barley holding the metal parts together, nightmare to glue to the base etc. And I haven't even started painting it which is also a terrible experience (painting metal). So yeah, anything but metal is a welcome addition to Infinity.
I had the pleasure to work on Unicool models and the feel is similar to hard plastic but it holds details like metal. Failcast is like bones material from Reaper miniatures but with better details
The wind of change is not needed if it's for the worst. I've never experienced what you described with any of the metal miniatures from Corvus and I've painted >100 minis. Metal is easy to work with...
Same here. I have, however, had that exact experience with SioCast. I'm trying to paint a Squalos Mk-II and it snapped at the ankle four times. Four! It was on a painting handle, I wasn't even physically touching it. I've just about given up on it.
You have been lucky, then. I've had to do with CB metal models that didn't align properly, or were frustrating to put together. Yes, there weren't that many of them having such problems - but there were ones. Metal CB minis aren't 100% perfect either. Though, I guess, failure rate with siocast ones is higher. My experience with siocast ones is nowhere near that with metal ones.
