Yesterday my Wave 1 shipment of the Infinity Defiance Kickstarter arrived. I think the UK is probably the last country to get their hands on Defiance*. So this isn’t going to be a proper unboxing post, there are probably a whole host of those across the internet by now. This is just going to be my first impressions as I have a gander inside those boxes.

Rule of Cats #1 – no box, package, or container can be opened in a household with a cat without said cat observing the operation.

And its a nice big box too! Not too big to arouse suspicion, or too much interest from wife and son, but enough to get the official eyeing rolling of ‘not more models’. A good reason to split shipment into two waves right there 😉

I kind of feel in this day and age of looking after the environment, that those expanded polystyrene pellets should die a death. Some companies have switched to shredded paper/cardboard which I guess is heavy and costs more in postage but at least its recyclable (last I saw of this was from Firestorm Games, been a while though). Other companies use plastic bags of air, nice and cheap postage wise and the plastic claims to be recyclable (thinking EG and GG here if I remember correctly). It isn’t as easy to recycle the plastic as the paper I suppose, but the expanded polystyrene isn’t even recyclable – or not in my area. Of course in the grand scheme of things I guess I’m a massive consumer of crap so maybe its hypocritical of me to moan.

That said, look at these boxes. really nice artwork.

Rule of Cats #2 – if there is an open box, a cat must inspect inside the box. Schrodinger must have had pet cats.

Speaking of boxes, which to open first?? The models of course, in the Collectors Edition box, and there wasn’t a massive surprise in here. I had a quick scan of all the miniatures and just saw the typical Corvus Belli excellent sculpts and casts. I’m not gonna take a photo of a lot of minis in plastic bags with CB packing tickets. The image below shows the back of the collectors box, illustrating the contents.

However it was with trepidation I opened up the Megalodron box, as this is a PVC model. I was expecting the same kind of material and quality as the likes of Guild Ball and Godtear from Steamforged Games. To my surprise what I ended up looking at was more akin to a pre-assembled hard plastic (styrene) kit. There wasn’t any flexible, bendy, soft rounded edged stuff here. The mini is quite crisp looking, and surprisingly well detailed – don’t get me wrong its not like a resin or metal cast. Its just better than I expected. A lot better.

With the Megalodron packed away again, I opened the scenery elements. I didn’t know what these were going to be made from, but they’re the same as the Meg, with nice crisp details to boot. They will look good painted up, below is a small selection of the box’s contents.

Finally the main event, opening the Defiance game box. Interestingly it looked like the box was just bursting at the seems. The lid wasn’t fully seated down on the box, like there was just so much in there. That’s a pretty accurate assessment of the contents too. After removing the rule book and campaign book, this what I was presented with (the card tiles and more counters under the black tray waiting to be punched out)

There’s loads of stuff! Cards, counters, dice (both opaque and translucent) more miniatures, counters, lovely artwork board sections. Not all glossy like the GW stuff I have from SpaceHulk for example, but more a nice soft matt art style kind of like the Imperial Assault boards.

Did I mention there was some counters in the box? However I was a little disappointed that the rulebook and the campaign book were a bit warped by how they were placed in the box. Maybe something just wasn’t seated correctly in the box before shrink wrapping and the books have taken the brunt of that. They were not ripped or damaged, its just more difficult to turn a page, or lay the book flat because of the warpage/slight creasing.

I’m impressed! On the whole I’m excited to give it a go. Maybe a little daunted at the setting up of the game, but I think that’s just because I’m not used to gaming at all at the moment – its over a year now easily since my last game. My main thought is, shit I have some minis to paint now! I did count them, and lost count, but ~50 minis anyway (I never did get that Shasvastii painted up I mentioned in my last post).

There must be a reasoning to the plastic packaging trays too, the shape of the clear plastic lid must be usable for storing parts during play as it doesn’t fit on the top of the other black tray, but as of yet I haven’t worked it out.

Its hard to take a picture of a see through plastic tray – perhaps not a surprise. I’m hoping the picture above illustrates my point though. The tray is designed to do something other than sit on top of the black tray in the box.

Having looked a bit more closely since starting writing this, it now looks like the tray is designed to hold the card board sections after popping them out of their card sheets.

Anyway, I think it is safe to say that Corvus Belli have delivered an excellent looking game.

Or did they? An alternative title I had for this post: Shas-cat-stii Incursion Imminent*

Cat Rule #3 – make yourself comfortable in anything that may be required in the next 5 minutes.

*Thanks Brexit – I suspect that wont be the last time over the coming months that phrase gets spat out in contempt.

**stolen from the excellent Infinity Mayacast Podcast.