The Quar are charming little chaps, aren't they? They're cute, little pudgy anthropoidal snout-people, like The Clangers, or Moomintroll, they like hats, and marmalade, and moth cakes, and trench warfare.
Well, they don't so much like that last one, but it seems they've become quite practiced in it.
The design of these Quar seems at once familiar like a beloved child's toy, yet novel; I am quite taken with them, especially the handbook illustrations which are soft and round, and the recent plump bodied plastic sets are far cuter than the earlier more slender models, and Qualtieri has showed restraint in not over-designing the wee chaps, making them a pleasure to paint casually.
I suggest potential 2.0 sprue could swap the grenade-holding right arms for something that doesn't preclude applying any of the rifles from the kit without modification, as they are all right-handed, and there are already loose grenades and open hands on sprue; either/or a left hand holding a grenade, or shouldered rifle would seem intuitive.
The cardboard terrain printed on the box is an absolute classic addition, however, I feel like they would be easier to remove for cack-handed yokels like me if the box had a touch less glue in the folds.
The starter set contains enough Quar for two opposing squads, plus spares, and the cards and rulebook are nicely rendered on good paper and stock.
For pure weight in plastic I'd say the infantry boxes beat this one out; the rules are available online free, errata also from this very site even, though having a hard copy is just nice, the cards could be substituted, in theory, but are pretty and flavorful.
The dice are green, which is nice, but I have many dice; this set certainly contains almost everything you'd need short of glue, clipper, paints, and maybe basing material and a battle mat; a 2x2 battle mat would indeed, be a great addition for future versions, double sided would be even better.
The rules in the box are somewhat updated/superceded by the aforementioned errata; not a huge deal, and actually a good thing that signals ongoing product development, but a potential revised version of box should include these errata.
The blind activation mechanic is innovative (I have at least, never seen it before) and adds an extra level of risk assessment to a round, the game is designed to be playable in a fairly compact space, and the rules are easy enough for me to intuit that I would say this is appropriate for beginners, but not lacking depth.
Proper solid product, competes with the big leagues, but I'm gonna make you earn that last star, because I think you can do even better.
Those punks down at GW have been stepping up their intro box game of late, and as much as I'm loath to compare this to a loss-leader product from an industry titan, but that's the competition on the field.
Fingers crossed for full sized tractor boxes this year, as it stands I fully intend to buy more Quar.
