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Two of my pals are getting the two player ice storm how would the aleph starter work well against it?

Considering that it comes with 3rd Ed rules which we've only seen bits & pieces of, hard to say. Are they familiar with infinity already? Because if so & you guys just want to use 2nd Ed rules until the 3rd fully lands it should just be a matter of dice & skill. From all my research into the game it doesn't seem like any one particular faction is tons better than any other(s), they all just play slightly different.

Point wise the starters are close with ALEPH is a few point more, but should be even closer in N3. You will have 6 Orders to their 7 and the Asura's MSV3 will destory the camo. While the Naga hacks the HI from Camo, of course we will not know how Hacking works in N3 until Novermber at the earliest. All that said it should make for some fun games until you and your friends are ready to move up to full games.

I was under the impression that the Icestorm box came with the 3rd Ed rulebook?

No, it comes with the 3rd ed Quickstart rules.

That's disappointing.
I was hoping for something along the lines of the GW mini rule book.

Out of interest marv335 have you played Infinity before?

I think it's important to view Infinity in context of the complexity (depth, whatever you want to call it) of the way the rules work. I've run intro games for a fair few new players and I think having the 'starter' rules (there is currently the same thing for 2nd edition) are a godsend - it allows you to introduce the basic mechanics of how the game functions, chiefly the Automatic reaction order (ARO), face-to-face dice rolls, order counters, and other bits and pieces that people find head-scratching if they have come from other games.

In fact it's recommended that you play the first few games in this way, and actually it's still a lot of fun to do this. Once you have got the hang of this, then you start introducing rules for camo & discovery, hacking, air drops, special ammo types and the like. I know from experience that, with a few exceptions, throwing all of this on to a brand new player is enough to drown them.

So with this in mind, I think that Corvus Belli's reasoning behind the release schedule is that new players:
1) Buy the Icestorm box. You have a couple of months of putting the minis and terrain together, learning the starter rules and playing some games. You will still have a lot of fun with this, because even in its lightweight form Infinity is still a more tactical wargame than 40k for instance, which I guess will be where most new player's experience lies.
2) Following the release of the 3rd edition rulebook, either buy that or download the rules from the website (which are free). At this point you have a firm grasp of the basic rules and mechanics, and the full rules will add some extra dimensions to the experience.

Just my thoughts on it. There are definitely arguments for having a full, mini version of the rulebook in the box, but having gone through the introduction of this game myself, and done the same for a fair few other people, I can completely understand the logic of the route CB have taken with the release.

The 3rd edition rules will be for free as well, right?

Yes the rules themselves will be free to download (think this should be fairly soon after the book release), and Army Builder will usually get updated as well at some point - guess that is going to be a fairly big project though this time around.

The rulebook has the benefit of containing the background material, artwork, miniature pics etc. I've always bought the books, but it's nice to have the choice as to whether you want to splash out or not, and makes Infinity exceedingly cheap to play if you want to keep it that way (as a side project that you just dabble in occasionally etc.)

 Pacific wrote:
Yes the rules themselves will be free to download (think this should be fairly soon after the book release), and Army Builder will usually get updated as well at some point - guess that is going to be a fairly big project though this time around.

The rulebook has the benefit of containing the background material, artwork, miniature pics etc. I've always bought the books, but it's nice to have the choice as to whether you want to splash out or not, and makes Infinity exceedingly cheap to play if you want to keep it that way (as a side project that you just dabble in occasionally etc.)

I'd rather get the rules for free and spend my money on scenery.

 MWHistorian wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Yes the rules themselves will be free to download (think this should be fairly soon after the book release), and Army Builder will usually get updated as well at some point - guess that is going to be a fairly big project though this time around.

The rulebook has the benefit of containing the background material, artwork, miniature pics etc. I've always bought the books, but it's nice to have the choice as to whether you want to splash out or not, and makes Infinity exceedingly cheap to play if you want to keep it that way (as a side project that you just dabble in occasionally etc.)

I'd rather get the rules for free and spend my money on scenery.

I heard that. The need for pretty much 3 square feet of scenery (taking into account space to move around in on a 4x4 table) is a big thing & can be difficult to acquire cheaply & have it look good. I suppose it's a trade-off though since you don't NEED to buy everything for every faction lol.