Possibly new Canadian player here. I've known about the game for a bit, but finally decided to take the plunge with a buddy. We are starting off with some proxies as there isn't much presence here in Ontario. We have 1 store in the distributor list in Hamilton, but they are out of pretty much everything.
Question 1:
To start with, my buddy and I split the purchase of all the books. I got the Badlands and Labyrinth and he got Impact and Wetwork. I used to work as a graphic designer and layout artist in publishing, so I relayed out the core rulebook to be more printer friendly for saddle stitching, and created a single page pdf for us as well. When looking at all the digital rulebooks, they all looked fine for printing quality except for Impact. The Digital rulebook for this is labeled 'small file' and the images are compressed to low rez. Is this the way it was for everyone? I don't want to accuse my buddy of just grabbing one of the bootleg releases online, but the quality looks about the same. The cards and PAH ones for Impact look fine though. All of the stuff for Wetwork looks fine.
Question 2:
In the Badlands expansion, they mention both a Ranger and a Data Handler. In the cards, there was not one for the Ranger. I saw online that the Data Handler was a limited Ed model if you preordered. In the PACK section, there looks to be a Ranger model under 'Exclusive April 25'. It looks just like the image in the book. However, the other model with it doesn't look like the Data Handler. Was that the model? Has there been any word on whether they will release regular models for these, or were they just meant to be used in the Badlands campaigns and not in regular matched play?
Question 3:
Since the game is somewhat proxy friendly and there is no official model for the Data Handler, does it really matter which model I use for my handlers? What is the fluff reason for using a handler that matches your card but doesnt come from your faction?