For beginners there’s nothing too controversial here.
A very even crossword which was worth of a normal weekday Guardian, let’s say a Tuesday.

As someone very familiar to this setter’s style, I found it slightly harder to do the puzzle online when compared to doing it on paper (pdf).
Maybe the fact that in that case one has an overview of áll the clues suits me better.

Clues like DRIBBLED, DAUGHTER, GUNG-HO and a few more, show that this puzzle was overall in a different category than some of the recent Quiptics.

Nice puzzle, very reminiscent of the FT’s Cincinnus [which, of course, is not a big surprise], although in this Quiptic there’s less misdirection [another great feature of this setter].

Thank you, Pierre, for your fine blog.

I think this makes it as a beginners puzzle despite being harder than most if you think of it as being like an end of term exam. If you’ve been paying attention to previous puzzles then none of it should have come as a surprise.

Re the number of “letter(s) missing” devices. Is it just me or does there seem to be a bit of a fad for that amongst all setters (both here and the daily) over the last few months?