Hmm, this has potential. Smaller is better in my book, unless you can devise a way to better distinguish the attack lines on the more complicated cubes. And if you use the larger cube, you can't call the squares quadrants anymore - a quadrant would suggest 1/4 of something, not 1/9.
The floating astronaut is a bit silly. And why the space theme? There are marshmellow and toothpick cubes in space?

If you're talking about the sci-fi Star Treky use of the term quadrant, wouldn't that refer to the entire cube?
I would suggest that you drop the background image altogether for now, and focus on such elements as game play, bonuses, color choice, legend text, font choice, etc. +1 for a quadrant with 4 territories and 4 borders might be light, but at the same time there is a good chance a player will start the game with a quadrant. And how about an additional bonus for holding six quadrants that make a cube?
Legend text could be more description and less example... you could actually tell us what a quadrant is (four territories that connect to form a square).
Marshmellows and toothpicks... think about it.
