how to give copies from polygon mesh new materials

[conomara]

Hello,
New to XSI and ICE. I'm trying to give every second copy out of a "create copy from polygon mesh" a different material then the original. I've tried a bunch of stuff, through ICE and through the render tree. The get copy index works on a points context so I can't seem to use it (modulus) with set material/set materialID etc. Don't seem to have the operators in the render tree to make use of the copy index.
Hopefully I've explained this ok. If I haven't it's because I've been distracted and horrified by the crowd of emotional faces beckoning me to use them, to the left of this text field.

thanks

conor