ContainerRestarter (package org.jboss.arquillian.container.test.impl.client.container) has a bug in it that causes maxTestClassesBeforeRestart to be evaluated slightly incorrectly. The below code is what the shouldRestart() method currently does:

      ArquillianDescriptor descriptor = configuration.get(); 
      Integer maxTestClasses = descriptor.engine().getMaxTestClassesBeforeRestart();
      if(maxTestClasses == null)
      {
         return false;
      }
      if(maxTestClasses > -1) 
      {
         if((maxTestClasses -1 ) == testClassesCount)
         {
            testClassesCount = 0;
            return true;
         }
      }
      testClassesCount++;
      return false;

Because it checks if maxTestClasses - 1 is equal to testClassesCount, the first container restart actually occurs before test #N-1, not test #N. An easy way to see this is to set maxTestClassesBeforeRestart to 1; you will observe that the container is started for the first time, then immediately shut down without anything being deployed, then restarted.

This can be fixed by checking if maxTestClasses == testClassesCount instead of maxTestClasses - 1 == testClassesCount.