Just in case you missed the announcement:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1696

Looks sweet. I especially like the idea of the Cylon Fleet, as it can get really boring when there is nothing happening between jumps, and harder for the cylons to get anything going. And the "npc's" that we'll get to interact with have my curiosity up as well. Can't wait to learn more about these mechanics.

Let the speculations begin!

This is so awesome! Itself the extra cards and characters have been enough, Im so excited about the new stuff. Can't wait till it's released!

This sounds so frakkin awesome! Can't wait to get it!

Everything in Exodus looks really strong... I'm looking forward to trying out the Cylon Fleet board, and the NPC characters and the Conflicted Loyalty cards should shake things up nicely.

Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait ...

Hey and they even put in a CAG title :-)

Super excited about: space battles, conflicted loyalties, new characters/crises/everything

Vaguely hesitant about: the final five (hoping it doesn't break theme or lead to more metagaming), NPCs (don't know enough to know whether they'll be worth it, or just an extra complication)

Hooray. I'm very glad that BSG got to have another expansion, any by all accounts it seems like a good one.

I was expecting card and character only expansions from here on out. I'm glad to see the board too. I like the new loyalty cards. No more condemnation just because a player picks up his loyalty card to read it and an amazing way to make all players want try to hide their loyalty cards. This part is something our group really needs. We've gotten very good at fishing out cylons while the cards are first dealt out. Even with a ten second "reading" rule. I like the NPC idea and I think it will be interesting to see what they can do. I always thought there were a few things that seemed to be missing from the ship. I look forward to this set.

Periculum said:

I'm also very excited about the set. I agree about being glad to see more than just the cards and characters. And I'm very excited about the new Loyalty cards, though not exactly for the same reason. (In fact, I'm a little surprised to hear the reading of cards is a giveaway in some groups. It really didn't take anyone in my group too long to remember what the 5 cylon cards do. In my experience, after a few games, even new players only really need a quick glimpse of, say, Sharon or Leoben out of the corner of their eye. But I guess if groups are having trouble with players reading their loyalty card for an extended duration, the new types could mitigate that somewhat.)

Anyway, what I'm wondering about now is which of these elements are likely to become mainstays of our games (like treachery cards, for my group), and which are intended to be sprinkled in once in a while for flavor (like New Caprica, for my group). It probably goes without saying that I'm hoping for more of the former.

We try to sneak a few newbies into the game every once in a while and many of them aren't BSG fans from the series, so the visual recognition of the characters is a little more difficult for them. However, nearly every one of these people has enjoyed the game immensely. We do our best to treat them fairly in the game, but the "human" side of them can't resist some pre-gaming.

That's a great news!

And all the things that came out in the topic are present: final five, cylon fleet, and if I'm not wrong also a CAG mechanic... Wow!

Can't wait to put my hands on it.

My only doubt is for balancing, there's a lot of new stuff and this could have some negative effect. But that is always a risk with expansions, so WTF, I'm definetly gonna buy it!

Ceratinly going to buy this.

Ever since the Pagasus expansion came out I've found the psilon fleet to be irrelevant, and Humans winning too easily. Pegasus absorbs hits and admiral Cain can leave if there are too many psilons for Galatica to handle.

Anything which increases the fleet action sounds good.

Upon further digestion of the announcement, one of the things I like is that all the new Final Five and Personal Goal cards are Not a Cylon cards. Sure, the Final Five are, by definition, cylons, but most of them still sided with the humans after they learned the truth. Yet many humans treated them witht he same hatred as they had towards the cylons. I think having the Examination trigger will help capture this same flavor, and can add more tension to the game. In our games, the first opportunity a player has to look at a loyalty card, they always check the Admiral or President (80% of the time it's the Admiral). Now that decision can have repurcussions.

How about thoughts on who the new characters will be. I think we'll see both Anders and Athena, as they are on the cover. I'd also like to see Gaeta and Romo, but with Romo being an npc that might not be the case. Except Baltar also has an NPC token, so I think there might be npcs they only appear if no one is playing the character. Someone even brought up the idea of a Billy/Tory character, where you start out as Billy and either he "becomes" Tory later, or if he is executed you have to pick Tory as your new character (if available). It would be cool, but somehow I don't expect that to be the case.

Sounds great, especially the CAG mechanic since pilots kind of became obsolete with Pegasus and were always the weakest character type anyway. I think that the Ionian Nebula aspect will need careful balancing, and I'm ok with not adding any more characters, but I really hope they add another Cylon Leader. Can't wait to hear more!

Very excited! Anyone have more info on the release date for this expansion? Most I've heard bandied around was "winter".

JerusalemJones said:

I'm guessing Anders as a pilot, Gaeta as military, perhaps D'eanna or boomer as a cylon leader and Cally as a support. Of course, Tori Foster is a shoe in, I think. I would imagine that they would try to sneak in all the final five with this expansion.

Periculum said:

There's an ad for the expansion on BGG that shows Cally as one of the NPC characters.

I have seen that ad, and I don't remember seeing Cally, but it does show the actual character card for Anders. He is a pilot. You can see the character stand for Gaeta too. Actually, I here is the ad and I do see Cally, she's an NPC you say?

That's what we're assuming, just based on the fact that her card looks different from the player characters'. Best guess is that the two text boxes on the right are possible consequences of encountering her: one good, one bad.

I've also noticed another nuke token..... I wonder where that comes from.

And MKVII Vipers! WooHoo!

ahh man, that looks awesome! I love the all the new additions, my group is getting a bit too good at cylon detection, so those extra special loyalty cards should mix things up a little.

Unlikely, but if only they could push it for a xmas release, would be a great excuse to grab it!

I reckon they will add Tory (as a political character) so that all of the Final Five characters are in the game, and possibly Doc Cottle as well (probably a support character). Gaeta has a stand so we can assume that he is an extra Military Leader.

I think Gaeta could go as a military or support. Depends on what they think the game needs, but then that would leave who would be the military if he wasn't?

I'm thinking very similar things EMann. I like the idea of cottle as support.

Cottle as a support character would be interesting, he was always one of my favourite supporting characters along with Romo Lampkin but personally I can't see a way of working him in. The penalty of going to sickbay is already pretty weak - most of the time another character just plays an executive order on you and you barely lose anything.

That said my group and I are HUGELY excited about this expansion. Can't wait!