Found on Ystari site, and I didn't see them mentioned in previous posts:

Deserted Alien World
Cost: 1
VP: 2
Phase I: +1 to explore
Phase III (-2 cost to alien / + 2 alien military)
Briefly: A better, more cost effective Alien Rosetta Stone.

Alien Toy Shop * (World)
Cost: 3
VP: 1
Windfall
Phase IV (consume alien good FROM THIS WORLD for 2 vp)
Briefly: More alien goodness.

Hive World
Cost: 3 (Military)
VP: 2
Genes Production World
Briefly: With a second 6-dev aimed at green, this is really cool.

Space Mercenaries (Development)
Cost: 1
VP: 0
Phase III: (+1 military, may discard up to 2 cards to gain additional +1 military PER CARD)
Briefly: Additional military goodness with an interesting mechanic.
I'd love to see this card early as Epsilon Eridani or
Separatist colony.

Woot!

* Thanks, Wei-Hwa

edit: updated special powers for Space Mercenaries and Toy World

    There are storms in space?

             Sag.

Deserted Alien World seems to good to be true.

Nice find!

Original French:
http://www.ystari.com/wordpress/?cat=21

Deserted Alien World: I'm surprised to see the Alien discount on this world. This card was shown (in prototype form) trictrac.net months ago and I'm pretty sure it only had the explore power then. Looks like a lot of bang for your buck at only 1 cost, especially when it's worth 2VP as well!

Alien Toy Store: A nice alternative to trading Alien goods. Could be a good card to find if you start with Damaged Alien Factory.
[edit: it only consumes its own good. Its preferred partners in crime will I guess be Alien Rosetta Stone World and Galactic Engineers.]

Looks like Alien strategies will get a real boost in this expansion, which I'm very happy to see!

Hive World: simple but effective. More accessible than Malevolent Lifeforms, which is handy since getting from 3 military power to 4 is often harder than it looks if the cards don't fall in your favour.

Space Mercenaries: speaking of ways to find an extra military or 2 when you really need it, here's an answer - the mercenary power is expensive but it could be the difference between winning and losing if the right circumstances arise.

Yup... but don't just take my word for it:
http://www.ystari.com/wordpress/?cat=21

Edit: On the other hand, alien strategies were weak in original compared to some others. You had to have a perfect draw, and even then you might have been too slow to compete with military, rapid dev, or even blue/brown consume/produce. This makes it more likely that you might use alien as your primary strategy or at least give it more chance of complementing your primary strategy. In my 100+ games I've only seen alien do well in 2 or 3 tops.

Damn straight. It was mentioned here without the settle bonus, and that seems playable enough.

As to the other worlds, I was wondering if we'd get any alien-specific consumption in the expansion, and it turns out that we do! The mercenaries seems a bit odd; I can't imagine that many situations where its worth discarding 2 cards for 1 military, so most of the time it'll be inferior to Expedition Force. I'm sure it has its niche though. Hive World is neat, more military production worlds is nice.

Edit: Just checked out that Ystari link, and the Alien Toy(?) World has a this world only consume, which is interesting. Helps to keep Rosetta Stone World useful in the face of Deserted Alien World, I'd imagine.

I'm pretty sure that icon means discard up to 2 cards to get +1 military each.

Ah, that makes much more sense! Now I can see the point

I'm fairly positive that this is:

Consume THIS WORLD's alien good for 2 VP.

Very cool. Wonder if we'll see English versions of these now?

According to Star Trek, yes.

The Deserted Alien World is correct, at least it is as I remember it from a prototype in April.

I know I played with the Space Mercenaries, but I don't remember if it is discard 2 cards for +1 military, or discard up to 2 cards for a temporary +1 military each. Looking at the card, I want to say it is the latter which means the former is probably the true answer.

Even at 2 cards for +1 military, if that's the difference between getting or not getting a defense 4 world, what's a few cards among military forces?

More importantly, Mercenaries breaks the rule that you can never pay for a military world. Much the same way the Contact Specialist makes it all or nothing, this gives you a middle ground where you can conquer most and pay for the last few as needed.

It's a tossup which is more valuable, Expedition Force or Galactic Mercenaries. As always - it will depends on whether you are given the choice and what else is going on.

These look like they are all part of the fixed starting hand for world 5, which is the Seperatist Colony.

Good catch, yup, they all have that little '5' in the corner.

Interesting choices there, when taken as a grouping.

The differences, DAW over ARS:

DAW is 2 cheaper, has +1 explore, gets one fewer VP and doesn't produce on alien windfall worlds.

While I expect DAW will get more play, just because it's cheaper, a large part of the value of ARS is the windfall production, which for alien goods is a big deal, and is a large part of its "cost effectiveness".

The Gathering Storm has been printed, according to Jay Tummelson, so barring weather catastrophes, the game should be available sometime soon. I'll publish a preview from Tom Lehmann on Boardgame News on Monday, Sept. 29 to let everyone know what the expansion has to offer.

Eric
Editor, http://www.BoardgameNews.com

DAW vs ARSW

Something else to consider.

DAW may be cheap, but it's very focused. It's only good for +1 visibility and then taking over alien worlds.

Drop this early without anything to follow up with it, and I can promise you certain cards are going to be held across that first discard to thwart you.

Save this until you get something to follow it up with, and you can find yourself a turn behind on tempo.

So it's a bit of a double edged blade.

Just a quick mention that the English name of the card called "Magasin de Jouets Alien" is Alien Toy Shop, not Alien Toy Store.

I read somewhere earlier that the cards of the Gathering Storm will have some kind of expansion icon.
On the preview cards I haven't seen anything like it.
Is this intentional?

In reference to the space marines card, the explanatory text for the power says that something like (my french is rather rusty) gain one military per card. If the photos are right, I think this strongly supports the opinion that the card allows you to add 2 military to your total by discarding 2 cards.

I rabidly await the press release next monday.

Also, will you be submitting an updated periodic table, Wei-Hwa? Is it to much to hope that, with a press release at Board Game News on Monday, that the periodic table could also be shared by next week?

I didn't realize until now that these new cards are the 5th startin[url]g hand for the Separatist Colony. Starting the game with so many alien cards is interesting. I like the combinations of being able to get a gene world or an alien world by the second turn.

For people who want to read a garbled english translation of the anaylsis for each card, I encourage you to use babelfish: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Is it my imagination, or are the cards on the Ystari site quite a bit lighter than the original cards? And if so, will the next printing of the base game be lightened to match?

The second printing already is much lighter than the first.