Was very excited to get this expansion as it added some elegant additions to the well-crafted formula. I managed to play 3 games since Friday with it (3pl) and the experience solidified my view on it and its place as one of my favorite board games.
Pic is from the first game we played.
The Sardaukar Commanders add a much needed early tempo option for Solari. Normally you don't really have anything to do with Solari in the early term, as it's usually not worth spending it for 1 water when you could be saving it for a council position or a swordmaster. However now with the Sardaukar in play in some easy to reach positions, it gives players an incentive to spend their early money to quickly grab one of them before they're all snatched away.
Likewise in the late game, once you have your council seat and swordmaster, Solari didn't have that much impact outside the occasional conflict or card. Now if you have a few Sardaukar in your employ, they give a significant power to your combat efforts by quickly translating your spare change into extra reinforcements, plus some good abilities. I really like the difficult decisions this opens.
Likewise Technologies give more versatility to spice. Without them, someone who didn't have a lot of access to the influence side of the board, didn't have a ton of options for using spice, other than going to the guild now and then. The Ix tech now allows someone who didn't get access to a lot of influence cards, or who doesn't care about combat as much, to use green cards to utilize their spare spice as well. I am always up for giving more options to the players. The tech effects can also be quite powerful when paired with the right leaders. I won my second game handily by making a tech-intrigue combo and just spamming troops out constantly through it.
Finally the new leaders are all quite nice, and I like the more unique directions they took with some of them like the Guild Navigator.
Ultimately, very very happy with this addition, even if some of my playing mates were more muted in their appraisal.
Ooh. Haven't managed to accomplish that yet!