Hey, I'm happy that you like the illustrations. Heiko and I worked closely together on the cards, i did all illustrative work and he did the designing of the cards. You can see the three illustrations from the cards a bit bigger on my blog.
There are some really great changes from the original rules. I'm a big fan of the game, and I like the new rules even more.
Indeed, I was quite impressed with all the changes Robert and the others at CGF came up with. Besides some point swaps, there are also some new abilities that directly interact with the discard piles. That really openned up some more options during play.
