Wave 3 Speculation and Conjecture, Er- I Mean Rumors

I get a ton of search engine referrals every day for Wave 3 info/ ships/ rumors/ leaks. Despite what my April Fool's Day joke might have you believe, I have no inside track on anything when it comes to Wave 3- I'm not the Faeit 212 of X-Wing or anything, I'm just some guy in Indiana who likes to write about the game. 

That said, I do try to keep up on the rumors as I'm interested in what might be coming up next, and of course, I have my own ideas and opinions on things, so I thought for my 100th post here on TheMetalBikini.com (yaaayyy!), I'd take a few minutes and talk about some Wave 3 topics. 

First, a B-Wing and TIE Bomber seem as close to being slam-dunk, sure things as you can get for Wave 3 without actual confirmation. They're really the only two starfighters that were in the original movies that we can't throw on the table right now. As for their rules, well, that's anyone's guess. There's been a lot of debate over whether they'll have some kind of special "bomber" rule for just those two ships, kinda like what FFG did with the Boost Acton to represent how much more maneuverable the Interceptor and A-Wing are. 

Of course, anything's possible right now, so I wouldn't count anything, but just to speculate for a moment, I could see them adding in some kind of "bomber" card that throws out a little something extra for those two ships. As for what it could be, who knows? If these ships are dedicated bombers, maybe they get to stick the 2 straight maneuver template in front of them then lay down the range ruler to show their extra special range or something. Or maybe since a little bit of a precedence has been set for dropping and detonating Bombs outside the Combat Phase, maybe they'll get some card ability that lets them fire a missile or torpedo once per game outside the Combat Phase. 

It doesn't seem like the idea of a TIE Bomber is getting nearly the internet love the B-Wing is getting, and I can kind of understand why- the B-Wing is a cool ship, the TIE Bomber, isn't nearly as sexy. That said, it'd be cheap long-range fire support, something I say is always lacking in Imperial lists and why long-range Firesprays are the bees' knees, but it seems a bit simple to just give a TIE Fighter an extra hull and two missile or torpedo tubes. Who knows though, that's not really entirely inaccurate from a movie perspective and if it was priced cheaper than an Interceptor with a maneuver dial somewhere around an X-Wing, it'd probably end up being pretty cool. It's been too many beers since I played TIE Fighter- did the Bomber carry torps or missiles? I wanna say missiles, but can't remember for sure. 

For the B-Wing, I think it'll get the funky ray-gun lookin' symbol that the Firesprays have for sure, which will allow it to stock the HLC or Ion Cannon. Heck, if they really want it to be cool, maybe it has two of those icons to represent the fact it had a lot of guns on it and a couple of torpedo tubes and sort of falls between a starfighter and a YT-1300 both in size and cost. Lots of people have speculated the B-Wing might have Barrel Roll to represent the gyro-cockpit thing- again, who knows. Could be fun having a ship that big doing Barrel Rolls. 

As for the other releases in Wave 3, I've read speculation regarding an Imperial Shuttle, a model version of that Senator's Shuttle in the Core Set, turret minis to represent Death Star turbolasers or the guns on a deep space platform, and of course, a slew of ideas involving Extended Universe and/ or X-Wing/ TIE Fighter PC game ships like the Z-95 Headhunter, TIE Avenger, Assault Gunboat, the E-Wing, Stealth X, and TIE Defender along with Dash Rendar's Outrider, Lando's Lady Luck, Talon Karrde's Wild Karrde, and whatever ship Mara Jade was flying around in offin' fools like The Bride along with ships from the New Trilogy or whatever they're calling those movies from 1999-2004. 

All of that is as plausible as it is implausible. I've read people on forums say that FFG only owns the rights to the Original Trilogy era and not the Phantom Menace era stuff, but looking around on Google, the results I see simply say that FFG can produce games (miniatures, cards, and roleplaying) set in the Star Wars Universe. Maybe that's simplified marketing jargon, maybe it's actually accurate. I'd lean towards "accurate" personally, but what do I know? 

Well, I do know this little flyout is on page 20 of the X-Wing Rule Book- 

Does that mean they'll never make a pirate, smuggler, or bounty hunter faction or include aliens like the Ssi-Ruuk or whatever? Man, I don't know, I'm just saying according to the rules, "There are two primary factions involved in the time period depicted in X-Wing..." 

Course, maybe those pirates, smugglers, and bounty hunters could be secondary factions... 

EDIT: Bikini Aficionado Guido Gloor mentioned in the comments- 
Concerning the license, I guess you only googled in English? As on the Heidelberger forums (the German distributor and translator / partner of FFG), there's this bit, repeated multiple times in multiple threads by a forum admin:

"Die Lizenz von FFG umfasst die drei Star Wars Fime (New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi) und das zugehörige expandes Universe...

Nix komische Filme, die keiner will, nix Klonkriege, nix Krumpelkram..."

In English: The FFG license only covers the three "real" movies IV to VI, none of the "strange movies nobody wants or clone wars".

That's not official by FFG, but pretty much as official as it gets by Heidelberger.
So there's that too. 

There's been talk of there only being two ships released in Wave 3, but then a bunch of pilot cards and/ or more mission scenario things, and upgrade card packs being released too. I think any of that would be cool. Even though most everyone seems totally fine being obsessed only with dogfighting rather than running scenarios currently, I think for the long-term health of this game, scenarios and missions would go a long way to making the game seem fresh without having to release new ships (and everything that comes with them in the way of pilots, Elite Pilot Skills, new guns, etc.) every six months. 

Lastly, there's the ever-present football player rapist, they were all in love with dyin', they were doin' it in Texas. Er, I mean, there's the ever-present rumors regarding big ships/ bigger ships. Stuff like a Nebulon B Frigate or a Corellian Corvette. Much browbeating and heated debate over this topic to be found on the FFG forums. Let me just say this- if FFG thinks those ships will sell, they'd be silly not to produce them, regardless of how you or I may personally feel about them.  

Lots of cries of "Oh, they'd be too big!" 

Well, nobody says the game can only be played in a 3' x 3' square, and the scale thing doesn't really have to be in play- it only is because FFG wanted it to be. By that I mean, the miniatures in this game really are the least important parts of the entire game, if you really stop and think about it. So what if a Nebulon B should be like 19" or whatever at 1/270th scale? They could make it 18" or 15" or whatever (as long as it's bigger than a Falcon) and it really wouldn't matter from a game perspective. The base would probably need to be a bit bigger, and yeah, there's a limit- I don't think you're likely to see them downscale something truly gigantic like a Star Destroyer, Dreadnought  Mon Calamari Cruiser, or the Death Star, but on something like a 'Vette or a Neb B? Yeah, I could see those ships losing a few inches to get them to fit into a box or something, sure. 

"Oh but they'd be too powerful!" 

It's FFG's game, man. They can make the rules how they want. Maybe it's not a ship approved for tournaments. Maybe it's 100 points by itself and can only be used in big games. Again- all I'm saying is there seems to be a lot of folks wishing they'd make them, and if that's the case, they'd be silly not to try and make some dough off that. 

Me personally, I don't care either way. I'm as unlikely to stop playing the game if they produce larger ships as I am to give up if they don't. 

So, I think that's it- all the rumors and stuff I've read about Wave 3. Have I missed anything? Do you know something I don't? Holla at me in the comments. I'll update the thread with new info as it becomes available up to and including the official announcement, or when I read any cool or compelling ideas I think y'all would enjoy. 

EDIT: Bikini Aficionado Marty Ellenberger has informed us in the comments that the Wave 3 ships will be revealed in just a few weeks at FFG's Star Wars Game Experience Weekend! 

Cue the "Stay on Target" and/ or "Almost There" jokes. :)