I was a third faction naysayer, but the exclusion of the YT-1300 from the Most Wanted pack was a bit suspicious. The description on the FFG article mentions bounty hunters, pirates, and Black Sun, but nothing of smugglers. So now I wonder if this time next year FFG will announce a Smugglers and Spies faction. I'm not emotionally invested in this, so you're welcome to disagree.

It would be interesting too see, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Neither group really feels like they belong in a game about Dogfighting. I could see them being weird mission addons that you could buy. Capture the spy or do something with the smuggler to get more resources mid-battle?

Scum faction already has one of the Azzameens I would not be surprised to see the rest of the family

To be honest I can see the 3rd faction being treated in a few ways.

First as a separate faction as a pirate or consortium.

Second as a neutral mercenary faction that can be added in an Imperial or Rebel squadron with say a limitation on how much of your squadron points you can invest in to include upgrades.

I am all for the 3rd faction to be a mercenary faction. Imperial vs Rebel has always been the theme however despite what Admiral Piet said about needing bounty hunter scum both rebels and imperials have had deals with shady individuals in order to advanced their goals.

As a mercenary faction for both sides for 100 points (rebel or imperial) I would say up to 40 can be on the 3rd faction, 75-99 will have 30 points in mercenaries 60-75 will have 20 points and anything less than 60 will be capped in 15 points on mercenary ships (to include upgrades added to 3rd faction ships.) So this way Imperials can have Z-95s and Hawks and Rebels can have Firesprays and Shuttles.

Of course you could go for a pure 3rd faction. But the way I mention before allows the 3rd faction to be merged in without needing to invest heavily in a new model line.

I think the Scum & Villany faction neatly captures the rogue elements of the galaxy that are not part of the of the original factions, so I don't see a Smugglers & Spies faction happening. Why no YT-1300? Leaves design space for future S&V expansions, of course. Wave 6 is alreaady a huge release - they don't need to include everything at once.

I think the only way we'd see another faction emerge now is if the upcoming Episode 7 introduced something entirely new as well...