So the New York toy fair is happening this weekend and FFG frequently debuts a new wave there so here is my prediction for wave 9:

TFA Millenium Falcon w 4 new pilots

TFA Tie with turret

Some ship from Rebels either scum or rebel

Legends EU Scum small base ship

My bet is the TFA TIE will be a Dual Arc instead of turret, turret would tear up those wings.

While I don't believe they'll announce a new wave while the previous one is on the boat...

I DO believe in the GUNBOAT. (It'll probably be the Special Forces TIE, but FFG, you are MORE than welcome to prove me wrong)

IN GUNBOAT WE TRUST

I'd also love to see either the Kimogila Fighter or Krayt Gunship for Scum. Those things look fantastic.

Thinking back on the Rebels show, I can't recall any Rebel ship that stands out. The weird spinny Mandolorian Fighters would be neat though.

All of those I can easily see. However, one thing you have to think about is that FFG likes to share and reuse artwork for its various products. So, you can see Whisper's artwork in Age of Rebellion, and so on. What I see being done is stuff they already have artwork for. For example, a scum bomber. (Nym's ship). There are still many _-wings out there, like the T Wing, H wing. And, don't forget scum epic ship with fix for Syck.

Well, I think if we get a Shipping Now article today for Wave VIII then that's absolutely a possibility. Would partly explain the weird delay before the Payback article too.

gunboat!

My prediction: No X-Wing news, FFG finally gives Armada a preview.

While I would prefer it to be X-Wing news myself, they have been crazy silent about Aramada for a looooong time. I expect the reason to be some sort of big news on that front.

Yup. Armada is due. The players there are getting the tar, feathers, pitchforks, and torches ready for how long they've been waiting for *any* news.

Apart from pilots/crew and a different radar dish, is the Falcon really so different as to warrant a reprint? If the "new" Falcon is a ship in the next wave, I'll be sorely disappointed. Rey/Finn pilot/crew cards would be interesting, but surely there's a way to do that without just a straight reprint of an existing model with different cards. Something akin to Most Wanted, for the Resistance pilots. Chuck in a few of the other T70 pilots with new pilot cards for the Falcon (a lá Scum Firespray/HWK pilots).

Apart from pilots/crew and a different radar dish, is the Falcon really so different as to warrant a reprint? If the "new" Falcon is a ship in the next wave, I'll be sorely disappointed. Rey/Finn pilot/crew cards would be interesting, but surely there's a way to do that without just a straight reprint of an existing model with different cards. Something akin to Most Wanted, for the Resistance pilots. Chuck in a few of the other T70 pilots with new pilot cards for the Falcon (a lá Scum Firespray/HWK pilots).

As much as I'd love a "First Order v Resistance" box a la Most Wanted I think it's way too obvious a marketing move to just make an Ep VII Falcon expansion. Could introduce some new Tech, which would be nice, and Crew obviously, but I think hoping against a second Falcon expansion is misguided when it's one of, what, seven ships total in that film?

My bet is the TFA TIE will be a Dual Arc instead of turret, turret would tear up those wings.

A turret can ABSOLUTELY work on a tie fighter. 3D space, ships can fly beneath you, think of a cone coming out of the bottom of the TIE, shooting a huge circle below.

I would not want a third Falcon. I barely use either one of the two that I have now.

My prediction: No X-Wing news, FFG finally gives Armada a preview.

While I would prefer it to be X-Wing news myself, they have been crazy silent about Aramada for a looooong time. I expect the reason to be some sort of big news on that front.

Imperial Assault is on just as bad a news blackout, hopefully they'll use this opportunity to announce new stuff for everyone's favorite ground combat in a Galaxy Far Far Away

There isn't any precedent for FFG revealing their X-Wing future releases at the New York Toy Show. Do they even have a booth there?

As much as I'd love a "First Order v Resistance" box a la Most Wanted I think it's way too obvious a marketing move to just make an Ep VII Falcon expansion. Could introduce some new Tech, which would be nice, and Crew obviously, but I think hoping against a second Falcon expansion is misguided when it's one of, what, seven ships total in that film?

That's the problem. There's only a handful of ships, and only a couple of them fit this game (I can't see troop landers being the new meta, somehow). Only a few of the viable ones are new (/fo, /sf, Kylo's shuttle, the T70), and we already have two of those. Pretty much everyone playing this game already has a Falcon. It's hard to justify a second for the sake of a square dish and a pilot card.

The odds on favorites are probably the Force Awakens TIE/sf, Force Awakens Millennium Falcon. The Upsilon Class Shuttle is another likely candidate, although it seems really quite big for the game.

The only thing that would interest me about that particular line up would be the potential for Scum YT1300 pilots and titles (there are a LOT of possibilities).

Getting remaining Force Awakens ships out together makes the most sense, but I'm totally burned out on TIE series fighters now. A fourth variant which looks only superficially different to the ones we already have doesn't interest me at all, although I can see how others would be looking forward to it.

My prediction: No X-Wing news, FFG finally gives Armada a preview.

While I would prefer it to be X-Wing news myself, they have been crazy silent about Aramada for a looooong time. I expect the reason to be some sort of big news on that front.

Imperial Assault is on just as bad a news blackout, hopefully they'll use this opportunity to announce new stuff for everyone's favorite ground combat in a Galaxy Far Far Away

True, but IA has had two new campaign packs, a bazillion blister packs, two new ones en route to stores right now. Armada doesn't even appear to have anything on the horizon at all...

Granted, I play all three games (four when Rebellion hits) so I don't mind a bit of a lag between system releases, but I'd like to see some new toys for Armada at some point.

Getting remaining Force Awakens ships out together makes the most sense, but I'm totally burned out on TIE series fighters now. A fourth variant which looks only superficially different to the ones we already have doesn't interest me at all, although I can see how others would be looking forward to it.

Yeah, I'm getting close to 20 basic TIE fighters now. It's kind of overkill.

TIE/sf and Kylo Ren's shuttle would be my guess for the next TFA releases.

I'd guess we might see a new Falcon in a TFA Aces pack with a black-painted T-70 -- but not as soon as Wave 9.

That's the problem. There's only a handful of ships, and only a couple of them fit this game (I can't see troop landers being the new meta, somehow). Only a few of the viable ones are new (/fo, /sf, Kylo's shuttle, the T70), and we already have two of those. Pretty much everyone playing this game already has a Falcon. It's hard to justify a second for the sake of a square dish and a pilot card.

Well right, but there's still tie-in money to be made. Plus, the thing to remember is that not everyone who saw the film plays X-Wing; I've spoken to people who have gotten into it just because of Ep VII, and they went straight to the new core set. Why? It says Force Awakens right on the box. A new Falcon to represent that is a very obvious move.

I would appreciate the opportunity to make the YT-1300 Scum-compatible, courtesy of the slew of Falcon owners mentioned in TFA, but I'm not holding my breath there.

But yes, the larger issue is that TFA really only has the TIE/sf and the Upsilon-class shuttle left as obviously-viable-yet-new X-Wing entrants.

I'd love a TFA set, so maybe the new Falcon and a TIE/SF. Or a TIE/SF and the black T-70.

But I've not even pre-ordered all of Wave 8, and my purple bases are still nowhere to be seen. So I'm happy without a preview for a while now. Got new stuff to learn to fly!

Yeah I could get behind a Scum Falcon. Han did list off a bunch of people who "stole" it from each other after he lost it, so there's a bunch of pilots right off the bat. If they had a TFA edition Falcon that served both Factions, I could see that. If it was just a Rebel/Resistance only ship, though... I'd struggle with that. That's a $30-40 ship that's going to sit idle beside the other Falcon with exactly the same stats.

They'd *really* have to pull something special to make it worthwhile as a single faction ship.

While I don't believe they'll announce a new wave while the previous one is on the boat...

Actually that is fairly normal that they announce the next product while the current one is incoming. Just in this case, they already have. Imperial Veterans.

scum falcon would be 110% redundant with the jumpmaster existing (and being a far better designed gameplay piece than the yt-1300)

would be far more excited for another wave 7-esque release of heavy bombers

only know of the Gunboat and Skipray Blastboat, though, which is just imperials and scum respectively

though the skipray would be weird in that it apparently doesn't have bombs, but literally everything else

GAT-12g:

• Medium ion cannons (3)

• Twin laser cannon turret (1)

• Proton torpedo launcher (1)

• Tractor beam projector (1) [3]

GAT-12h/i/j:

• Mendarn Arms medium Dar-2 ion cannons (3) [5]

• Twin Senko Systems 5000x2 "Tru-Lok" laser cannon turret (1) [5]

• Starboard proton torpedo launcher (1) [5]

  • Standard load: 4 torpedoes [6] (12 for GAT-12j)[7]

• Port concussion missile launcher (1) [5]

  • Standard load: 8 missiles [6] (18 for GAT-12j)[7]

source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/GAT-12_Skipray_Blastboat

I'm still thinking Adepticon will be the big reveal. Which is sad because it means we'd still end up waiting another 6 weeks or more for news.

I don't know if they will be next, but I do think there a few ships coming in the pipeline.

1- TIE s/f - with a turret upgrade or a rear arc, the question on this one, is how long before we knew this ship existed did FFG know it existed. I will admit that we saw this ship in the trailer, but I FFg was watching trailers looking for the next ship to build. So likely they didn't know about this ship until they saw the movie. If that's the case it may take a while of tinkering and play teting until they come up with anything they want to show us.

2- Gunship - Its an EU ship, but it is also from a computer game. If you look at what in the EU FFG chose to put in their game there is a strong presence from ships introduced in computer games. I think FFG waited for a couple of reasons, 1 they wanted to cement the Bomber in its role, 2 they didn't want to give the Empire a ship that was too X-wing like. But We've had the Bomber for a while, and FFg just gave the Scum a X-wing like ship. I think the game is developed enough to give the Empire one too. I see the gunship as sort of x-wing like, probably no hard 1, probably only 2 hull. (it was way less survivable than the TIE advanced of TIE Defender). I think they could even give it a cannon slop without much trouble, people are reluctant to put HLC on ships that die easy.

3 - Falcon - It doesn't really need the "aces treatment", But we have a new main character for Star Wars who flies it. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney required FFG to re-released the Falcon. They could even tweek the stats since, it has continued it constant conversions.