Hmm...lack of news?

By ellhaynes, in Star Wars: Imperial Assault

On 2/24/2017 at 5:19 PM, a1bert said:

Wave 9 is the Droid/Hera/Jawa reinforcement wave, already announced, waiting for preview articles and going from In Development to At the Printer . I don't think we will get an announcement about wave 10 before that happens.

It would also be nice to get the next FAQ.

Whoops, that was a typo. Of course Wave IX is already known. :P

To clarify- do you think we won't get an announcement for X before IX is released, or before IX is at the printer?

Hard to say about wave 10, but wave 9 is now at the printer (updated yesterday), so the first actual spoiler article about wave 9 is closer now.

Considering that both Twin Shadows and Bespin Gambit were announced during March, I'm pretty sure the next 4 - 6 weeks will include an announcement for the next small box, and we might see spoilers for Wave 9, though that's usually closer to when it's on the boat.

Edited by neosmagus

Have they announced a new expansion before spoiling the previously announced content before?

I thought they would walk us through wave 9 before bringing up the next box expansion.. but it seems slightly different year to year I guess.

I hope it is Lothal related. I would love to have Sabine.

1 hour ago, FrogTrigger said:

Have they announced a new expansion before spoiling the previously announced content before?

I thought they would walk us through wave 9 before bringing up the next box expansion.. but it seems slightly different year to year I guess.

They brought it up? Where? Did I miss something?

No I was just commenting on Neo's prediction about them spoiling the small box in march.

I think almost every wave was announced in the middle of spoiler articles.

2 Weeks until GAMA Trade Show.

Armada and ImpAssault will no doubt have teasers/spoilers there, if not before.

New to this, are these 'waves' just a batch of new figures that will be produced?

9 hours ago, neosmagus said:

I think almost every wave was announced in the middle of spoiler articles.

Sweet! I didn't realize that..

3 minutes ago, VAYASAN said:

New to this, are these 'waves' just a batch of new figures that will be produced?

Waves are the group of expansions released at the same time. Wave 1 is the core box and the associated figure packs, wave 2 is Twin Shadows and its associated packs, wave 3 is a 'reinforcement wave' with just figure packs, and so on.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/164153/star-wars-imperial-assault/wiki

3 minutes ago, VAYASAN said:

New to this, are these 'waves' just a batch of new figures that will be produced?

Yep! Often these include a boxed expansion (e.g. Jabba box, Jabba himself, Terro, Jedi Luke, Rangers was "wave 8") but a few times now they've just released a bunch of standalone figures (e.g. Hera/Chopper, Jawas and the imperial droids are "wave 9")

14 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

Have they announced a new expansion before spoiling the previously announced content before?

I thought they would walk us through wave 9 before bringing up the next box expansion.. but it seems slightly different year to year I guess.

Yeah, I mean, here's where my "Compare 2017 to 2016" method kind of jumps the shark, but, well, look at 2015. It was a mess. Going off of the News page, it looks like Wave 3 was announced before the Wave 2 spoilers, while 4 was announced in the middle of the them. Then, about a month after Wave 4 was announced, Wave 5 (RtH) was announced, before the Wave 3 or 4 spoilers could even begin.

Comparing things to 2015 is a slippery slope, because... well, it was kind of chaotic and unpredictable- but I guess it's always important to remember that Imperial Assault has a history and a potential to be chaotic and unpredictable.

I haven't been doing this long enough to know, but didn't stuff get announced in March while the previous stuff got released in May last year?

All I remember with any clarity was Obiwan/Inq/Bossk getting announced and then release in July, Jabba got announced in August/Sept at some convention and then got released the last week of December

I edited the title on this to "history" instead of "list" and hopefully this will help new people see what it's about faster. But this is a concise listing of all the release dates and spoiler article dates for everything after the core and wave 1. No need to cycle through the news pages over and over and try to remember.

Star Wars Celebration is in April, so I'm sure we'll see something then. Also, this weeks SW:Rebels episode had the feeling of big things coming in terms of new pilots and ships (no spoilers!) for X-Wing and/or Armada. So I wouldn't be surprised if things are being held up from the FFG side to pair up better with any SW:R story or Last Jedi trailer that may be coming soon. Besides, for a long time the X-Wing community was practically begging for FFG to slow down a bit, as they were in the habit of announcing the *next* wave before the last one had barely even been released yet. It took away a lot of the WOW factor for a release.

Added thought: Sure, IA is miles behind the others in terms of characters being released, but this could be to tie in with SW:R or SW:RO characters. It seems almost late to do Jyn, Cassian and Krennic, but they'd always be welcome on my gaming table. The last IA announcement makes me feel like a big box Lothal set is coming, and to tie in with something big for the SW:R finale maybe?

Edited by Slugrage

Due to the length of the design cycle of IA it is very unlikely that any IA announcements are delayed due to an episode of SW:Rebels or Star Wars movies, or most any topical event.

Edited by a1bert

Ya albert's right they've told us that their design process is at least a year behind the release cycle, so right now they might be working on Rebels stuff or Rogue One or TFA/Last Jedi but I doubt we see it released before 2018. I am sticking with my guns on Endor small box, Yoda/Palp AVP wave, then App in time for Christmas that recycles the tiles and content from all of the OT stuff the same way that Descent did, the perfect way to bring it all full circle and cap off the OT content.

By this I mean, intro mini campaign followed quickly by a full length new campaign and then a randomized dungeon crawler, in this case probably random planet explorer.

In Descent: RTL you only need the core to play and the first campaign is set up around core only components. However you tell the app everything else you own and then it will randomly draw monsters from the expansions that can show up in any mission, and owning all of the expansions adds additional side quest choices to your campaign, the same as it already does. Then they released a full length campaign that was specifically built around one of their big box expansions. So it is a great way to get even more use out of the existing components and maybe gives them some breathing room or allows them to space out the next expansions. Because after the OT.. if they don't want to go the Rebels or Rogue One route they would catch up with the new trilogy pretty quick.

Edited by FrogTrigger

How about a new starter box out in December, themed around the latest trilogy? It would tie in perfectly with The Last Jedi release, and they've had plenty of time to work on the narrative since episode 7 was released.

That then gives space for the Summer release to be Endor, which is the logical step anyway.

39 minutes ago, ellhaynes said:

How about a new starter box out in December, themed around the latest trilogy? It would tie in perfectly with The Last Jedi release, and they've had plenty of time to work on the narrative since episode 7 was released.

That then gives space for the Summer release to be Endor, which is the logical step anyway.

I think they've got more than enough material to be getting on with from Rebels and Rogue One before they're likely to touch the Sequel Trilogy.

A 2nd Edition core may happen sometime in the future, and could possibly be set in the ST era, but I don't think that's very likely this soon...

Yeah, but I wasn't so much thinking about whether there's need for a 2nd edition, it was more thinking about how can they cash in on The Last Jedi !

The problem FFG are facing is that they will always be about 12 months behind any film release; they're able to get in quickly with a few products (e.g. The u wing) but basically they will always be playing catch up.

Rebels will always be a secondary line - great series, but it will never have the mass appeal of the films.

Rogue One is outstanding, but has been and gone.

Developing something to tie in with the next film makes the most business sense.

It may also be worth looking at what GW did with then the LoTR trilogy was released - a new repackaged big box every year a film was released. Did players need the rules again? Absolutely not. But they made great Christmas presents and were always full of new toys!

It's all nothing but guesswork right now.

But I agree that we're likely to stick to OT stuff until the Sequel Trilogy has concluded. There is plenty of stuff, from the previously mentioned Rebels and Rogue One to the Aftermath trilogy and Legacy canon that we can draw from. Plus, I think it would be much more responsible for FFG to wait until after Episode IX to touch the ST in IA- otherwise, they could end up writing themselves into a corner with the campaign.

X-Wing got dropped by a hammer of a FAQ today basically shaking up the entire meta. So huge Runewars announcement Friday, huge X-Wing announcement Monday... we are due!!

Has anyone else noticed that all stock is unavailable on the website?