So, it's a bit of a running joke how Wave 8 will never appear. So I took a crack at making my own...

First of all big thanks to Kuat Drive Yard , for their easy to use homebrew tools. Really took the effort out.

So a few notes first: I intended this to not just be homebrew ships, but a homebrew Wave. Each ship I've made with a few upgrade cards to go alongside it which will synergize well with it, and will see you having to buy the new ships to maybe not be left behind . AND, I'm staying with cannon which seems to be FFG's way now. Also, I don't know if it's ok to post these cards here, so I'm happy to remove them if needed.

First, the rebel ship for the wave, the Brak'tok Gunship Expansion:

Announcing the eight wave for Star Wars Armada.

"This quote is vaguely related to the product at hand, but only vaguely"

- Me

Three new ships enter the tense battles of Star Wars™: Armada, with the game's new eight wave expansions.

Insert the rest of the FFG marketing speel at your own leisure please.

So the Brak'tok. It's a small ship, which is not exactly something the rebels are hurting for. With the knife fighting MC30, the fast, nimble chipping CR90. And the tough chargers of the Hammerheads, what is really missing? Well to me it was something not unlike the Imperial Aquitens: a long range damage dealer, great at contributing to a fight. To distinguish the Brak'tok from the CR90, I saw it focus much more heavily on turbolasers. What else were we missing though? Where's our Raider, the anti squadron small base? Well, given this is not just a homebrew ship but a proper expansion, I decided a flakk focused variant, and a red dice focused one would work. The Brak'tok, based on cannon material, has a variety of turbolasers on it's hull, but was also designed for anti snub fighter duty. So here we are!

First, the Brak'tok Support Gunship:

The Support Gunship has no business getting closer then red dice range to anything, and quite rightly. At distance it can utilize it's evade to full effect, while still doing most of it's damage (even against squadrons). With dual turbolaser upgrades, a lot of options open up, only previously available to Cymoons or LMC80s, if you're willing to sink the points into a small ship.

Next, the Brak'tok Flakk Gunship

Oh yeah, that's right, The first three dice anti squadron ship in the game. The Raider always lacked something in it's anti squadron ability, and that's the chance of doing four damage to an enemy squadron with a perfect (about 1 in 20) roll. Continuing with the Support version, the thinking here is that the red dice is unreliable (whoever praised the Quasar II's flakk?), but has potential. Combined with the familiar blue + black, the Flakk Gunship has to get in really close to do the hurt on squadrons, but can start hurting them at a distance, or if they try to run.

So what upgrades? Well, as with all expansions, the most important is the commander. And boy, do I have a handsome one for you.

General Calrissian was as much a leader of ships for the rebellion as Leia. So here he is, free from the confines of Officer-dom, much like Leia. So, Lando. I like how the officer card is a gamble, with a chance at winning big (remove all damage) while also chancing you lose more. I was tempted to scale up that ability to effect every ship, if they say discarded a defense token. In the end though, I couldn't get away from the "anti Vader" thoughts in my mind, so I decided to scrap that though and start anew. So what does Commander Lando do? Well, he lets you gamble at the beginning of each and every turn of course! If you think you see your enemies bluff, and know just which ship you want to stop, you can call it and do so. If you're wrong? The enemy is not offset at all. If you're right, bonus. I added the "forced to activate" clause given that Bail now exists.

Next, officers! I used the Aquitens as a template for the expansion (mirroring it's contents but changing it?), so I included two officers. One rebel and unique, the other generic. I decided for the generic to give rebel players a ship with which to buy Flight Controllers, so that's the generic. And the unique?

Taken from a book I never read, but the Wook assures me he is a Brak'tok captain of the nu cannon (hence his perfect inclusion), I decided to grab Tohna. And, after reading a sumamry on him through, decided to give him some raid flavor in the style of a critical effect! Yes, I personally want more access to the mediocre raid tokens.

Next turbolasers. Given they work well, I'm putting another copy of Slaved Turrets in this expansion.

Then, another new card. A weapons team this time, and one focused on that anti squadron aspect.

While making this, I was unsure how powerful it would be. Then I realised people have been taking (the much cheaper) ordnance experts on Raider Is since forever (myself included) to reroll anti squadron. Rebels have been using Toryn Farr to reroll at least blue anti squad. So, I decided this wasn't going to break the game. I'm still infact considering lowering the cost to 4 or maybe less points.

Now, offensive retrofit (and a card which needs art):

This is another card I initially though would be powerful, but have come to see it as less so. You will likely only land on enemy squadrons once before they decide to stop balling up in front of you. Sure, this is an indirect nerf to bomber balls (and as a bomber lover it pains me), but I think ultimately this upgrade would make bombers a bit trickier to pull off, and bomber positioning a bit more of a choice. And, like the last one, I might lower the cost on this.

Last but not least, titles! Two of them, of course.

I actually really like this title and would almost be tempted to make it a generic upgrade available to all small ships (or command 1 ships), Maybe a offensive retrofit called "slaved controls" or something. Anyway: give up a squadron activation (from a decent sized ship too. Considering making it have value 3 potentially) and thus a whole command dial from another ship to, in effect, get a double activation, with the Brak'tok been one. I think the effect been limited to activating a weak ship alongside your own stops it killing the game, and you are of course also giving up your potential "last" activation. So, I think this would be fun.

I personally think the defense token suite isn't very good. Redirects are the best defense against squadrons. I would take a CR90A over this any day thanks to redirect and redundant evades.

I don't think a three die anti squadron boat is necessarily all that great honestly. Raider Is excel at squadron killing, though the lack of a redirect leaves them vulnerable to focused squadron attacks.

I would add a redirect, maybe bump shields up by one on the front, and decrease the hull by one.

I really like the flak boat tho. That would be swet

Ackbar will love these ?

Not being an expert but the three defence tokens in my opinion would be better being evades and re-directs, two of one and one of the other.

Being over half the Imp fighters you see are 3 hull, and rebels tend to dominate the squad game with 5-6 hull averages, if anyone were to get a 3 dice anti squad ship, it should be the imps.

Might want to add a "and not the last ship" clause to Lando, otherwise it can make someone really sad, and almost not get to play (?). Furthermore, you may also want to phrase it as "that player may not choose that ship as their first activation". To do something against second player (could also be worth more then). Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the bail counter? might be a wee bit too strong, seeing as it removes all gamling from the equation.

Now that you mention it, a good amount of redirects makes a lot more sense. Two redirects and an evade would make them more of a "CR90 but different", which is fine.

I recognize that while the Flakk Gunboat is a terror against imperial squadrons, we all know that rebel vs rebel matches are more than uncommon.

Yes I don't like how Lando does directly counter Bail, and of all the upgrades he's the one I feel could do with the biggest change.

18 hours ago, Touston said:

I really like the idea of this card.

It might overpower this guy, but thoughts on adding ordanence so you could get flechettes or ord pods?

Also the more I look at it the more I love this flak boat. I do think it needs better shields and redirects tho in order to go against squads. Like maybe even brace, evade redirect, redirect, with a mothma effect on the evade...

As a mostly Rebel player, the only thing worse than no Wave 8 would be the Braha'tok Gunhip for Wave 8. It's a fine-looking ship and it's had several on-screen appearances, I just can't get excited about yet another small corvette-style ship when the Rebels already have the CR90 and the HH competing in that role, alongside flotillas. Flotilla if you want a squad-pushing activation, HH if you want a small close-range torp or boarding teams ship, CR90B if you want an ion swarm ship, and CR90A if you want a small fast sniper. If it tries to carve its own existence in one of those roles, it'll likely either fail to compete with what exists or will obsolete what is already there.

I realize you (and several others) have tried to push the anti-fighter aspect of the Braha'tok, but that just doesn't feel terrible thematic to me. Even if it's fitted out as a fighter-hunter in the lore, it's still a tiny ship with minimal weapons and systems... I just can't see it being nearly three time as effective in attacking squadrons than some ISD or MC variants. It's be a bit odd if one little Braha'tok rolling through the system was more terrifying to a ball of fighters than an ISD.

Now, maybe the Braha'tok could be really good at shooting down one squadron a round. Maybe give it exclusive upgrades (or a dual-upgrade that only really fits its load-out ,maybe like an Ion Cannon + Fleet Support slot or something?) that says something like "When attacking a squadron, exhaust this card to ________ (eg add dice and/or the target squad cannot spend defense tokens or whatever)." This would make it a squad hunter-killer without making it incredibly effective against an entire big ball of squadrons.

33 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

As a mostly Rebel player, the only thing worse than no Wave 8 would be the Braha'tok Gunhip for Wave 8. It's a fine-looking ship and it's had several on-screen appearances, I just can't get excited about yet another small corvette-style ship when the Rebels already have the CR90 and the HH competing in that role, alongside flotillas. Flotilla if you want a squad-pushing activation, HH if you want a small close-range torp or boarding teams ship, CR90B if you want an ion swarm ship, and CR90A if you want a small fast sniper. If it tries to carve its own existence in one of those roles, it'll likely either fail to compete with what exists or will obsolete what is already there.

I'd like the Braha'tok but it definitely would not meet the "something big" label that we've all been waiting a year for.

35 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Now, maybe the Braha'tok could be really good at shooting down one squadron a round. Maybe give it exclusive upgrades (or a dual-upgrade that only really fits its load-out ,maybe like an Ion Cannon + Fleet Support slot or something?) that says something like "When attacking a squadron, exhaust this card to ________ (eg add dice and/or the target squad cannot spend defense tokens or whatever)." This would make it a squad hunter-killer without making it incredibly effective against an entire big ball of squadrons.

Pretty cool idea. It could be done using taskforce titles.

Honestly I think that the turbolaser gunship is a little to strong when compared to the similarly priced cr90A