I don't know about others, but I was strongly feeling like the chance for epic to come to 2.0 decreased significantly when FFG announced the Republic and Separatists factions back at Gen Con...why would FFG spend their time and resources producing epic materials when now they would have 7 factions to build out. Now, I understand the developers continued to say it would happen (even when asking one of them about it directly at GenCon), but I was afraid that the business model would say otherwise - stick to the 7 factions and then maybe...someday...get back to epic.
Well, maybe I'm just searching for a sliver of of anything to rest my hopes on - but it appears to me that the just announced "Deluxe Movement Tools and Range Ruler" kit that is coming out as part of Wave IV may measure out to Range 5! The article states, " In addition to the eleven movement templates, you’ll also find a range ruler base and four range ruler segments that can be used individually or combined to make your measurements quick and precise." I was confused about why 4 segments at first, but if you look at the picture of the kit, it has a single range ruler base segment (likely with a female end only) and then what appears to be the other 4 range ruler segments (each I suspect with a male end on one end and female end on the other). If you look at the picture where they are showing of the new kit in action, it appears that each segment, when snapped together, measure 1 range each. So, maybe I'm analyzing this wrong, but that means that this kit provides the means to measure to Range 5!
And to me, that can mean only one thing - FFG fully intends to have a reason to measure to Range 5. With no current cards needing to measure that far (and no way to actually measure that far with just the core kit contents) my guess is that this is intended for use in epic! And since they are putting it in the kit, I would suspect that means that it is sooner than later. It could still be 2-3 years away, but I don't think they put these in the kit if it wasn't at least on the near horizon.
So now the dream - what if there was a later announcement that adding to Wave IV was a "Large" (2-card) scum epic ship as well as an Epic Conversion kit. Did you all notice how there was no scum ship in Wave IV?
Anyone else notice this and get excited about it?