Wow have I fallen behind. Here I am trying to catchup on all the Wave 8 stuff I have missed, and today FFG announced Wave 9!

With the new wave, we are getting 2 new scum ships – The Protectorate Starfighter, and the Shadow Caster – flown by the infamous bounty hunter Ketsu Onyo. Both ships are additions from the Star Wars Rebels series, and the Shadow Caster features a new turret type weapon with new rules. Basically, a token is used to indicate which side of the ship the arc is on for the turn, and is moved during a new action step.

The Rebellion is getting the ARC-170 starfighter. This ship is slated to be a slower, but tankier ship with some heavy weapons on it. It is also going to include more pilots that add to the canon of the new movies – featuring Poe Dameron’s mother, Shara Bey.

For you Imperial players, you are going to be seeing a Special Forces TIE. While this resembles a regular TIE/fo fighter, it comes equipped with a rear arc weapon, a missile slot, and new titles to add damage to your roles. The new TIE also has more shields than its counterparts.

All 4 ships in Wave 9 seem to be moving away from turrets, and giving ships bonuses to getting ships in your firing arcs. This is definitely a strategy FFG seems to be using to get away from the (still) turret heavy metagame. You can read FFG’s full announcement here.

Look for more on this wave as it is released, and stay tuned as I hope to have some more in depth previews/reviews of the ships I am still catching up on!