General Information.
The 'Official' release date is January but it will obviously be available right now via gencon and Wyrds on-line store during that time period. It will be 284 pages long.
It has some very minor changes from the Beta including some tweaks to Lady Justice and the unfortunate removal of Leveticus due to balance issues.
The 'Wave 2' beta will be aimed at a September release to the public for testing. It will apparently include every model that currently exists that wasn't in wave 1 and possibly some new bits and pieces but there are currently no plans for a wave 2 book it will just be arsenal packs. Wyrd chronicles will be the way that background material is distributed.
Each faction will have seven Masters though some of these will be dual faction. There will however be no 'mixed' decks so the Masters will be in the Arsenal Boxes for their primary faction. Also, they will be steadily releasing new plastic kits pretty much constantly.
The new books when they appear will focus less on new characters but rather focus on backward compatible upgrades and new 'toys'.
'Bash' is now completely gone. This means that some models will have no Melee range or attacks.
Action Point modifiers such as melee expert etc. are to be much rarer and subsequently more powerful in M2E.
Avatars.
Avatar rules are in the rulebook, are a form of upgrade and every master gets one there are now apparently five different ways to manifest them. The player picks a manifest card which describes one of these five ways you can manifest (delayed, bloodied, desperate , planned and sacrificial). Which you choose determines which avatar upgrade card you get and these Avatar upgrade cards have two sides and you flip them when you manifest so that you always get a power just by being prepared for the avatar. The cards also have a manifest effect as well that happens when you flip it over...Lady J was given as an example, first she 'knocks everyone back', then she has two effects for manifesting one of which is specific to the bloodied manifest. It was also mentioned that some Masters may eventually get more than one Avatar. As expected they'll vary in points value based on their effectiveness.
Other.
The aim of the new rules was apparently 'easier to learn, harder to master'. Mack believes (and he's not alone in this) that Pandora was the Master that caused most "negative experiences" for people in 1.5
It's also highly unlikely that anything extra other than that which has been announced will appear at Gencon this year.
There were a few snippets about the RPG as well...
A full book of magic will be a later release for 'Through the Breach'.
Books going to printers early mid September for through the breach. Monsters and characters are almost entirely interchangeable with M2E (monsters easier than characters, apparently).
Hannah will only come with M2E cards for those that got her as a stretch goal in the Kickstarter.
As other bits and pieces emerge I'll try my best to let you all know ASAP
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.