OK, so catch an enemy in your front arc at range one with this gun and they'll be taking some hits regardless of their agility dice.

But it's pricy, it's effective range is very limited so you won't be using it too often and most of (if not all) the ships it can be equipped on have 4 attack dice at range one anyway.

Is the trade off ever really worth it?

No

I quite like the autoblaster although it's not useful against everything in the game.

I built a list which included Krassis armed with the autoblaster, he could quite easily 1 shot ties with his reroll and having a focus token. I managed to take out the majority of my friends fleet with it, the rest of my ships tidied up after Krassis.

Against something with low agility you might as well use your primary weapon but I think it can be a very useful upgrade.

Maybe, just maybe you could...

Nah

But if desperate, you could try Ten Numb, Opportunist, Autoblaster, B-Wing/E title, Han Solo Crew, FCS

That's a whole bunch of points though.

I don't quite understand... is the weapon just too expensive? normal hits pushed through evasion dice is great to have! Especially with something like Target Lock to enhance shots. Sure most things shoot 4 dice at range 1 but in some cases 2 awarded damage over 1 crit is desirable too. How many times has "munitions failure" been dealt on an Academy TIE?

It's great on Kath Scarlet. At Range-1 they either Take Stress or every Crit and Hit.

I don't quite understand... is the weapon just too expensive? normal hits pushed through evasion dice is great to have! Especially with something like Target Lock to enhance shots. Sure most things shoot 4 dice at range 1 but in some cases 2 awarded damage over 1 crit is desirable too. How many times has "munitions failure" been dealt on an Academy TIE?

If you run the numbers (I'm not a math guy so I won't) the advantage of negating defense dice on normal hits just doesn't make up for the range 1 requirement and -1 attack dice penalty (all cannon equipped ships currently have 3 base attack, so 4 at range 1). Against low agility targets autoblaster does less average damage, and against high agility targets you still aren't at the best odds. Also, none of the ships that can take cannons have the ability to boost without adding an engine upgrade so its tricky to get into range for it.

Basically, autoblaster is too situationally useful and none of the ships that can take it have strong means to close into range 1. Reading the card, you naturally think "hey, ignoring dice sounds awesome" but it's not nearly as good as it sounds.

Mathematically, the Autoblaster nets you less than a single hit more than a focused 4 die Range 1 attack, on average. It's easily defensible, as they can purposefully give evades to any ship in front of you. It can be difficult to get any ship that can equip Autoblaster within Range to use it anyway, unless you spend four MORE points for an Engine Upgrade. If you're spending five points on an upgrade, you've wasted it if you haven't used it every turn your ship is alive. Therefore, it becomes a NINE point upgrade to make it any sort of consistently reliable. The benefit is already overcosted at 5 points.

You really are better off just taking your four die attack and being done with it. If you want more hits, Take Opportunist. It's cheaper, and is far more reliable than Autoblaster.

Adding to Engine25's post, consider that the effective area of an HLC is far larger, with similar damage except in a couple of corner cases, and it's cheaper than Autoblaster + Engine Upgrade.

To me, Autoblaster is like Expose: technically it's possible to parlay it into a useful upgrade, but in order to do so you have to tailor your whole build toward making a single upgrade function better than a typical primary attack. It's just not worth it, at least on any current ship.

I disagree with the majority of comments so far. I play Empire almost exclusively, and the Autoblaster is the bane of my existence. It pisses me off everytime my brother uses it. He routinely runs Ten Numb with it(read 99% of the time) and he wrecks Ties and Interceptors(if he can get them in arc). Ten Numb with the Autoblaster + Target lock(usually focus too due to Kyle Katarn or others) will get 3 uncancellable(is that a word) hits per shooting phase almost every time. I would much rather play against a straight focused + target locked 4 shots, because with my focused 3 agility, I will evade 2 or more, more often than not. And even if I do not, at least I had a chance to roll dice. Watching your 3 agility ship die without even rolling really sucks. I can see the "over-priced for what it does vs straight 4 focused shots" argument against 2 or 1 agility ships or mainly Rebels, but against the Empire? Worth every point.

I'm very happy how it works with how I built my theoretical TIE Hunter for this game: I gave it a high agility TIE fighter dial with the boost action, but not barrel roll. 2 attack, 4 Agility, 2 Hull, 2 Shields, if anyone is wondering. Anyway, with it's cannon slot it's going to either be using the very expensive, but effective HLC, the cheap Ion Cannon which is great situationally and also gives it an extra attack die at range 2. The Autoblaster works beautifully with it though, as it only has 3 attack dice normally at range 1 anyway. Since it can boost it can absolutely rip through ships easily and effectively, especially if Target Locked on top of it.

Buuut this is all theory for something that may or may never even exist for this game (though I really hope it does at some point!)

Rexlor Brath, range 1, with a focus, don't need to spend it to get the shots through defense dice, use the focus to turn them all into crits.

worth it.

So, the TIE Phantom immediately comes to mind. When cloaked, especially with a Stealth Device, it could be very difficult to hit. The Autoblaster may be able to justify itself when used. Having said that, there are two enormous caveats.

One, the Autoblaster will be extremely difficult to maneuver into position for a shot. Range 1 shots against a ship that can do 2 speed barrel rolls/boosts before moving will be quite a trick, and as noted elsewhere will all but require an engine upgrade on your AB ship. Since I am a huge fan of Engines regardless, this isn't an enormous sacrifice but even with them it will be difficult to use.

Two, 5 points for the AB is 3 or 4 points too high. The issue is that negating defense dice is nice, but you are giving up an attack die to do so (so far every ship that can equip an AB has a 3 dice primary and would have rolled 4 dice at Range 1). When looking at raw numbers and assuming focus, you give up 3/4 of a hit (from the additional attack die) in order to gain 5/8 of a hit for each defense die. You are strictly worse against Ag 1, more or less even against Ag 2, and only gain 3/4 of a damage against Ag 3. This means the AB isn't completely useless, but 5 points is an awful lot to pay for an increase of less than 1 damage, especially considering how difficult it is to use at all.

However, keeping those two caveats in mind, every increase of 1 Ag increases your AB's effectiveness by 5/8 of a hit, so against a cloaked Phantom you are up by nearly 1 1/2 damage, which is a pretty big deal when shooting at a ship with only 4 health to begin with. Add a cloak to the Phantom, and your gain is over 2 points per shot, which makes it a very good return.

Assuming you equipped it on a ship with high enough PS and the requisite maneuverability to get a shot at a Phantom, the Autoblaster could easily pay for itself with a single shot. However, this is an awfully, awfully narrow range of effectiveness for 5 points.

One, the Autoblaster will be extremely difficult to maneuver into position for a shot...

Two, 5 points for the AB is 3 or 4 points too high...

This is the heart of the issue, for me. The ships against which it's most effective are those with 3+ Agility (against 2 Agility it just about breaks even with a primary attack), but so far every one of those has either boost or barrel roll. So in order to use the Autoblaster effectively you need a PS advantage (or very good prediction skills), and you also need at least one of boost and barrel roll.

And that means that the best candidates for Autoblaster are Ibtisam and Ten Numb--both of whom arguably already cost more than their value. You can also punt with Expert Handling or Engine Upgrade on Kath or Fett, who have the same problem as Ibtisam and Ten Numb plus the extra points for the upgrade. The Autoblaster isn't too costly in a vacuum, but when you consider the overhead of the required PS bid it's suddenly unaffordable.

If the Phantom, Defender, E-wing, and Refit A-wing push the metagame back toward 3+ Agility, the Autoblaster will get a bit better as a tool against those ships. There's also an outside chance that the Defender will change things as a user of the Autoblaster, since it can be had more cheaply than a Firespray and comes with barrel roll and a wide range of approach speeds (plus the white K-turn, which in conjunction with the barrel roll creates some positional headaches for TIE Fighters). But--at the risk of repeating myself--I really think the built-in handicaps KineticOperator outlines here are going to continue to make it a marginal upgrade at best.

Now I'm wondering what a crew member might mean for an autoblaster on a Blue or Dagger.

If we ever get a ship that can take a cannon that has a primary weapon value of 2, then I can see some use for it. As it stands, it's too expensive, and too situational. Not worth the CHANCE of it maybe, possibly, being worth it once or twice a a round.

I disagree with the majority of comments so far. I play Empire almost exclusively, and the Autoblaster is the bane of my existence. It pisses me off everytime my brother uses it. He routinely runs Ten Numb with it(read 99% of the time) and he wrecks Ties and Interceptors(if he can get them in arc). Ten Numb with the Autoblaster + Target lock(usually focus too due to Kyle Katarn or others) will get 3 uncancellable(is that a word) hits per shooting phase almost every time. I would much rather play against a straight focused + target locked 4 shots, because with my focused 3 agility, I will evade 2 or more, more often than not. And even if I do not, at least I had a chance to roll dice. Watching your 3 agility ship die without even rolling really sucks. I can see the "over-priced for what it does vs straight 4 focused shots" argument against 2 or 1 agility ships or mainly Rebels, but against the Empire? Worth every point.

Actually you roll just under 2 evades on average with 3 green dice and focus, which is why the auto blaster is a waste of points. At that point you just take the evade action and you are in the same boat. Also if your brother is loading up Ten with an autoblaster then he is forced into a 3 ship build which should be a very good thing for you if you are running a swarm.

I disagree with the majority of comments so far. I play Empire almost exclusively, and the Autoblaster is the bane of my existence. It pisses me off everytime my brother uses it. He routinely runs Ten Numb with it...

Actually you roll just under 2 evades on average with 3 green dice and focus, which is why the auto blaster is a waste of points. At that point you just take the evade action and you are in the same boat. Also if your brother is loading up Ten with an autoblaster then he is forced into a 3 ship build which should be a very good thing for you if you are running a swarm.

I had the same thought: he's spending a minimum of 36 points on Ten + Autoblaster (actually it's probably much more after a system upgrade and possibly an EPT). For the same cost I could get (as just one example) Wedge + Push The Limit + R2 Astromech + Engine Upgrade, which means Ten really doesn't seem like the best way to spend those points.

It's great on Ten Numb as his ability means that as long as you do not roll multiple crits then an enemys agility counts for nothing, meaning that if you roll well you can 1 shot TIEs.

The problem is that it is a short range attack so most enemy ships will do their best to avoid getting that close. It is also an expensive combo and that puts people off in 100pt games, in epic games I think it will be taken more with the higher points limit and more ships on the table will make it harder for your opponent to keep track of everything.

Edit: Wow that's a lot of responses between me opening the page and getting around to reading and commenting!

Now I'm wondering what a crew member might mean for an autoblaster on a Blue or Dagger.

...an extremely expensive target of opportunity?

It's great on Ten Numb as his ability means that as long as you do not roll multiple crits then an enemys agility counts for nothing, meaning that if you roll well you can 1 shot TIEs.

The problem is that it is a short range attack so most enemy ships will do their best to avoid getting that close. It is also an expensive combo and that puts people off in 100pt games, in epic games I think it will be taken more with the higher points limit and more ships on the table will make it harder for your opponent to keep track of everything.

Edit: Wow that's a lot of responses between me opening the page and getting around to reading and commenting!

My first thoughts with running larger point games is to avoid most of the Big name pilots as they can just die to quickly. When you start seeing things like triple HLC bounty hunters with jonus flying behind them you are going to lose ships left and right. Would you rather have them be low 30 point ships or low 20 point ships?

It's over-priced, hard to use, and extremely pointless against AG1 ships that are somewhat prevalent, but I have enjoyed it from time to time. The uses I have had have found *somewhat* useful:

*Paired with Opportunist for the critical 4th die, especially with Ibtisam (and Farlander someday) that can use the stress or Ten Numb who can make the first crit unblockable as well

*Paired with Jan Ors for the same, can be situationally-used and leave EPT slot open

*Paired with mobile ships, especially large ships, that can boost/barrel roll into R1 more often

Overall, it's too expensive and limited to be a consistent threat, but it is highly amusing to one-shot TIEs and Interceptors from time to time.

Well sometimes you do just 1-shot a tie. It happens sometimes when you throw 4 dice at one and they get blank evades. Dice are mean sometimes, which is one of the reasons lots of people prefer to even the odds and field tough agi 1 ships.

It seems to me you're just better off spending the points on more ships and throwing more red dice around.

Autoblaster is almost never worth the points. It can be good in a few specific matchups and on a few relatively specific ships but its definitely not something I'd use going into a battle blind.

One thing that may get overlooked is that Autoblaster also changes how [crits] are dealt with. Even on Ten with his ability to prevent dice from stopping one [crit] roll the Autoblaster would still allow an Evade token to cancel out a [crit] before working on the [hits]. I've seen the math threads and it seems that when the target presents itself (ie. the calculation doesn't account for lining up the shot) the "even" point is against 2 or 3 agility dice depending on Actions; this means you need to be shooting at targets with 3 or 4 agility dice to make Autoblaster better in the situation where it works.

I'm very happy how it works with how I built my theoretical TIE Hunter for this game: I gave it a high agility TIE fighter dial with the boost action, but not barrel roll. 2 attack, 4 Agility, 2 Hull, 2 Shields, if anyone is wondering. Anyway, with it's cannon slot it's going to either be using the very expensive, but effective HLC, the cheap Ion Cannon which is great situationally and also gives it an extra attack die at range 2. The Autoblaster works beautifully with it though, as it only has 3 attack dice normally at range 1 anyway. Since it can boost it can absolutely rip through ships easily and effectively, especially if Target Locked on top of it.

Such a ship would be a target that Autoblaster could be good against while also being a ship that could potentially benefit from that upgrade. The Phantom may get to roll with 4 agility sometime be we are still waiting on the 2 attack ship with a cannon upgrade slot. In my opinion the ship I'd give a 2 die primary attack and a cannon slot would be the Skipray Blastboat where the primary is actually a turret but the cannon slot represents is "primary" weapon according to canon.

There are only two situations in which I would purposely use Autoblaster. One is if the Firespray ever gets a title permitting me to shoot secondary weapons out of the auxiliary arc, and the other is if I field an all shuttle list while playing against Wookie Hunter. With regard to the latter, allow me to present the Doomed Shuttle:

21 Omicron Group Pilot

5 Autoblaster

4 Engine Upgrade

3 Advanced Sensors