What about autoblasters versus cloaked ships? It's a niche (and a short range shot), but it could be a situation they're worth it in. Put one on Ten Numb and then they can't evade one of the crits either.

I suspect it's a great theory that falls short in practice, but who knows?

A hyper-mobile Ten is about the only place I even consider it but even then I question its value. The potential to maybe take two movement actions before, or after, maneuvering at PS 8 does give you a fair chance of putting a ship in your sights. The problem then becomes the same as all other users in that you're comparing 3 attack dice which evade dice can't cancel vs. 4 dice.

I'll point out that Ten's [crit] can be cancelled by Evade tokens and the Autoblaster nicely brings that option up first.

Almost lost a B-wing that way last Friday.

In that case your opponent screwed up. A 4-dice primary attack against a b-wing does more damage on average than an autoblaster shot. Which is the fundamental problem, even if you set up a range-1 shot with "stop" tricks you're often better off taking a primary weapon attack instead.

The fluff talks about the high rate of fire on the autoblasters, but it's still only three dice.

That's represented by the rule that you can't cancel hits. Each shot does limited damage so it's capped at three dice, but it shoots so many times that you're going to get hit at least once no matter how much you evade. Giving multiple attacks would make it have too high a damage cap, making it way too good at killing large slow targets.

The Defender would have been a good candidate, but no built-in boost. Ten Numb works it, but again needs EU and maybe Opportunist or Jan to make it scarier. The combo just is rarely worth it.

Rexlar Brath, autoblaster, engine upgrade, and push the limit. You can use barrel roll and boost to get in range 1. You attack with autoblaster. Now with push hopefully you have a focus. Spend focus to then turn those unevadeable hits into crits.

It works on a defender however it is expensive. Also on a firespray i've had success. However in regular play where you are playing rebels vs imps, you are limited.

Rexlar Brath, autoblaster, engine upgrade, and push the limit. You can use barrel roll and boost to get in range 1. You attack with autoblaster. Now with push hopefully you have a focus. Spend focus to then turn those unevadeable hits into crits.

And now you've added 12 points in upgrades to a ship that is already extremely expensive, taken stress on a ship that's second only to the y-wing for the "worst greens" title, and still have all the usual problems with trying to apply crits (shields, evade tokens, etc). You can come up with situations where it could be better than just taking a primary weapon shot (or spending those points on a HLC and predator), but I don't think they're anywhere near common enough to justify spending that many points on the ship.

Missed this the first pass thru

I dunno. I've been cooked by shuttles that have autoblasters, because I am not used to dealing with them. If you know your opponent, then they can be quite deadly as they sometimes don't consider the shuttle's dead stop maneuver, or else they know that the shuttle has no long range secondary weapon and underestimate it. It's not for lack of piloting skill; I'm quite handy with X-wings and B-wings, and can do Y-wings and A-wings in a pinch. But my opponents almost never use a shuttle, so I don't always expect the ship to suddenly stop. Almost lost a B-wing that way last Friday.

If an opponent used an Autoblaster against my B-Wing I'd THANK him for it after the game. Same if it was used against a Y-Wing or Falcon. Rolling 3 dice and giving my one Defense die a chance to cancel the [crit] is FAR better than seeing an attack with 4 dice where my Defense die has to take out a [hit] first. I also wouldn't think twice about him using it against my X-Wings and may thank him when using it against Bombers. The A-Wing may not like the Autoblaster but you're unlikely to one-shot one when any [crit] results can be cancelled first.

The maneuvering of a Shuttle may be a surprise to many the first times they see it but an autoblaster on a Shuttle is nothing to fear; Gunner would be a MUCH bigger threat.