Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31526850-20170504165412/@comment-31248249-20170505145708

On its own? No. The idea is that it's just there to buy more time for Rey, and (if it survives a bit) to ionize something, making it easier for Rey to get it in firing arc next round or two.

I MIGHT be completely wrong, and it might not be worth it, I'm no expert in these things... But Rey getting a 5 dice standard attack seems to be worth the gamble. I forget if it was the Phoenix open or something larger, but someone ran 6 unequipped HWK-290s (obviously he didn't place first, but curiously he did score above average)

You could try and keep it far enough behind Rey that they have to decide who they're attacking, it does have a range 3 on that effect... then the Ion cannon wouldn't be as useful, but it could still come into play.