The Ifrit is something of an odd fish in the Scourge fleet.
It falls squarely into the “Medium” cruiser bracket, a bit slower but more
resilient that the Yokai and Strix Light Cruisers (which may be worthy of
another post) and below the Raiju and ShenLong Heavy Cruisers which are the
backbone of most Scourge Cruiser Battlegroups, with good reason as they both
are serious bruisers with the added advantage of Stealth Tech. At 110 points it
is not expensive, and has the bonus that it can be bought in singles, unlike
the theoretically cheaper light Cruisers.
Looking at the basic stat line the Ifrit looks a little “meh”,
quite fast and resilient as far as it goes, but under-armed. This is the first
Scourge ship to mount a Furnace Cannon, but that takes up so much room there is
only a single Oculus Beam, albeit with a good wide firing arc. The Close Action
weapon suite is respectable, and the point defence is good, even if the armour
is a little weak. Comparing the raw numbers to the other Scourge Cruisers at
this point level the Ifrit seems something of a lightweight.
Scan
|
sig
|
thrust
|
hull
|
armour
|
pd
|
6”
|
8”
|
10
|
10
|
4+
|
6
|
lock
|
att
|
dam
|
arc
|
|
Oculus Beams
|
3+
|
1
|
2
|
F
|
Scald
|
||||
Furnace Cannons
|
4+
|
4
|
1
|
F(N)
|
Alt-1, Scald, Burnthrough(8)
|
||||
Furnace Cannons
|
2+
|
1
|
1
|
F(N)
|
Alt-1, Scald, Burnthrough(4), Flash
|
||||
Plasma Storm
|
3+
|
D6+2
|
1
|
F/S
|
Scald, Close Action
|
||||
It is the Furnace Cannon that makes the Ifrit so useful, at
least in its “Flash” mode. This is the Scourge “Burnthrough” weapon and unlike
those of the other races it has two firing modes. The first is what at first
looks like the main contender, a four attack dice and max 8 damage option. That
makes it in theory the heaviest damage potential of any weapon mounted on a
cruiser, enough to cripple a Battlecruiser. In reality however you are unlikely
to make all eight of those hits count, and even if you do the limited chance of
critical hits (which ignore armour) mean quite a lot of that damage will de
deflected – particularly against hard targets like the PHR. In comparison the
second mode looks less attractive, with only one attack and only four max
damage, however on closer examination I think this is usually the better option.
In this second mode it hits on 2+ and causes armour avoiding critical hits on
4+. Not enough to cripple a cruiser, but more than enough to cripple or kill a
frigate sized target - like a Strike Carrier. Additionally, the Ifrit has sufficient
thrust to time a run on turn 2 that can potentially catch Strike Carriers
before they hit the safety of atmosphere, or even turn one if the Strike
Carrier is rushing to get in drop range of a ground objective. Dropfleet is all
about the Ground Objectives, so denying your opponent a Strike Carrier is worth
a try, and few other ships can combine the speed and sufficient damage output
to kill or cripple them in one attack.
And it is not just Strike Carriers that are vulnerable. Less
immediately “game winning” but equally valuable targets are the point defence
or sensor Frigates of the other factions. The UCM Lima and Jakarta Class
Frigates are so damned useful they will soon be universal, but they are both
easy kills for a well handled Ifrit.
Even against larger targets such as Troopships or Fleet
Carriers the Ifrit has the power to cause significant damage, and the relatively
high thrust rating allows some inventive tactics – such as driving through
enemy formations to avoid the bulk of return fire and taking shots with
your Oculus Beam or even rear shots with your Close Action Plasma Storm. Having
only two main weapons systems makes you less reliant on “Weapons Free” orders to
optimise damage output – a blessing as you need to manoeuvre to keep the narrow
arc of the Furnace Cannon on target
All well and good in the skirmish game, but what about the
higher points games? Here the Ifrit’s second string kicks in – as a designator
for larger attackers. Pairing the Ifrit with a heavy hitter such as a Shenlong
(or bigger) will allow you lead with the Ifrit and “Flash” targets(again in the
second firing mode) to make them more
visible to the heavy hitters.
So that’s my thoughts on the Ifrit, one of the slightly
unloved Scourge Cruisers. The game is constantly evolving and in a direction
away from sheer firepower into much more specialist Battlegroup builds. As
tactics evolve I can see an even greater role for this useful ship with a lot
of potential.
Cool
ReplyDeleteSounds like WWII Pacific War Naval Tactics
Well said.
ReplyDeleteThe Ifrit's Oculus Beams are Front arc only, not F/S. That doesn't have a huge effect on its actual utility, since the ship will rarely be using the weapon anyway and when it does you're likely to be on Weapons Free (having lined up a worthy F(N) shot the turn before) anyway.
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, there's a real question as to whether the Furnace Cannon is actually an Alt-mode weapon or if one of the firing options is simply a trap (or a typo, or bad playtesting). The "narrow" shot reliably produces 3-4 damage plus at least a Minor Spike on the target, with an excellent chance of bypassing armor with most or all of that. The "wide" shot is only theoretically capable of inflicting more damage than that, and misses out of Flash altogether. Actually getting to 8 damage is going to happen so rarely as to be "go play the lottery" levels of noteworthy, and even then the odds of getting an early crit to bypass armor is low. And all that assumes no modifiers to Lock values. Add an orbital layer difference, some debris, a PHR ECM frigate, or any other accuracy debuff and the "wide" shot can't even score crits at all, and is now needing "banned from Vegas" levels of luck to get more than 4 hits.
The only time I'd ever gamble on a "wide" shot would be in a circumstance where 4 critical damage absolutely won't do the job and no other target can be hit. Even then I'd consider the merits of using special orders to go someplace else on the battlefield to set up for the next turn.
Pity the Scourge don't have a Furnace Cannon equipped light cruiser. But if they had a New Cairo cognate you'd never field an Ifrit, would you?
Yup - not sure where I got the F\S from but edited to stop further red face :-)
ReplyDelete