So I've played a couple of games with my Orks, and have been really wondering why Deth Koptas haven't been updated in any way to reflect the fact that they should be scouting units:


In addition, the armor save for the Deth Kopta is 4+, which seems weirdly high. I get that this might take into account the speed of the unit, but SM Landspeeders, which I would assume to be more heavily armored, have the same save. Note that, as an Ork player, I don't mind having a 4+ save, but I'd rather bump it up to 5+ and gain the Scout ability.

Any thoughts?

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
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It's because the E:A deth koptas predate the current iteration of the 40k ones.

They are based on the ones from the 3rd/4th Ed 40k ones (in Codex: Armageddon, I think). Either way, under the 40k rule set that was current at that time, there was no "Scout" special rule in 40k and no reason to think Deth Koptas would be getting it in the future (which is now the past).

Yeah, you're mostly right. There was a Scout special rule, but Deffkoptas didn't have it (they were "Flying Warbikes" - Fast Attack, but subject to regular Warbike special rules.)

That being said, modifications are made to army lists - why not change Deth Koptas to bring them in line with current fluff?

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It would allow KoS and BBs to garrison if you add enough Deffkoptas, that would require a fair bit of testing. You could get around it by 0-Xing them, but that might invalidate some lists that people use.

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Dave

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We can look at it, but it would involve a cost increase for a basic DK and we would have to look again at Blitz Brigades.

It would involve having to re-evaluate almost every Ork army list. It also presumes that Scout would even be applicable for Deth Koptas at this scale. I would argue that it isn't.

Just because someone changes the stats or abilities for a unit in 40K is not a reason to do the same in Epic. They did the same for some of the Eldar units based in changes in 40K and then the 40K design team changed the units back. So now the Epic units have abilities that aren't in 40K any more.

The current armies have been tested over the course of several years and unless there is a compelling reason to do so I can't see making a change like adding Scout to a unit. And changes to the 40K stats are a less than compelling reason. The game is an entirely different scale and what works in 40K doesn't necessarily work in Epic. Or is even really needed

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What Pixelgeek is getting at in his post is that not every 40K ability has a direct transfer over to Epic. The difference in scale sometimes means that abilities don't make enough difference in Epic to qualify for a special rule.

For example, the Eldar "fleet of foot" rule means they can use a burst of speed in 40K and generally makes them faster than other races, but on the scale of Epic, short bursts of speed like that are more or less irrelevant. Epic assumes tactical movement, bounding from cover to cover, leapfrogging with other units, pausing to assess before making a run to a new position, and so on. A burst of raw speed is certainly useful in that, but it's not the driving factor on how fast a unit can move effectively across a battlefield. Eldar infantry move the same speed as other infantry.

And, of course, the points Dave and Time made regarding balance are also quite important. Because it has such far-reaching implications, adding Scout would be very difficult to test and balance.

Scout is a pretty useful ability by itself. Having it available in a free trade-out unit and in discounted formation pricing might be open to some nasty combinations. For example, the standard "Zzap wagon" Blitz Brigade could be reconfigured as Gunwagon/Zzapwagon/2 Koptas and garrison on OW. That might be okay after testing, but at first glance it looks pretty wicked to me.

It doesn't seem toooooo bad to me. You can already garrison Gunzmobs with Zzap upgrades further up the table which can also happily sit on Overwatch.

In addition they can also add a single flakwagon to give a token flak umbrella. (As above this could be done with the Blitz Brigade too)