I've been playing E:A for a while now but I'm struggling to see the point of attaching scouts to a formation. They seem to push ahead (or away from) their formation meaning they can either get picked off or get charged without support from their formation and bite the dust.

Can someone enlighten me as to how to use scouts effectively - and I mean as a part of a formation (e.g. ork kommandos or ork stormboyz in a warband), not simply a formation of scouts on their own (e.g. SM scout formation).

Scouts don't *have* to be strung out when part of a non-scout formation!  

Attached scouts can be used to limit the approach of the enemy to vulnerable units, can be used to force the enemy to go around a formation, or to limit the depth that support fire can reach into a formation.

Unless the enemy has infiltrators, units wishing to assault will have to eliminate the large scouts Zone of Control if they wish to get into close combat with weaker units.  The large zone of control also means the formation can control more area on the battlefield, this can make for effective screens/pickets that the enemy will either have to destroy or go out of their way to avoid.

One way they can be used, though it's rarely done, is that if half or more of a formation is scouts, it can be garrisoned in the Tournament Scenario, *regardless* of what the other units are, this includes war engines!  A local player would often bulk up a basic Ork Warband with Gunfortresses... and lots of Stormboyz and Kommandos, so the whole thing could be garrisoned for a rapid assault.

With more mobile formations, such as Eldar Aspect Warhosts, a few scouts thrown in can play havoc with their zones of control, forcing the enemy to move away from a formation they may not want to assault.

I'm sure more people will have more to say, but that's me off the top of my head.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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I tend to use scouts as an irritant/road block and a cheap activation, but as part of another unit their best use would be to dictate movement/ assault lanes and force your enemy into combat on your own terms. That aside, I still think they have more utility as discrete formations, especially as you'll want to be doing other things with your big formations than just irritating your enemy

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numquam culum es

This isn't really correct - see the FAQ re 2.1.12

If you can keep the formation and scouts intact to the third turn, they do enable a formation to spread out a lot further to control objectives, though this can make them vulnerable to assault as you suggest