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Evening Dakkanauts,

There have been a few threads lately commenting on how discussions in the "tactics" forum are really more about list building than how to use what you have.

I don't think this is a bad thing, really. It's always good to know what units are worth getting, even if you only play casually (after all, it's an expensive hobby). But I had the idea of starting threads focusing on how to use particular units, starting with one of my favourites - the Ork Deff Kopta.

I'm not an especially experienced player. The advice I give on here is just based on what has worked for me in the games I have played, and I openly invite the more experienced dakkanauts to chime in with their observations. I dare say a lot of it is old stuff.

Deff Koptas

For me, koptas are one of the most useful units in the Ork codex. They are cheap for what they do. They are really more of a support unit than a deathstar, but they excel in this capacity, helping your boyz make it into combat on their terms. I play using a mechanised list, but since they are not the main attacking arm, I can imagine they would be useful in a footslogging list too.

The loadout

The codex gives you three options for main weapons - twin-linked rokkit launchas, twin-linked big shootas and kustom mega blastas. Of the three, rokkits are by far the best choice. Big shootas are not terrible, but they don't really bring anything to the party as your army is already excellent at killing infantry. And really don't bother with kustom mega blastas - because they are not twin-linked, they are a lot less accurate than the rokkit and prone to killing your own guys with "gets hot" rolls, all for the sake of ap2 rather than the rokkit launcha's ap3.

So, rokkits all the way. The only problem with rokkit launchas is that you will have to either scout around for second hand copies of the old "Assault on Black Reach" version or convert your own, since the current official model comes with big shootas. However, I *heartily* recommend making the effort to do this.

Additionally, you can give your koptas buzzsaws and big bombz. I have not tried these options, and some players say they have had success with them, but to me they seem like a very expensive way of equipping your koptas to do something your other units can already do better.

You can take koptas in squads of 1-5. Personally, I take a full squad of five if the point limit allows (boyz before toyz, after all), but smaller squads are still useful - in fact, opponents often make the mistake of ignoring small units.

Tactics

So, having equipped your koptas, what can you do with them?

Anti-tank

Koptas are excellent at killing light vehicles. In bigger squads, they can take out medium vehicles and even start knocking hull points off land raiders et al. Take advantage of their speed and their scout moves to get at vulnerable side and rear armour, if you can.

Road clearance

Sometimes, opponents who don't want to be on the business end of a charging boyz mob will attempt to slow you down with a "speed bump" unit that can hold you up for a turn or two until you run out of steam, then close in for the kill by shooting you to pieces or assaulting you on their terms. Sometimes they will use weak, sacrificial units for this purpose, but more often it is something reasonably tough, such as a dreadnought or carnifex. Use your rokkit fire to clear these speed bumps and enable your boyz to get into combat when you want them to and on your terms.

Similarly, if you are playing against tyranids, use the agility of your koptas to attack your opponent's important synapse creatures in order to help prevent your boyz getting bogged down fighting rubbish but fearless gaunts.

Psychological pressure

Koptas can scout, turbo boost 24" on top of their normal move, and fly over impassable terrain. Plonking them down behind enemy lines in a threatening position will give your opponent something to think about, as he will be forced to divert fire from the main body of your force in order to deal with them or face rokkit fire at his vulnerable points.

Objective capping

The agility of koptas makes them excellent objective cappers. This is a particularly cunning use of a very small or depleted squad that doesn't look like much of a threat. My favourite example of this is when you play the mission "the relic" by scouting forward with the koptas, moving to capture the relic, and then turbo-boosting well out of harm's way!

Screening/tarpit

Boyz are the backbone of the Ork army, but you need to protect them from two things - shooting, and counter-assault (I don't mean the actual rule, I mean the tactic of the enemy charging you, a situation in which boyz are considerably weaker).

If you can see that a particularly dangerous enemy unit is closing in on your boyz, consider moving the koptas into position to get in the way. They are quite resilient, so they can absorb a lot of firepower and even hold their own in melee surprisingly well (at least until the boyz arrive to mop up).

Anti-MEQ

Orks are fairly good at killing MEQs anyway, but koptas are particularly efficient. In theory, rokkits are anti-tank weapons, but MEQ squads are so small that just losing a handful can be a big blow to your opponent. Your rokkits are (reasonably) accurate, wound on a 2+ and ignore their armour. And if you have weakened an MEQ squad in this way, it might even be worth charging in afterwards to finish them off. Fun times!

Dakkanauts, you have the floor.

Nice.

Only thing I can offer is that I like mega blastas. For me killing armor and 2+ saves at range makes the AP2 great. The gets hot isn't that big of an issue. With a 4+ save and 2W each, it doesn't hurt to much. And the chance of a pen hit killing a vehicle makes up for hitting less. And a kopta taking 4 HPs off a knight with one shot is awesome lol

I look at orks as a high risk high reward army. My 1850 list runs 21 gets hot weapons, but that's also 21 AP2 shots in my eyes.

I've always thought of koptas as of resilient object takers, but seems like they are something more than that.

I feel Koptas are one of the most overlooked units in the book right now. Buggies seem to have stolen a lot of their thunder (At least from what I've read here) yet I have no idea why (As buggies suffer from terrible armor and can be one shot/immobilized/etc).

Kopters are fantastic. I tend to run mine in squads of three. Typically in two squads. And I almost always have them start in reserve so they can outflank and put their rokkits to good use. Having TL'd is a Godsend for them. Though they can't pop a vehicle in one shot, I love the fact that they can easily glance stuff down, or bust through MEQ armor with very little effort. Being able to slaughter a combat squaded group of Marines is awesome, especially sniping out their Special Weapons, as those guys tend to hang out back of the squad until their time to shine arrives...but they then take a rokkit to the face.

Their speed and versatility is insane. Last minute objective grabs/contesting, providing an Outflanking unit for a Biker Boss and Painboy for a psudo deathstar unit that is insanely fast and sneaky, yet resilient enough to survive some shooting due to jink (And FNP if a Pain Biker rides along) is great. They are awesome for holding up a shooty unit in combat so your Boyz can run around without getting too shot up. They can soak up Overwatch as well, which is excellent to allow another squad to jump in and finish them off.

They are wanted for cheap, quick access to Rokkits. Their other upgrades are sort of...meh. The saw can be interesting since it gains Armorbane. This MIGHT be useful, albeit expensive. Trying to get a couple glances before rushing in to finish it off with the saw is not too shabby either (As we get 2D6 for armor pen). The bomb is iffy. It's pretty weak, but...I suppose it COULD be useful to speed over a unit, drop a few bombs, soften a unit up and have the boyz rush in...

The only drawback is it takes away from the idea of 'cheap, useful and expendable' if you tack on too many upgrades. Next Apoc game though, I'll probably give them all saws. All 15 of them. :p

Melevolence wrote:
The saw can be interesting since it gains Armorbane. This MIGHT be useful, albeit expensive. Trying to get a couple glances before rushing in to finish it off with the saw is not too shabby either (As we get 2D6 for armor pen).

No, the Buzzsaw does NOT give Armourbane.
That's the Killsaw you're thinking of.

The Buzzsaw is just a run-of-the-mill power Klaw basically.

 grendel083 wrote:

Melevolence wrote:
The saw can be interesting since it gains Armorbane. This MIGHT be useful, albeit expensive. Trying to get a couple glances before rushing in to finish it off with the saw is not too shabby either (As we get 2D6 for armor pen).

No, the Buzzsaw does NOT give Armourbane.
That's the Killsaw you're thinking of.

The Buzzsaw is just a run-of-the-mill power Klaw basically.

Ah, thank you for the correction. Just goes to show how often I actually look at that upgrade XD Eh, S6 Ap2? Possibly S7 on the charge? Eh, toss up on usefulness for tank hunting, but outright murders infantry and can cripple MCs.

S7 Ap2 will still kill most tanks on the charge. So it does give them the option if the Rokkits fail.

I've used my 3 deffkoptas with buzzsaws to great effect before now to tie up heavy weapons squads and vehicles. 9x S7 AP2 attacks on the charge can take down quite a lot, at the very least giving the boyz an extra turn of slightly less molested movement. Tougher than nobs, with a built in 4+ save and their jetbike move means they are tough and agile, and able to cause a lot of damage. But you are paying for that punch, resilience and speed at 55 points each.
To get the same sort of effect with Nobs would mean spending 191 points;

Boss Nob PK & Combi weapon with Rokkit - 48pts
2x Nobs PK & Combi weapon with Rokkit - 96pts
Eavy Armour for Mob - 12pts
Trukk with Rokkits & reinforced Ram - 35pts

You do get an extra Rokkit shot with that, but nothing twin-linked, and trukks tend to get blown to pieces in turn one.

Koptas are great in smaller units. But the higher you go, the better buggies become as they don't have ld7.

Koptas can also be used to give scout to an indep. Helpful in some situations and works in smaller games not worse than bikers.

Both koptas and buggies are great units. What to use depends on your tastes mostly. I feel that koptas are more versatile and work fine in smaller units. But if you're short on slots and just want rokkits and mobile cover - go for larger units of buggies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krusha wrote:


Koptas can infiltrate

nope

 koooaei wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krusha wrote:


Koptas can infiltrate

nope

Derp - amended.

I also like the idea of deffkoptas eating overwatch, especially if you run them as singles. The more boyz you can get stuck in, the better.

I like the idea of people offering threads detailing how they use a particular unit from a codex, maybe we could get more of this going!

I like them most as 2 or 3 squads of 1 kopta each. They're easy to hide, not a huge priority for the enemy (or needs alot if fire to kill thanks to jinks). I use them only for the fast objective grabbing thanks to their awesome speed and take some carefull shots to finish off enemy vehicles with 1hp left. For the rest of the game i avoid getting shot and getting in combat with them. In the mealstorm missions, they're far too valuable for me to just sacrifice them in combat.

Used the bombs back in 5th and was good vs light armored infantry like imperial, nids, orks. Waste of points vs marines,...
The buzzsaw i feel is not needed as too expensive and i like to keep my koptas alive.