I have gotten so much more out of my assault packs by saving them until turn 2 or 3. I let them advance turn one with their irregular order. When I ran them forward, they took too many orders and got discovered shot down. Now I hug cover and let them come to the antipodes. They do fine in cc, as long as they aren’t going up against a CC specialist.
You're right...my first inclination is always to throw them at the biggest shiny on the table but you have to be careful and take things on context. The Strelok K9 gave us another Sensor option that doesn't throw away a good pack of doggos, which definitely focuses their role away from generic Sensing. A good opponent will be careful to avoid overextending their TAG or similar...you might be able to use this to your advantage to kill supporting units if the main baddy is somewhat hamstrung by the requirement to spend a couple of orders retreating at the end of the opposing player turn.
I kept mine back in show of force tonight. Still managed to fail to kill the tag I went in on :( I only managed to get 2 dogs onto it though
