I can understand the "secure way" of choosing a naga, who is readily available and gives an order from turn 1. Plus nagas are great (well they tend to die a lot in my games, but this is because i tend to sacrifice them for objectives. Tough love for my nagas :D) But AD have a great advantage: surprise. It may be the single greatest advantage in the game. Unexpected opponent, unexpected position, unexpected weaponry. It's hard for an opponent to defend from something he does not know, even if he suspects it. From my experience, an AD landing turn 1 may find a strong defense and is less likely to succeed. But an AD landing turn 2 will often find some sort of weakness in the opponent's defense, because the opponent has moved to an objective or a shooting position, or has suffered some casualties. Yes, that means that one order was lost, but how many orders would have been needed to put a standard trooper in that position ? An AD can often single handedly win a game by killing a key troop (best enemy shooter, best specialist, lieutenant ...) or a handful of cheerleaders.
Vs. Infiltration AD has the advantage of choosing deployment right before acting. Like having strategoes for that model, you deploy after your opponent is fully deployed. It also protects your attacker 100% until you are ready to use it. Additionally you get better weapon options. Naga don't get Spitfires or HMGs. I generally choose Infiltration with a Token State for the first turn and use AD later.
And it's easier to find some very nasty positionning, like shooting in the back or out of cover. And the opponent can't always reposition to face the AD without creating another hole for other troops. Pincer attacks are really efficient :)
I've used enough AD that it was joked I forgot what a face-to-face was. Don't need Mimetism if they can't see you anyways!
The way I've used AD or HD (barring the brokenness of the MK2) is to keep them in a second combat group. Keeping them reserved till an opportune moment and making sure I've had a full 10 order combat group. That way I've been able to shore up the inevitable losses and keep up efficiency. And having those Dasyu KHDs just pop up to grab an objective, blow the head off a passing threat or just lazily walk up and melt the brain of an opposing hacker. They might not contribute to the order pool, but make up for it with superior positioning – I can live with 'wasting' an order, if that saves me two in order to get into position. It hasn't been as popular since 1 combat group lists became immune to the order deduction. But that is a fickle advantage, you aren't always going first, and going second has always had it's perks.
I'll do that too usually with my second or third drop. A lot of times I'll have my HMG in a small second group so I can decide if I need more orders or if I can drop and just use group 2. If they made an AD with Free Agent it would be pretty baller.
