I rather spend orders planting Ghazis into annoying hard to reach places than actively trying to jam something. Why worry about one dice FTF roll odds when you can have the opponent worry about the math, and just generally throw an additional wrench into their active turn plans?
That's not true, I understand now a lot more about how 5pts jammer should be used. I'm just still a lot butthurt about dirt cheap troops messing up expensive troops a lot. I suppose I need to extend my perspective on the overall balance of a whole faction/sectorial, not just a single troop (for example I had a similar thing with Tohaa pokemon. there's a huge difference between giving an order of invulnerability to a Tohaa troop (which is mediocre but multi wounded, compared to others), than to a Swiss guard or Jotum for example). I started from vanilla Pano, saw the game from that persepective only, then added Tohaa and NCA, now I think I need to try something with those 5pts pain in the asses to see the world from that view. For example there's a reason why 6pts regular orders are on the scots and not on vanilla Pano.
I guess you should give a close look to the Auxilia then. The Auxbot is 4pts, entirely disposable, and can kill anything that hasn't go Total Immunity, if you manage to get it in range. I remeber burning an MBT (Lizard, if memory serves me) with a light flamethrower. Yeah, a desperation move on my part, but with a lucky streak it burned to a crisp. Sure, there is a difference between Auxilia and Ghazi Muttawi'ah, Galwegian, Morlock, Shaolin Monk etc. - in point cost, Training, etc etc. But there's a similarity too: a cheap nasty model you won't be afraid to sacrifice (and while the abovemntioned Warbands / Warband-like ones are models on their own, you'd be left with a cheerleader who isn't much worse than a Fusilier once you got your cheap DTW ellimnated).
Auxbots are awesome. I used to use my Jotum as a big, expensive 3 wounds auxbot, and it was fun. On the other hand, auxilia is boring, and having BS11 in Pano is an insult :) Though better players than me say you can use the two to make your opponent make some hard choices. I don't look at the auxbot as some cheap, expandable unit, but it's the main piece in the duo. I'd rather sacrifice the auxilia instead of the auxbot if I were able to. Though fire ammo is scary, and has the potential to kill anything in the game (except those with total immunity), it still has 13-14 DAM, so not exactly consistent against high ARM targets, but your opponent will have to think twice, as nearly anything risks dying to it. That said I had my Jotum die to a light flamethrower, it already lost maybe 1 or 2 wound, but burnt down to oblivion, and had Su-yians survive 3 heavy flamethrower hits with a single wound lost.
Well, I look at an Iguana as a cheap expendable TAG. Because if it gets undone, yet manages to do its job first, I'm just fine. I mean, I've lost an active piece, I won't be able to use it again... but the points it is worth are still in my Army List, I still get the Order it provided, the Operator left behind can still act, and (hence the assumption "if it did its job) my opponent has paid in either models or Orders (or, preferably, both) to get rid of the TAG. You can't sacrifice the Auxilia and keep the Auxbot, so you need to go the other way around.
Thats the whole basis around the crit mechanic, anything in this game has a chance to kill anything else. There are plenty of other games where some models cant be hurt (reroll saves on 2+), and I am glad Infinity is not like that.
This is one of the main draws to the game for me. The elite troops are more likely to succeed, but every trooper has to be careful and even the lowliest of them can bring down a giant. Very much encourages superior tactical play. The other end of the spectrum is that cheap troops pose no credible threat to the expensive ones, which I feel makes for a much duller game experience.
