Confused by the "pointless ground troops" conversation. I missed parts of it though, but from what I see, the ground troops were outside defending what may turn up. Those ATATs are transporters for ground troops so made sense to me to wait to tackle them when unloaded. Which of course they do when the snow troopers entered Echo base. Shame we didn't see them unloading though with a bit of extended man on man shootouts.

And I'm not sure that the Rebels knew of the extent of ATAT shieldd capabilities till they got close enough. Possibly why they end up fleeing Hoth. ?