To begin with however, i will post a battle report. Here we go:
Last week I had my first game of planetstrike. The set up was 2k of Salamanders against a combined attacking force of Eldar and Tau. We didn't have any of the new terrain yet, but we were at Warhammer World, so we used their big Tau outpost. The Xenos were the attackers however, so I imagine it was a tau world that had fallen to the Imperium some time ago, and the Eldar were aiding the Tau in reclaiming the world for their own purposes. I was the Eldar, and we took the strategems Laserburn (orbital lance scores a line across the battlefield) and Planetary Convocation (at one point in the battle the heavens align, forcing the enemy to re-roll all sixes). The marines had drop zone denial and krak attack (teleport homers in minefields). Here's the battlefield at the start of turn one:
There were 5 objectives. The main tower and 3 outposts (all counting as bastions), and the large field generator. We decided the field generator would give anything inside the walls of the outpost a 4+ cover save, although we kept forgetting about it so it didn't do much in the long run.
The tau slide gracefully onto the battlefield...
...along with the kroot
Crisis suits deep strike down and continue their mostly unbroken record of being really ineffective at anything they try and do.
Banshees advance behind the gnarlock riders. The farseer and her wraithlord bodyguard begin sniping at enemy tanks in the distance.
Jet bikes turbo boost ahead of the advancing aliens, providing them with mobile cover.
The Tau commander
The first turn saw most of the bastions destroyed. This did little to put these marines off though.
He's unpainted but my fire dragon exarch gets a photo anyway for surviving the whole battle after his entire squad got shot down by interceptor guns as they teleported in. He's a badass.
Despite the heavens themselves aligning against them on turn two, the marine defence lines hold.
Deepstriking Avengers + Bladestorm = dead marines.
Jetbikes help clear out more marines from the outlaying ruined bunkers.
The crisis suits survive long enough to get close to fusion blast the land raider. They miss.
He'Stan kills the last of the crisis suits...
...as the terminators take down the jetbikes
The banshees get their revenge though.
Gnarlock riders hold the only objective we have at the end of the game.
He'stan cleans more xenos from his battlelines.
The wraithlord cripples the dreadnought with it's bright lance
Final shot of the battle. We called it on turn 4 as it was getting late. We had 1 objective, the marines had 3, and one was uncontested.
Lessons learned? Be alot more agressive with deep striking. Fearing their death, most of the close combat units ran on from our drop zone and thus did very little at the start of the game.
Also, as nasty as the constant barrages and lasers the attacker can get sound on paper, bad dice rolling can render them all ineffective. Planetary convocation sounded pretty dull on paper but turned out to be really really handy!
All in all it was very fun and very bloody!
