Deathstrike Missile Launcher

Subtlety? Fuck that noise.

It's time. You need to give your foe the finger in defiance.

But not just an ordinary finger, oh no.

You want to go for a giant middle finger, one which will launch into the sky, then come crashing down and trigger an explosion of apocalyptic proportions. Well good news, Guard players: You have an option. This option happens to be the single most over-the-top thing in the Imperial Guard, and that's saying a lot for an army that fields Tanks the size of small countries and batteries of artillery capable of raining death from across a table. You want to nuke the motherfuckers, and the Deathstrike Missile Launcher will allow you to do just that. It's time you brought in the frontline ICBM.

Overview

The Basilisk and other artillery used by the guard have numbers.

The Manticore Rocket Launcher has its cluster-bomb effect.

The Deathstrike Missile Launcher has raw, balls-out power.

Put yourself in the mindset of the commanding officer:

"Gunner, do you see that army?"

"Yes mi'lord."

"I don't want to."

"Understood mi'lord."

And there's the reason to bring one in a nutshell.

The first thing to note about the Deathstrike is that it has only one shot, and takes at least one turn to be suitably prepped to fire - so it cannot fire first turn. It also cannot fire if it has moved. It has the rule "T-Minus Five Minutes... And Counting," which means that you need to roll a d6 every turn after the first for the Deathstrike, adding +1 for each round the Deathstrike has been on the table, and subtracting -1 for each weapon destroyed, crew stunned, and crew shaken result the vehicle has taken. If the result is 6 or greater (a roll of a natural 6 is an automatic success), the Deathstrike may fire its missile.

Why suffer all these penalties for a one-shot weapon? Why bother going through all this for a vehicle whose drawbacks are easily eclipsed by the upsides of the Basilisk, Colossus Siege Mortar, and Manticore Rocket Launcher? The answer lies in the Deathstrike's overwhelming power. That one missile has unlimited range, is Strength 10, AP1, ignores cover saves, auto-hits everything in the blast, and deals its full strength of 10 to any vehicle caught even remotely in the blast area. Topping it all off, its blast radius is variable - 4-6 inches (d3+3) - making it capable of the biggest explosions of any artillery vehicle. For contrast, a blast template has a 1.5 inch radius (3" diameter) and an ordnance blast template has a 2.5 inch radius (5" diameter). The Deathstrike's blast diameter can be up to 12 inches wide - since it is stated in the codex that the blast Radius is between d3+3 (which makes its diameter 8-12 inches!).

The most subtly hilarious facet of the Deathstrike is its range. For the retarded, 960" (its initial range before it was errata'd away) is more than 25 yards, perfect for when you're playing an Apocalypse game by telephone. Although compared to the scale of the model, it's nowhere near "intercontinental", the errata made it so. Conversely, its minimum range is 12", considerably shorter than many other artillery weapons. If fired at a close target, with its maximum 6" blast, and a really bad scatter roll, the Deathstrike launcher can blow itself to kingdom come, unique among models with a minimum range.

In short: Anything in that blast radius that doesn't have Eternal Warrior just had to roll for Anal Circumference. It has a Heavy Bolter, too, but no one cares about that.

Tactics

Sadly, the Deathstrike's weaknesses of only one shot, long ready time, middling accuracy, and variable blast size makes it a bit too chonky to be used effectively in a typical game. It's extremely effective when it fires, and it can utterly invalidate almost any enemy unit it targets, but it pays a lot for this. Getting the most out of the Deathstrike usually involves fitting it with Camo Netting to make it stealth, and a Hunter-Killer Missile, optionally, to let it do something when not sitting around waiting for the gun to fire.

Or you could just use it as the ultimate freak-out unit. Use 30 of them in an apocalypse game for the ultimate lulz.

Alternatively, phone up a distant Games Workshop, and tell them that you're targeting your Deathstrike Missile Launcher across state lines, to attack a randomly chosen game going on at their store.

Vortex Missile

For even more rape you can take in a Deathstrike launcher armed with a Vortex Missile. This monster has a smaller blast (10") but it would instagib ANYTHING save gargantuan creatures and super-heavy vehicles (who lose D6 Wound or D3 SP respectivelly), no saves of any kind, no eternal warrior, no rolls for damage, no reanimation protocols or other back from dead bullshit - everything under blast template would be just thrown into the warp. And the vortex blast would stick around as a 3" marker, scattering 2D6" at the start of both players turns with the same rules, only disappearing when a double is rolled. Taking one of these is a nice way to come to a friendly conclusion to a game

See Also

A fourth of July celebration in which a nuclear war is started between Britan and the USA, fought with Deathstrikes.
GW's Vortex Missile datasheet

Gallery

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