Cool Units 1: Deathstrike

This will be a little series similar to my Clan Tactica series but going over general units in my armies that I like but the internet seems to hate. First up is my personal favourite unit, the Deathstrike Missile Launcher.

The Internet's Opinion: It's crap take a Manticore for the same points with more reliability.
My Opinion: MASSIVE ROCKET!!!!!



So what is it and how much?

For 160 points you get an armour 12/12/10 vehicle with a heavy bolter and a single deathstrike missile which is 1 use only. The missile itself is S10, AP1, ordinance barrage, D3+3" blast with a range of 12"-unlimited (codex says 960" but GW FAQ'd it to unlimited). Most people mistakenly think "meh, on average that's just a large blast which is a 5" blast" but that's wrong. The 5" blast has a 5" diameter, this has a D3+3" RADIUS which means this is going to be either an 8", 10" or 12" blast. Did I mention it's also ignores cover? This thing literally takes out whole sections of armies on it's own.

The downside? T-Minus 5 minutes and counting. This special rule means that the Deathstrike cannot fire turn 1 and MIGHT fire turn 2. The way this works is that you need to roll a dice. You get +1 for each FULL turn the missile has been on the board and -1 for each weapon destroyed the rocket has taken and -1 for any active crew stunned or shakens. It then fires on a 6+. So assuming it hasn't taken damage that's 5+ turn 2, 4+ turn 3 and so on. This and 1 use only is why the internet thinks this is crap.

I have 2 of these in my army. Nothing says "I'm going to blow you up!!" like a pair of deathstrikes. In game they are genuinely incredible. Either someone doesn't know what they are and spends a couple of turns shooting everything at the big scary rocket and leaves the rest of your army alone or they know what it is and ignore it which lets it fire. It then blows a massive crater in the enemies army.

At the end of the day it's a big rocket that blows stuff up. For me it has only failed once, the rest of the time more than made it's points back.