Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) Deathstrike and Manticore

I feel I have spoken of these vehicles on the blog for a long time, but they are finally finished and ready to provide firepower to the Walpurgian 3rd artillery.

On the left is a Manticore, and on the right a Deathstrike missile launcher. They are built on the popular Chimera chassis, but instead of getting compartments for transporting personnel, they are given weapon platforms instead. 

They both have a heavy bolter for close protection, and a smoke launcher and searchlight mounted under the driver compartment.

The Deathstrike missile launcher is under the command of Lieutenant Richard Brooke Garnett.

It is not sent in to the heavy fighting, but like other artillery it stays in the back where it is supposed to be relatively safe. Still it is armed with a heavy bolter for close protection if needed.

The commander of a Deathstrike must be a really cool person, for firing a Deathstrike missile without the proper authorization is a capitol offence. The Deathstrike is only fired in the direst of need as the missile has such a damaging effect. It is classified as Ordnance Extremis.

When you see the Deathtrike missile launcher from the side you see how big the missile really is.

I saw when I posted the pictures that I had forgotten to paint the small rectangle with the imperial markings and a place to write a name for the vehicle. This is fixed now, and the plate is painted Dark Angels Green like the main body of the missile and the side sponsons of my tanks. 

Not much to look at from behind, except the huge opening for the flames from the rocket motors to spew out from.

The Manticore missile launcher is also based on the Chimera and armed with a heavy bolter for close proetction. But instead of one huge missile like the Deathstrike it has four smaller missiles.

It can be used both for long-range bombardment and air support so it is quit versatile. The drawback is that it takes a long time to reload once it has fired its four missiles and it is hard to do in the field. But the missiles on the Manticore does not have the same restrictions as the Deathstrike.

Here we see it from the side. Like the Deathstrike I had forgotten to paint the rectangular area just behind the middle. But on this one I had painted the green, but not the silver of the winged scull and the "off-white" of the banner below. This is rectified now.

Here is a picture from behind, showing the rocket engines and also the mechanism to raise the firing platform to the right elevation for the rockets to go to their destination. And unlike many of my builds, the mechanism works like it is supposed to.

I decided to build the Manticore with the top hatch partially open. This shows us a little of the driver, and the driver compartment is fully painted. The driver/commander of the vehicle is Captain Joseph Wheeler who is the commander of the Deathstrike and Manticore elements of the 2nd Armored division.