A Star Phantoms Terminator equipped with a Cyclone Missile Launcher
The Cyclone Missile Launcher is a specially designed Missile Launcher system used by Space Marines in Terminator Armour to provide heavy fire support. Since Terminator Squads are an elite force, they are often called upon to undertake the toughest and most dangerous missions in the most hazardous conditions or to serve on the most dangerous battlefields. Therefore, Terminator Squads need a range of fire support weapons in order for them to successfully achieve their objectives in any tactical situation. To provide the additional firepower without affecting mobility or compromising accuracy, various weapons have been created by the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Cyclone Missile Launcher is ideally suited to this purpose. Developed as a salvo-firing short-range killer, the Cyclone Missile Launcher is essentially a rack of missiles mounted upon the shoulders of a Terminator, due to the weapon system's great size and weight. In this way a Terminator is still able to carry a Storm Bolter into combat as well as the Cyclone Missile Launcher.
This weapon enables the Terminator to engage both heavily armoured vehicles and lightly armoured infantry. Like a standard Missile Launcher, the Cyclone Missile Launcher has two varieties of missile, the powerful Krak Missile used for penetrating heavy armour and vehicles and the explosive Frag Missile designed to kill multiple lightly-armoured foes. The advantage of the Cyclone Missile Launcher when compared to a standard Space Marine Missile Launcher is the Cyclone's much greater rate of fire. With this deadly weapon, a Terminator is capable of firing devastating salvos of up to a dozen laser-guided missiles.
Sources
- Codex Space Marines (5th Edition), p. 64
- Codex Space Marines (4th Edition), p. 23
- Warhammer 40,000 Wargear (2nd Edition), p. 46
- Warhammer 40,000 Compilation (1st Edition), p. 9