[Bubblematrix]

Does a death strike require line of sight? if not then my advice is hide it behind something.

As with all valuable long ranged weapons, put it near the centre of the board, waaay to many units in apocalypse will come in from table edges and that can spoil your day.
Have some units in a fast transport hovering the area ready to defend the vehicle.

Ultimately if it draws too much fire it will die, apocalypse games have enough firepower to make sure vital units die early - my advice here - don't overplay it, make sure your other units are more important to the enemy dead and keep quiet about the destruction it willl wreak, if you are lucky then people will be too wraped up with other units to worrry about a unit which "might" go off, then when it does they are too late.

And I expect photos of the carnage if you do launch that baby!

 

[Bubblematrix]

Hope you feel better soon, chest infections suck.

If you have the time available I would suggest considering a few of the vortex deathstrike, that way you can spread them out and reduce the chance of not getting any shots.
In this situation you can keep your opponent running round after the missiles - they should ignore the rest of your army which leaves it to run riot