GW Online : Warhammer 40,000 : Space Marines : Converted Command Squads

CONVERTING YOUR SPACE MARINE COMMAND SQUAD

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CHAPTER INFORMATION

Hobbyist: Ty Finocchiaro, Central Web Team Designer
Name of Chapter: Rechista Fists (Crimson Fist Splinter)
Homeworld: Ukek-Surozh-Sol-Raguilov

COMMAND SQUAD ARMY LIST ENTRY

Name	Points	Equipment	Points	Notes	Total

Brother Captain Anashka (Master)	75	artificer armour Terminator Honours power fist plasma pistol Iron Halo	20 15 25 15 25	Rites of Battle (0) Furious Charge (3)	178

Veteran Sergeant Zhivoi	15	Terminator Honours power weapon bionics bolt pistol auspex frag grenades	15 10 5 0 2 1	Furious Charge (3)	51

Standard Bearer Riazanich	15	Terminator Honours Company Standard Chapter Banner bolt pistol power weapon frag grenades	10 25 25 0 10 1	Furious Charge (3)	89

Apothecary Mirognev	15	Terminator Honours narthecium & reductor bionics bolt pistol/ close combat weapon frag grenades	10 25 5 0 1	Furious Charge (3)	59

Brother Polievkt	15	Terminator Honours bolt pistol\ close combat weapon frag grenades	10 0 1	Furious Charge (3)	29

Brother Taicha	15	Terminator Honours bolter frag grenades	10 0 1	Furious Charge (3)	29

				Total Points:	435
Optional Reclusiam HQ

Master (of Sanctity) Koshkar	100	Terminator Honours bolt pistol bionics frag grenades	15 1 5 1	Honour of the Chapter (0) Litanies of Hate (0) Furious Charge (3)	125

Standard Bearer Vetselav	15	Terminator Honours Company Standard Sacred Standard Holy Relic bolt pistol power weapon frag grenades	10 25 20 30 0 10 1	Furious Charge (3)	114

				Total Points:	407

SQUAD SELECTION AND TACTICA

Ty Finocchiaro: To be honest, I chose to go for a very tooled-up Command squad simply because it would be fun to convert with the new Space Marine Command Squad Boxed Set. I really had no tactical reason behind giving every model some rad piece of wargear or Terminator Honours – other than it was kinda cool. Still, I suppose having all this crud will probably be useful at some point during a game. I did, however, choose the wargear with close combat in mind. There's plenty of punchy and choppy stuff in my squad that'll surely give any enemy unit a run for its money.

To get the most out of my hobby time, I figured I'd model the Command squad so that it could operate alongside two different Independent Characters. Mainly, I wanted to make a small Holy Relic for a model but discovered that I couldn't include one in my Command squad unless a Chaplain led it. Thus, I made the squad in such a manner that I could just drop in the Chaplain or Commander as I pleased. Besides, this flexibility gave me the opportunity to convert a Chaplain from the new sprue bitz.

THE CONVERTED COMMAND SQUAD

When it came time to build my Command squad, I specifically limited myself to only a handful of extra bits outside of the Command sprue and Commander sprue themselves. I really wanted to see if I could take these new plastics to the limit. This way, I'd challenge my brain to come up with cool conversion ideas without taking advantage of my position as a GW employee to simply grab a ton of bits from the warehouse. I'm fully aware of the fact that not everyone has the luxury of kitting out each one of their Space Marines with £30 worth of bits!

	MASTER OF SANCTITY KOSHKAR

	Master of Sanctity Koshkar started with his badge of office, the Crozius Arcanum. I knew that the two-headed eagle banner top would make a perfect Crozius – I just needed a suitable haft for the weapon. One of the power swords did the trick nicely, and it was a simple matter of gluing everything together. Then, I had to make a suitable Chaplain's helmet. I made it from a Warhammer Chaos Warrior head and used the wings from the Blood Angel banner top shaped to fit the skull visage. I used the right arm from Asmodai minus the power sword.

BROTHER CAPTAIN ANASHKA

Captain Anashka was pretty simple to build. I used bunches of tiny bitz from the sprues and glued 'em on in places I thought would look good. In terms of conversion work, I merely repositioned the gun arm at the wrist, shaved off the gun scope, and made a simple Iron Halo. I purposely posed the model to make him look imposing, as any leader of the Emperor's finest should be. When it comes time to paint Anashka, there are plenty of flat areas and fabric for scroll work or heraldry.

	STANDARD BEARER RIAZANICH / VETSELAV

	Depending on who leads the Command squad, this model has two sets of wargear. The main difference being that Vetselav has a Holy Relic and Riazanich wields a power weapon. So, when I designed the Holy Relic, I tried to make it look like some sort of weapon at the same time. In one incarnation, it's a Holy relic; in the other, it's an exotic flail type of power weapon. I made the relic from a banner top and some fine jewellery chain. I then adorned the banner with an extra power fist to emphasise the Chapter's heraldry. I cut down the pole so it would fit into the pose I wanted.

VETERAN SERGEANT ZHIVOI

There are a few conversions here, though they are subtle. I positioned the model carefully as I built it. To reflect the Veteran's service awards, I placed a wreath upon his helmet and added a super-cool Command squad bit to his backpack. As I wanted a sort of gunslinger feel for Zhivoi, I opted to make his power weapon a devastating short-ranged pistol weapon instead of a sword. I figured Dante's Inferno pistol would do the trick nicely.

	APOTHECARY MIROGNEV

	Apothecaries have always held my fascination. They're just so gritty and tough. Unfortunately, in terms of modelling, they used to be available only as metal models that were difficult to convert. Not anymore with the new Command squad! I gave Mirognev a bionic claw arm (from the Techpriest Enginseer) to help with his grisly battlefield work and connected it to his backpack with some guitar wire. Since his helmet had bunches of cool optic bits, I figured an antenna would fit in nicely. So, I cut a bit of wire, drilled a hole, and glued it in place. Since I wanted to use the Apothecary shoulder pad, I represented Mirognev 's Terminator Honours with a suitable bit glued to the right leg.

BROTHER POLIEVKT

I made a special exception to the "use only the sprues" rule in the case of Polievkt because I love this new Veteran Space Marine metal model so dang much. It's rare that I leave a model alone completely, but in this case, it's nearly perfect. This guy is one of the two "regular" Space Marines in the squad. However, seeing as they made it into the Command squad in the first place, I figured these two guys were actually quite exceptional. I added a few more purity seals, a Chapter shoulder pad, and repositioned the gun wrist to get the right pose and complete the model.

	BROTHER TAICHA

	I had to build one more basic Space Marine to complete the Command squad, and I felt that the group lacked a dedicated recon/intelligence guy. Although Taicha can't technically have an auspex per the codex, Zhivoi can. Taicha is merely borrowing it for the sake of aesthetics – really. I made a few aerials for his backpack and clipped the strange circle antenna from an Imperial Guard comm link. I repositioned both wrists to convey the look that Taicha was taking a moment to examine all the incoming data in order to make a report to Captain Anashka.