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“Carry the claw in your heart.
Defend the stars with your belief.
Enlighten the darkness
to identify the Xenos.
Watch the Xenos closely
and listen to the voices.
Hear the weakness
and cut right through it.
Without any doubt.”

– Armour Insignia, Astrum Squad, Star Claws

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Hello friends,
In this Star Claws army-project I try to put as much individuality to each model as I can so I had the idea of a five man squad of battlebrothers who form a truly brotherhood. The ASTRUM SQUAD. Each of them has the same insignia on the leg armour (you can read it at the top of this page) and a cross above the left eye to mark them as a band of brothers fighting on and off the battlefield for each other.
The latin word ‘Astrum’ means ‘constellation’ and ‘star’. I thought it fits perfectly for this squad. They are a constellation or even a stellar constellation (figurative) of battlebrothers and the cross above the eye can also stand for a star.
The whole idea came to me -like so many more inspiration- while reading in the Horus Heresy novels about the Mournival. It was Warmaster Horus’ war council within the Luna Wolves Legion. It had four members, Company Captains, with different characteristics to provide Horus with advice or as a politcal weapon. The Mournival wasn’t a special rank within the legion. Just a band of four capable Company Captains.
However, my own little “Mournival” only consists of five regular tactical Space Marines. But nevertheless I wanted to give them some background to make them stand out some more.

There is one Marine hiding a knife behind his back. I saw this conversion on the Warhammer Community page and just had to steal it. Another one is reloading his Bolter ready to bring death to his foes.

Cheers, Philipp

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