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Kellan, the Fae-Blooded is "yet another" boros equipment commander. That said, he's really the first one that properly excites me and I want to explain why.
There's a particularly aesthetic strategy that I've strived for with a variety of commanders - I'm going to dub it the "One True Warrior" (OTW). Roughly, what it looks like is:
-Commander damage kills as a primary wincon
-Equipment over auras as a more durable, less quick-and-dirty option
-Generating value primarily from attack/damage triggers
-Focusing on value as typically a primary goal with combat damage as a necessary side effect
-Moderating threat level by not overcommitting buffs (at least until setting up lethal)
Basically, you've got a valiant knight who does all your killing and value generation, the slow, honorable, difficult way, while you're the mage behind him knocking down everyone's %$#%$#% combos or whatever.
Unfortunately every boros equipment commander to date is...pretty bad at filling in this role, tbh. To explain why, let's go through every single one of them, in chronological order. For fun!
Tiana, Ship's Caretaker - I think people forget that up until this wet fart was squirted into existence in 2018, RW - THE equipment colors - had nary a mention of equipment on any commanders. The fact that it took so long to get one is honestly insane. There were some pseudo-equipment-related commanders like Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer that people made do with, but it just wasn't the same. And then the first one we got was absolute DOG PISS. Awful stats, and her ability synergizes much more directly with auras than with equipment (this will be a recurring problem) - equipment doesn't tend to go to the graveyard that often, because it's not reliant on the underlying creature the way auras are. She's completely unfeasible as a commander damage threat and her abilities don't help the plan basically at all. Next!
Akiri, Fearless Voyager was a huge step in the right directly, another 2 years later. She got rid of the aura crap (yay), had decent stats (yay) and had several good abilities that synergized with equipment (yay). However, she still had a couple problems. One is the shuko problem - she cares only that there is equipment, not that the equipment is actually any good, and in fact the cheaper the equip cost the better. The other is that, while less egregious than some others on this list, she wants you to go at least somewhat wide, and put your equipment onto other creatures, to get maximum draw value. This makes things unnecessarily complicated for our OTW, who now needs a bunch of extra dudes hanging around and cramping their style. Solid effort, but not quite there.
Reyav, Master Smith came built-in with one of the best keywords an equipment commander could want - double strike. Personally, all I ever want to do with an equipment commander is get double sword triggers all day, every day. His rate is good and he fits nicely into a curve. But...he's kinda boring. Double strikers without direct equipment synergy have existed since Scourge (iirc) with a number available in the command zone. His cost is efficient, but it can push him into too-dangerous territory for the turn, motivating removal, and it also motivates quick-and-dirty kills with auras (ew) rather than slower value grinds.
Wyleth, Soul of Steel is the most obvious voltron commander to ever exist, and on paper he looks perfect. In reality, though, he's everything wrong with commander product cards. Take a cool archetype, and make it dump card draw like it's a strip club the day after tax rebates. He also motivates running tons of cheap jank rather than more expensive but powerful equipment - the shukos over swords problem. And of course, we can't leave out the %$#%$#% filthy enchantment players. Wyleth generates way too much value way too quickly if left unchecked, and so he will always bring removal down upon himself. He incentivizes dumb deck construction like running tons of 1-mana auras rather than strong, reliable, sexually-gratifying swords of X and Y. Boo, I say.
Koll, the Forgemaster is transparently not made to hold equipment himself. Fair enough, it's a flavor win I guess, but he's obviously disqualified from being an OTW. While it's hardly relevant at this point, he's also a shuko-over-swords guy, and built correctly he usually cares a lot more about which creatures he's recurring than what the actual equipment does. The equipment is just a way to reuse the etb of the creature. Neat design, but definitely not an OTW.
Bruenor Battlehammer suffers from a different problem - he kills people too quickly. Throw a double-strike equipment and a sword on him - basically the #1 thing I want to do with any equipment commander that doesn't have built-in double strike - and he's literally a one-hit-kill, thus making the value aspect of swords pretty irrelevant. The equip discount is nice, but his high stats and power boosting effect means that he's built to KO people quickly rather than ride the line of acceptable-threat while racking up damage and value. If I wanted a fast kill I'd play a different archetype.
Astor, Bearer of Blades is very similar to Bruenor with some of the rougher edges sanded off. He's no longer quite as threatening, instead generating some etb value that gives you extra equipment. The equip discount is similar, though generally a little worse I think. While he's functional, I think he's mostly just kinda...boring. Discounting a sword's equip cost by 1 is a pretty minor effect for a 4-drop, and looking through 7 cards will probably give you an extra equipment but it won't give you a ton of selection. He's fine, but I can't see myself getting out of bed for him.
Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden is another stupid one. We're supposed to equip stuff onto other creatures so we can boost our commander's power by...one? Why wouldn't we just equip our commander? It's obviously supposed to synergize with the For Mirrodin equipment from the set, but most of it is jank and none of it (nor existing living weapons) are worth playing just to buff the commander by +1/+1. So instead we're basically just left with a fairly-efficient 2-drop that draws a card once he's been properly equipped. Which is okay, but I'd probably rather have reyav tbh.
Nahiri, Forged in Fury looks like she's doing tons of equipment stuff but when you look closer...meh? Her cost discount is okay, but wouldn't be necessary if she didn't have a huge awkward CMC. Her power is too high to work well with the sword-trigger value plan. She's very much a shuko-over-swords commander. And she definitely pushes you towards going wide with a bunch of singly-equipped creatures yet again. She wants a deck of small janky equipment and token production, not an OTW plan.
Merry, Esquire of Rohan barely merits mentioning. His payoff for bothering to equip him is...first strike? He's clearly a legendary tribal commander, not equipment. I suspect wotc just hadn't met their wordiness quota yet when they tacked that completely irrelevant line of text onto him.
And finally we now have Kellan, the Fae-Blooded. Now, Kellan's got some problems. He cares about auras. He buffs your other creatures, and that buff ability cares more about quantity over quality. BUT he manages to be great despite this, because he's still an excellent OTW if you pretend he doesn't have that buffing ability, which is precisely what I plan to do. Honestly outside of some incidental buffs I doubt it's worth focusing around him as an anthem anyway, too predictable, too much setup, and too easy to remove at an inopportune time. If it lets you trade up every once in a while, cool, but otherwise I think it's best to ignore.
So setting that aside, Kellan is excellent. Double strike is extremely valuable, and lets us avoid running a lot of double-strike equipment that is otherwise necessary. But of course the main event is the tutor...which I will talk about right after I mention that the form factor of having an adventure makes him much easier to protect when recasting late-game. Rather than needing to tap most, or all, of your mana to plonk him onto the board and pray he doesn't eat removal, you can cast the adventure side, then on the next turn cast him for an easy-peasy three and then have tons of mana up to pay equip costs or hold up protective spells. So that's kinda neat. Of course you can also just pay full retail if you don't want the added expense of the tutor, though it's only 2 extra mana in total regardless of the tax so I assume it'll usually be worth it.
Okay, finally, the main event - having Open the Armory in the command zone is AWESOME. It doesn't even come at a premium, which is insane considering OtA is already a very popular and powerful card - well inside the top 50 white cards on EDHrec - and it just gets massively strictly-bettered by casually adding "draw an entire second powerful card" onto it. It's a Divination combined with a tutor for TWO MANA. It perfectly fits into a tight 2-3 curve, of course. And because we always have an equipment tutor in the command zone, rather than loading the deck full of equipment so that we can reliably draw them, we could easily go as low as a small handful of equipment for our value AND wincon, leaving the entire rest of the deck flexible.
So, what are we tutoring? Let's take a look.
Umezawa's Jitte
Jitte stands out for fitting perfectly into the curve after playing Kellan, and can do absolutely disgusting things with double strike, either by tactically removing creatures or simply killing players horrifyingly quickly.
Sword of the Animist
Doesn't synergize with double strike, but it fits nicely into curve and works even when blocked.
Swiftfoot Boots
Not very exciting, but could be played on T3 so that Kellan is protected right after entering on turn 4. Sometimes you just need protection.
Blackblade Reforged
Decent late-game finisher, but not something I'd tutor early when we want value and don't have a ton of lands. Probably unnecessary late-game anyway since we'll hopefully have enough individually equipment to find lethals without a single big one, unless they've been wiped somehow.
Shadowspear
Possible tech inclusion, trample and lifelink are also decent though not exactly "value".
Darksteel Mutation
How insane is it that we can literally have a commander-neutralizing aura available from the command zone?
Sword Cycle time!
Sword of Truth and Justice
Probably doesn't do much except make Kellan a faster clock, which is kinda boring.
Sword of Once and Future
Might have some control spells to flashback, I'm not a huge fan of sorcery-speed combat-only removal though. Too bad he can't flashback himself.
Sword of Sinew and Steel
Despite what I just said, Sinew and Steel I like more since it's reliable and gives us reliable answers to certain permanent types - pws can be hard for a 1-creature deck. Still just okay though.
Sword of Forge and Frontier
I love the value here. Answers can be awkward impulse draws, but extra lands is awesome and drawing 4 cards in a turn is nutty.
Sword of Hearth and Home
Can't really exploit the blink probably, but ramping 2 lands is solid. Not as good as SoFaF but still decent.
Sword of Light and Shadow
Could be okay with more creatures, and the protections are probably the 2 best, but the triggers are not so useful for a mostly-1-creature build.
Sword of Feast and Famine
Surprisingly mid here I think - it's risky to rely on the untap for control purposes, we prefer to play most proactive spells (i.e. equipment) before combat, the double discard is usually meh, and we effectively get zero value from the second untap trigger. Not awful but I don't think I'd run it.
Sword of Body and Mind
It does mill a ton, but that's more of a liability. I like getting the wolf tokens, but otherwise bad.
Sword of Fire and Ice
The classic value equipment. Drawing 2 while pinging off some utility dorks is a great way to slightly check the table while keeping yourself on gas.
Sword of War and Peace
Not as bad as people think imo. Gaining 10 life or so is a big game, as is nugging someone for a ton, even if it's not commander damage. People like to have big hands.
Loxodon Warhammer
Probably less versatile than shadowspear but lifelink is a good way to keep yourself in the game and trample is a good way to finish it.
Mithril Coat
Probably not something I'd search for right away, but could be useful when being harassed by removal in the late-game.
Darksteel Plate
Eclipsed by Mithril Coat I think.
Mask of Memory
No buffs or protection, but tons of draw power.
Hammer of Nazahn
Kinda awkward since I think you'll want something more value-focused early-on, and the equip ability is pretty irrelevant late, but it's still a strong on-curve play especially if you already drew value-based equipment for later turns.
Lion Sash
Good grave hate from an equipment? Also doubles as a voltron wincon? Also can carry equipment itself in a pinch? Utterly insane.
Trailblazer's Boots
I don't think they're necessary.
Sunforger
I absolutely love sunforger BUT I think it's probably the wrong first tutor for the deck. It's so slow, and vulnerable before it can be equipped. Imo wait until late-game to tutor it so you can play and equip it and still have RW up.
Mantle of the Ancients
Possible last-ditch-effort wincon if you've gotten blown up a couple times.
Robe of Stars
Very strong protection, but awkward to keep up in the early turns. Probably very strong late, though removal still neutralizes attacks. I could be persuaded but I'm skeptical.
The Reaver Cleaver
Generates a pretty stupid amount of mana, perfect for keeping control shields up, plus solid evasion. Only downside is it's expensive to play and equip.
Komainu Battle Armor
I think this won't be too useful since if you're getting through, they probably don't have a great board anyway. And costs are very steep. But maybe.
Cloudsteel Kirin
Probably not worth it, but how funny is it to have a Platinum Angel in the CZ?
Batterskull
Interesting mostly for pumping the breaks on commander damage, as it provides an alternative body with solid stats. Kinda expensive in 2023 though.
Inquisitor's Flail
Very underrated imo. Can make lethal damage very quickly for a low cost.
Horn of Valhalla // Ysgard's Call
I probably wouldn't bother, but definitely interesting to have access to a decent go-wide card in the command zone. Probably worth it if you want to exploit the buff ability for some reason.
Benevolent Blessing
Really strong protection once it's in-hand, though it lacks equipment robustness.
Minimus Containment
I don't really like this card, but having removal for any nonland permanent in the command zone is kiiiinda nuts.
Champion's Helm
Better swiftfoot boots?
Angelic Destiny
I mean in fairness this literally kills someone on turn 5 with no other cards required. That's pretty dumb.
Hexplate Wallbreaker
Kinda pricey, but getting that double-double is very spicy. Don't even really need to re-equip to the commander tbh.
Spectra Ward
Can't be blocked-ish and hexproof-ish. Decent but kinda pricey.
Sigiled Sword of Valeron
Kinda pricey for an alternative SoBaM but it's alright.
Worldslayer
C'mon. Don't.
Overwhelming Splendor
I mean 8 is a ton but it's hilarious that this is an option.
Hand of Vecna/Empyrial Plate
Pretty solid option for getting fast kills. But not quite enough for an otk so angelic destiny is probably better.
Faith's Fetters
One last removal option...probably worse than minimus containment
Andúril, Flame of the West
Probably the best token-creating option if you want to go that route.
Destructive Urge
You probably shouldn't. But honestly I can't believe this card is as unused as it is. It's so gross on a fast double-striking voltron commander. T2 Reyav T3 urge? Fuggedaboutit.
Okay that's about all I'm seeing.
As far as the rest of the list...well, I think it's pretty obvious what I plan to do. Lots of interaction/sunforger targets, fast mana like Mox Diamond to accelerate us by a turn - worth noting that if you cast the tutor T2 without playing any other cards, you're discarding to hand size, so having a decent smattering of 0-1 drops of some description is probably worthwhile (hi Mother of Runes). Red and White have sooooome stack interaction, but mostly we're relying on removal. Finding wipes that can leave us alone should be a viable option with reliably access to indestructible equipment, or we could just say "sod it" and recast for extra tutor value.
Anyway, that's about all my thoughts at the moment. Quite excited to finally have an excellent Boros option for this sort of deck archetype.
but you need some ways to cheat it on probably -- 
