Thank you, Custom Hero! I hope I can maintain your interest in the chapter and the on-going crusade.
Progress recently has been a bit limited, due to a combination of work and illness in the family (both of which saw my week of holiday cancelled).
I've had a few games with the Wardens so far, all in the 10-25 power level ranges. It's been a bit hit and miss so far: I've been flattened by (traitor) guard, ended up with a bloody stalemate against an Ork horde (which I would have lost, had the game gone onto turn 6), I annihilated a T'au expeditionary force, and had a rather unfortunate moment when Warden Captain Medlock was embarrassingly killed in melee by a conscript platoon...
The news that all marines will be getting pushed up to 2 wounds (minimum) has had an interesting effect on the project. As I mentioned briefly above, my plan was to simply ignore the Primaris V Firstborn situation. To me (and to the minds of the citizens of the Mylens system), a 'marine is a marine': my intercessor squads are all referred to as 'tactical' squads, and my hellblasters are 'devestators', and I had planned to kitbash aggressors to look a bit more like terminators (and still do plan on doing this). The only Primaris thing I can't explain away is the Repulsor kit, but again, my solution is to ignore this issue.
Now though? I'm very tempted to kitbash a primaris/true-scaled tactical squad. I've got several 30K era missile launchers and special weapons left over, so may actually do this. I regret not buying the Indominitus box now, as I'm also toying with the idea of putting jumppacks on the assault intercessors to make a true-scaled assault marine squad.
I acquired an ETB Redemptor dreadnought last week, and have it primed and ready for painting. As I'm still unsure how to paint the Warden's vehicles, I'll be using the Redemptor as a test model - I think I'll be adding more blue than I would do on an infantry model.

I've also been working on heads for characters. I started these back in June, but got a little distracted. They aren't 100% finished yet, but I'm really happy with them. Once again, Mr Latham's tutorial videos have been a huge help to me.


The second head was originally going to be used on Forge Warden Calder (more on him later), but with the announcement of the up-coming Primaris Techmarine, I've decided to save the head for future use.

On with the latest finished piece: Forge Warden Calder
I am fighting an unwinnable battle. I come to this conclusion as the Repulsor, the engine-decks of which I am stood upon as I attempt a seemingly futile effort to repair it, sustains yet another barrage of heavy fire. With a loud and mechanically unhealthy sound, the turret stops moving, the traverse mechanisms terminally broken, and its main armament hangs slack in its mounting, aiming squarely at the road. The mind impulse unit in the base of my skull aches, as it floods with an almost overwhelming stream of data-reports from the stricken tank - fuel leaks, weapons malfunctions, sensor failures, auspex threat detections...
I continue to try and limit the damage, my servo-arms clamping and welding ruptured armour plates vaguely back into place, whilst I use my own hands to prize shrapnel fragments the size of my forearm from the tank's starboard engines. I divert part of my attention to the heavy bolter mounted on my harness above my left shoulder. I traverse the weapon round, the pic-capt from the targetter mounted above the bolter’s muzzle overlays part of my vision, and I let off several short, controlled bursts of fire at the rebel’s anti-tank team. Their position disapears in a violently pyrotechnic display, one of my bolts appears to have hit their stockpile of missiles. My satisfaction is short-lived however, as my signum alerts me to the approach of a Malcador-sized battle tank. The Repulsor's sole surviving weapon, a pintle mounted stubber, optimistically turns to face the new threat. That the weapon's ammunition box has been torn away is beside the point.
The port anti-grav plates momentarily flicker and fail before reigniting, the starboard propulsion engine surges briefly, and the tank drunkenly lurches sideways into a burnt-out front of a clothing emporium, partially demolishing it and liberally coating me in grey-brown masonry dust. The over-taxed engines howl in fury, before coughing and finally spluttering out. The tank floats to the road with all the elegance of a 67 ton brick.
As the cupola hatch swings open, I am momentarily baffled, as I am greeted to the sight of a hand emerging from the fighting compartment grasping a severed arm, promptly thrusting the limb into my hands. A moment later the rest of the Astartes tank commander appears, struggling to pull himself out of the Repulsor with his remaining arm. His once grey armour is now smeared in his own blood, looking like a bizarre parody of my own battle-plate. With a resonant clang, the rear hatch opens, and his driver tumbles out.
Omnissiah above, he almost looks pleased with himself. “I thought you could use a hand” he quips, seemingly oblivious to my irritation that for the third time in this campaign he has been responsible for the loss of another of the vehicles entrusted to my care.
I briefly ponder beating him to death with his own severed limb.
Before I can act, my MIU flares up again. It appears that someone else is attempting to shoot holes into one of my precious vehicles. +++217 rounds of heavy bolter remain+++. I believe I had better disabuse them of the wisdom of their plan.
Noting the alarming amount of smoke pouring out from the various holes torn in the Repulsor, I suggest that now would perhaps be a sensible time to vacate the area, lest we wish to receive a somewhat premature cremation...



Unfortunately, I'm having difficulties photographing Calder. I've tried a variety of different background and light sources, but for whatever reason the red always looks a little washed out and faded.
It's at this point I should also point out that I have a love-hate relationship with the Feirros model. As a life-long Iron Hands fanatic, I am overjoyed that we have a named character model, and that it's a techmarine style character. There's loads of nice details on him (the torso in particular, the little cogitator on his wrist). But then there are so many design elements of this model which frankly baffle me - why would you put so much effort into modelling all the details on his chest, only to pose him in a way which covers them up? Why does he have the absurd amusement arcade claw rather than a servo-arm?
Needless to say, I am eagerly awaiting the Primaris Techmarine model, as to me, that is what Feirros should have looked like. Which is why, with the aid of some spare Feirros parts and some magnets, I did this...



Anyway, that's an awful lot of waffling about techmarines...
I started working on the 'devestator squad' of Clave Tirtius / 3rd squad - a hellblaster squad with heavy plasma incinerators. Dear Lord, I had no idea how much of a faff it was to build the cables / pipes that go to the backpack... Safe to say, they will be remaining as a squad of 5!

Initially I'd toyed with painting the casings on the plasma guns as bronze or brass, but decided against it. They looked a little bit too 'flashy'.
Anyway, that's all for this post. Thanks again folks!