Hello everyone and welcome back to week four of Hammer the Backlog, your weekly dose of hobby goal related dopamine relaxation.
Let’s get straight down to this week’s update! As you can see in the screenshot below, once again everything is in the green! Huzzah! As we got two knights painted this week, with each one worth 3 HtB (Hammer the Backlog) points, we got six HtB points worth of models finished this week, putting us as 21/60 for this quarter.
Most interestingly, our Issues List and the To Do’s that come from it are really falling into place and helping to keep the project chugging along. Our To Do of stripping the undercoated and painted bowmen is at 50% complete, which is fine as that was set as a two week target. Our other target of getting two knights repaired and ready for paint is also complete, more on them later!
Sadly, Instagram growth has slowed down slightly, with 72 new followers since the last update. This has inspired me to add a new Work in Progress (WIP) Wednesday post. I’m pretty sure Instagram really pushes new accounts to make sure that they really get their hooks into you and that you spend the rest of your life chasing that dragon! But let’s not let social media distract us from the main point of the blog, painted models!
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
This week we managed to complete two more Knights of the Realm. Let me tell you this now for free, Bretonnians are a challenging army to paint! What were Games Workshop thinking, putting them in a starter set in 1996?
The slowest part of this week was the decision making on the heraldry, placement of colours, highlight choices etc. I spent nearly as much time looking at these two snooty jerks as I did painting them! With each one I was trying new things.
On the yellow fella, this was my first time painting yellow. That was obviously a big enough hurdle. In the end I went with:
Wraithbone
Iyanden Yellow Contrast
Phalanx Yellow (Heavy Glaze)
Phalanx Yellow (Highlight)
50% Gore Grunta Fur (Recess Shade)
Dorn Yellow (Edge Highlight)
I am pretty happy with how it turned out, even if it looks a little bit too dirty for my taste. I think yellow contrast will always struggle with large flat areas. That is why I added the templar cross to try to break them up a little bit.
For the green and white fella I went with:
| Green | White |
| Wraithbone | Wraithbone |
| 2/1 Warp Lightning / Dark Angels Green | 50% Skeleton Horde |
| Warpstone Glow (Heavy Glaze) | Wraithbone |
| Moot Green | Pallid Wych Flesh |
| 1/1 Moot Green / Dorn Yellow | White |
I’m actually happier with how he turned out, particularly the quartered scheme on the horse’s coat. Maybe next week I will be brave enough to try a complex scheme on the coat and some heraldic symbols?
Little do they know it, but each knight that I paint is also a test colour scheme for the next batch of 12 bowmen. Black and yellow is currently in the lead! If you have a favourite, I’d love to hear it in the comments.
LOOK AT THE STATE OF THESE
So that is the easy part out of the way. The first 12 bowmen and handful of knights were unpainted and undamaged by the attic years. The same cannot be said for the rest unfortunately.
Look at the absolute state of them. Luckily all of the pieces still appear to be present, but anyone who has worked with plastic models kits before knows I have a fight on my hands getting the tails to stay on, never mind repairing the broken lances and keeping them approaching ‘straight’.
A lot of them are also, in various ways, ‘painted’. I use the term very loosely. I have a big tub of IPA alcohol for stripping miniatures, but have never used it on plastic before. I didn’t want to risk dumping five of the bowmen in and having them melt or turn wobbly, so a volunteer was sought.
A noble 4th edition plastic mono-pose elf stepped forward. We shall call him Finubar, the Seafarer, But the Sea is Alcohol. A 20 minute drench seemed to shift the outer layer of paint, but it took a further couple of hours to work its way into the metallics that had been on there for 20 plus years. He seemed to survive the journey, so the bowmen will be joining him next week.
THE LAST TEMPTATION
This may come as a surprise to some. It may not. Actually, you might not even care, but I am not really much of a tabletop gamer. Since I stumbled into the world of tabletop gaming in the 90’s, I have played about one and three quarters of a game of Warhammer 40k and about sixty six percent of one game of Warhammer Fantasy.
The only exception to this is Blackstone Fortress, which I started playing with a group of friends in 2019. We played through the main game and the first few small box expansions before covid hit.
We had gotten about halfway through the first big box expansion, Escalation, when covid shut us down and diverted us to World of Warcraft Classic. That is a story for another day.
As life has gradually returned to normal we have been able to play Blackstone Fortress again. Last Sunday evening, after what seems like years (because it was), we got to the heart of darkness and defeated Obsidius Mallex.
A great time was had by all, as you can imagine. The lights were turned off for the final reveal, leading to this accidental renaissance masterpiece.
‘How is this relevant to the blog Mick, you indulgent asshole?’ I hear you ask. Well, if you remember back to our opening post, being a hobby butterfly is one of my main problems. We will be starting the No Respite expansion soon, and the temptation to ditch what I am doing and get four explorers and six poxwalkers painted is huge. I can feel it pulling at my soul. However, like Jesus in the desert, I must remain strong.
Blackstone Fortress and its expansions are on this year’s plan; they will be done before the end of June 2023. Will they jump to the top of the queue and be the focus of the Rocks for the second quarter? Or will the Lizardmen demand to be painted to match up against the Bretonnians? Only time, and the next quarterly target setting session, will tell.
Thanks for reading this far! See you next week.
You’re good eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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