Welcome back to the final instalment of Hammer the Backlog Quarter 3, where this week, with almost everything done, we got to go back to the halcyon days of last year and paint some Bretonnia! And do all of the busy work of getting ready for the final quarter of year one! Read on to see the highs and lows of quarter 3.
SCORECARD
Unlike the last week of the previous two quarters, the last week of quarter 3 was relatively stress free, and quite a lot of fun actually! I managed to get everything done by halfway through Thursday and enjoyed every step along the way.
I have not been able to come up with a scorecard way of keeping track of making YouTube videos. I will be doing one every quarter after all, but I can’t see a way to break it up into a weekly target. Recording the video this week was a lot easier than previous videos, since a lot of lessons have been learned. It was recorded on Saturday, edited on Sunday and touched up and posted on Monday.
The painting this week counted for 5 points since I did one of my backlog of grail knights to the best of my ability, counting him as five points. Oh, what fun it was going back to Hammer the Backlog’s first love of Bretonnian knights. I’ll talk a little bit more about him in the next section.
Although we covered it a few weeks back, it would be remiss of me to not put this into the final update of the quarter.
THIS WEEK’S MODEL
So this week’s model is a single Bretonnian 5th Edition Grail Knight. I have blogged about these guys in the last few months. One of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me was finding a brand new, complete in box set of these 5th edition Grail Knights for €20 on local ads. A quick trip across Dublin in the car and they joined the backlog.
I have decided to spread painting these guys out over a few months to make sure that each of them feels special and unique and to give myself a break and a reward after finishing sci-fi projects.
I was inspired to paint this guy in this colour scheme by a trip to Valencia late last year. The flag of Valencia is a striking top with yellow and red stripes and a black bat crest. The perfect combination for a Grail Knight.
I like my knights to have heraldry that makes some degree of sense. The way I imagine this knight’s progression is this. As a Knight Errant, he had a simple halved heraldry of red and yellow with no embellishment. As part of his errantry, he drove a young black griffon away from the village it had been terrorising, earning himself the right to call himself a Knight of the Realm and a griffon charge on his shield and crest.
Many years later he abandoned his lands and title to take up the grail quest, giving up his colours and replacing them with a white fleur on a blue field. The final test of his grail quest was returning to finish off the black griffon. Climbing high into the mountains he came across not just a single griffon, but a mated pair and their three offspring. Engaging the five griffons in combat, he managed to kill or drive them all off, but was mortally wounded. As he lay dying beside a mountain pool, the Lady appeared to him and offered him a sip from the Grail, returning him to his full youth and vigour. He replaced the white fleur on his heraldry with a silver grail and reintegrated the colours and symbols of his younger days.
The in-world story is a lot more complicated that the real life version of: I saw the flag of Valencia and thought it was cool.
I have two more to go, which I plan on spreading out over the next quarter. I also have secret ambitions to track down a command set for these guys and make a full lance of 6, but don’t tell the part of my brain that is responsible for accountability about that.
SOCIAL MEDIA
First of all, this quarter’s review video was finished this week and should be available as we speak. I was particularly pleased with the random frame that my video editing software decided to use for the thumbnail, so I decided to keep it!
If you have watched that video, you will now have a pretty good idea what the plans for the next quarter are, but I will get into more detail on them here on the blog next week.
Other social media growth was definitely slower this quarter that previous quarters, as expected. In quarter one and quarter 2 Instagram grew by 1,000 new followers per quarter. The grand total for quarter three is going to come out at about 530. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but not as good as the first few months.
Similarly, overall blog readership was also lower during the the Blackstone Fortress project compared to either the Bretonnian project or the Lizardmen project. Again, not unexpected, as there doesn’t appear to be as much love online for Blackstone Fortress as there is for retro Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
The important to to remember once again in all of this is;
So the key thing for me is to remember that the above Long Term Key Priority is why I am doing all of this, and to not let chasing trends or trying to stay “with it” (as the young people say) on social media distract from this goal.
Well that is it for another quarter! Thank you very much for sticking with Hammer the Backlog this far, see you next week for a whole new set of SMART targets!
You are the best egg!
Hammer the Backlog 
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