Hello ladies and gentlemen and others, welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the internet’s leading Travis fan blog. No, wait a minute, that’s wrong and probably way too niche an early 2000’s pop music joke. In reality, Hammer the Backlog is a mini painting, accountability and productivity blog that uses an ‘operating system’ to make sure that I stay on track and get all of my retro and modern Warhammer minis painted before the inevitable heat death of the universe.
The main topic of this week will be procrastination, distraction and the folly of thinking you have plenty of time.
SCORECARD
Although the scorecard shows a clean sweep of green, the reality of it was much closer than it looks. Look, I’ll be honest, as I’m writing this, Neyam Shai Murud still isn’t finished, but if I have posted this on time, you will know that I did get there in the end.
The irony of the whole situation was that I had 5 days off in a row this week, and still ended up coming down to the wire, even on what is a very small model that should probably not have counted for the full five points on her own.
Perhaps the biggest slowdown was caused by getting my hands on the cardstock buildings from the 5th edition set, which you will see below. I spent a lot of the bank holiday weekend making them up, attaching them to plastic card, painting and photographing them. And then probably just as much time sitting looking at them. The whole time I spent doing them I was telling myself “You should be focussing on the quarterly rock”. But the other part of my brain was saying “It’s a super long weekend, you have plenty of time!”
In the end, it was the weekly deadline that made me have to get everything done. Thank the process for that!
THIS WEEK’S MODEL
Once again, as we close in on the end of a set of models, I have left the least inspiring of them until last. Neyam Shai Murud is an awesome model full of cool 40k details. She is a lady space pirate captain with a bladed peg leg, two ornate revolvers and servo skulls reloading her guns. Great stuff, and I got to use my new favourite colour, Sigvald Burgundy, again. So why did I find her less inspiring to paint than 30 year old cardboard buildings? Is it because I am a weirdo? Most likely.
It does feel great to have her done, and to now have the full roster of explorers and retinue characters done to a decent standard.
Perhaps the most interesting, if tiny, part of painting her was the dark skin tone. I went for a wraithbone base, wyldwood to set the shadows, steel legion drab to reset a mid tone, a glaze highlight of baneblade brown and a final highlight of karak stone. I was worried that these colours would be too chalky to read as flesh, but they really aren’t. I’m now really looking forward to using them on a model with a lot more exposed flesh!
THE VILLAGE OF VIEUX MARTEAU
Well this is what distracted me. If you remember from last week, I managed to get a really nice deal on the card and paper components from the 5th edition boxed set on a Facebook group last week. The seller even told me that I was saving the models and buildings from going in the bin!
So I spent a few hours over the weekend building them up, attaching them to plastic card, painting the bases green (Loren forest, would you believe, not Goblin Green!), adding sand to the bases, painting them up and adding some flock and grass tufts and photographing them.
I also built up a little higgledy piggledy Warhammer fence using coffee stirrers, which I am absolutely in love with. We are going to see quite a few more of these popping up over the next few months!
I have christened this little hamlet “The Village of Vieux Marteau” or “Oldhammer Village”. Maybe a battle needs to be fought here?
WARHAMMER FATHER CHRISTMAS
Speaking of battles, as you may remember, I still have my heart set on recreating the scenario from White Dwarf 204 featuring Bretonnians and Lizardmen from the starter set. In the scenario the Bretonnians are exactly the force that came in the box, so they are 100% ready.
The lizards, on the other hand, are a little under strength. Since the box was so lopsided, the lizards get full command in both of the saurus units, full command in one skink unit and a skink champion in the last unit. That is 10 new metal 90s models! I have been keeping an eye out for good deals on this models.
But then oldhammer legend and Warhammer Father Christmas himself, Emiel from Thanquol’s Lair surprised me with one of the command sets that I needed, for free! He would rather see them painted and used than sitting in his own backlog, which is a sentiment I can 100% relate to.
As you well know, I can’t get straight to painting these, as they are not quarterly rocks and there is plenty left to do before I get to them. However! Since they are gifts from an oldhammer legend, they do get popped to the top of the list and will either be the first things painted the next time I have a spare week, or they will be the first rock of next year.
Well, that’s enough jibber jabber out of me. I hope to see you all next week for some creepy old cultists.
Thanks, you’re good eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
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