Welcome back to the real back nine (seven, I suppose, if we’re being literal) of the first year of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, productivity and accountability blog, where I paint minis, organise projects and generally try to stop myself from hoarding more stuff than I could deal with in a lifetime. This week saw good progress on painting, plenty of work on other projects and several new avenues to explore hoarding shit that isn’t necessarily miniatures. Only 6 more weeks to go to the end of year 1! Will I get everything I set out to do, done? Will I fall by the wayside like so many other project blogs? There is only one way to find out!
By reading this every week. That’s the way to find out. Or you could send me a text or whatever. Corner me at a party and ask me about Hammer the Backlog. Whatever suits yourself.
SCORECARD
Well well well, another week in the green, with some nice little boxes ticked.
First of all, one of the main targets of the quarter: Get Escalation painted, photographed and online; is now complete. At a total of 35 Hammer the Backlog points worth of painting, that is the biggest single painting target of this, rather bitty, quarter in the bag.
The garage / workshop conversion project also continued apace, with plenty of progress there too.
Overall a very productive and low stress week, with everything done in plenty of time. The kind of week where you feel you don’t need a productivity system to keep yourself on track, an especially good feeling after a few weeks of slog and skin-of-the-teeth hitting targets.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
That is Blackstone Fortress Escalation in the bag folks. This week’s models were the Cultist Firebrand and the last two basic cultists.
With the Firebrand being the ‘Big Bad’ of the expansion and a bigger and more complex model, I assigned him 3 Hammer the Backlog points, with each of the smaller lads being one point each. He wasn’t that much of a challenge to paint, really, other than the fact he was like painting three separate models. His hood is so complex and enclosing that I had to paint that first, then paint his big shiny head without ruining the inside of the hood, then paint the outside of the hood and move on to the rest of the body without ruining his big shiny head.
I used some of the techniques I’ve seen from Juan Hidalgo recently to paint his head. I layered blue paint on his jaw area, red around his mouth, eyes and cheeks and yellow on his shiny dome before layering over everything with contrast Guilleman Flesh. It gives a very nice complexity of undertones with relatively little work on layering.
I’m not a huge fan of painting non-solid effects on models as solid pieces. It is a real indulgence of the modern era to have such a large flowing flame. I would rather imagine the flames, personally, instead of having them represented in plastic. I was very tempted to clip the flame effect off, but since I had painted it on Pious Vorne, I decided to keep it for consistency.
The other two lads were much more straightforward, being largely the same colour schemes as their compatriots, just with slightly mixed up skin recipes.
Looking at this gang all together, with 4 explorers, a retinue character, a full unit of cultists with a sergeant and a villain character, is it any wonder that people were disappointed with Ascension when it came out and only had two mid-sized monsters in it?
WORKING ON THE BUILDINGS
A lot of progress on the buildings this week. Not only are the new doors in, but the panel lights are also in place and the floor covering is ordered! Phew! I was worried that it was getting a little bit tight to get all of the structural stuff done in time to be able to order the shelving and workbenches before the June 8th deadline, but at this stage it is looking like everything will not only be in place, it might also be painted and finished.
It’s a bank holiday this weekend in Ireland, so the plan is to get the last of the slabs in place and drill out the hole for the extractor fan.
WHAT REMAINS
At the exact halfway point of the last quarter of the year, I think it is worth having a quick look at what is left to do. I have three expansions left, No Respite, Deadly Alliance and Ascension.
No Respite is already half finished. I had painted up the three Death Guard plague marines to a nice standard a few months before I started the Hammer the Backlog project. There are 6 Pox Walkers remaining from that set. Although I don’t like to stretch too much and hurt my motivation, I think I would prefer to batch paint the six of them, rather than doing five this week and having a straggler. The only thing is, they don’t look great for batch painting! Sure, they are all gross zombies, but they each have unique outfits and growths and protrusions. Still, with the Bank Holiday this weekend, I can probably knock off all of No Respite in one week.
That leaves the Zoat from Deadly Alliance. He should be a fun one-week project.
Finally the two Guardian Drones from Ascension. I have them down for a week each. Looking at them, if I want them to be consistent looking, I will probably have to do both of them at the same time so the blending is the same. Will I be able to knock both out in one week? Or will I have one week with nothing to show and then 10 points the following week?
Either way, that leaves me with
Week 8: No Respite
Week 9: Deadly Alliance
Week 10/11: Ascension
That will give either two or three weeks for Bits and Bobs! How bloody exciting!
Here, for the sake of my own memory as much as anything else, are some of the contenders for the Bits and Bobs week, with the number of HtB points they are worth. Maybe the Blood Bowl guys would be better off being a mini rock next year?
| Grail Knight | 5 |
| Grail Knight | 5 |
| 3rd Edition Human Blood Bowl Team | 12 |
| 3rd Edition Orc Blood Bowl Team | 12 |
| 1 rank of Monopose Elf Spearmen | 5 |
| Finish Wood Elves | 2 |
| Saurus Warrior Command Group | 5 |
| Chaos Minotaur | 1 |
| 1 rank of Monopose Skaven | 5 |
Of course, there are hundreds more little mini projects that I would love to do, but these are the ones that are currently vying for my attention the most.
Well, I hope you can feel the excitement in my writing again! Nothing more thrilling than getting to dive into the pile of potential!
Thanks for reading this far. See you all, I hope, next week.
Best eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
Leave a Reply