Welcome back to the the last, the final, the ultimate quarterly update for quarter 4 of year 1 of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, accountability and productivity blog that uses the concept of an ‘operating system’ to force me to stay on track and spend the next few years getting my 25 years of accumulated mini figures painted to a level that I am happy to have on display.
An incredibly busy week this week, as it was the last week of the last quarter of the year.
Join me this week as I take a look at quarter 4 in all of its glory, then come back next Thursday for a review of Year 1 as a whole, and the planning session for year 2.
SCORECARD
Wow, that was a busy week! Real skin of the teeth stuff again this week. Doing up the garage as a work and storage space has been a huge part of this quarter and taken up a lot of my free time. In fact, I think the only free time activities I’ve really done these last three months have been painting and doing up the garage.
Still, I managed not only to keep everything in the green, including getting 5 points worth of models painted, but I also managed to get the final rock for this quarter, and the year, ticked off as complete. Here, have a satisfying table to look at!
The other reason that this week was so busy was that I started the process of filming the year 1 review and the year 2 planning videos. I have not learned an efficient workflow for doing these videos yet. I don’t think that two 15 minute videos should take me 6 hours to film. Yet, they did! I’ll be spending the next week editing them into sometime watchable, so with next week being the year 1 review and year 2 planning session, there might not be a scorecard or even any models painted next week! Can you imagine?
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
This week’s models are the first of my motley collection of Warhammer Fantasy Battles 5th edition Lizardmen command group figures. I counted the drummer a 1 hammer the backlog point, and the champion and standard bearer as 2 each, since their headdresses and banner poles etc took a lot more effort than a normal trouper.
These three were sent to me by the Father Christmas of WFB Emiel, aka thanquols.lair on Instagram. Check him out here https://www.instagram.com/thanquols.lair/.
As these guys are joining one of my existing units of Saurus Warriors, they got painted up exactly like the darker skinned Saurus Warriors I did for quarter 2. I even used the basic shield colour schemes of red, green, yellow and black with the metallics done in the same polished bronze colour.
I do have another command set to do, which I hope to be able to squeeze in next year, this time in the lighter green colour scheme of my first set of Saurus Warrior to maximise the mixy matchy potential. In fact, I think I just named this champion; Mixi Matzi.
THIS QUARTER’S MODELS
So with this lizardman command group done as a little side project, another quarter of successful mini painting is done.
I managed to get all of the second half of my Blackstone Fortress collection painted. Here are the pictures of the whole set, most of which you have already seen over the past few months if you have been following along.
The surprise highlights of the quarter for me were the poxwalkers. I have so many of these little buggers lying around from the starter set, from conquest magazine etc. Painting them was the most enjoyable and memorable part of the quarter, at least until this week’s lizardmen, who I loved.
WORKING ON THE BUILDINGS
The hardest work this quarter was getting the storeroom and workspace done, by a long margin. It really was an interesting learning experience in project management, expectations and deadlines. In fact I put the final touches on the skirting boards and built the shelves and workbench yesterday evening, one day before the deadline.
If it weren’t for the deadline, this definitely wouldn’t have happened, that’s for damned sure. Here’s a little before and after of the garage as it was at the start and where it is now.
Some of the highlights were Jim and Shane coming over for two evenings of slabbing, drilling and warm boarding, multiple trips to the builders merchant in my long suffering brother’s white van and putting the finishing touches on it last night with my lovely lady friend.
Although this won’t be exclusively a hobby space (it will also be our general home store room), it will be amazing to have somewhere to put completed models safely, as well as a place to have my 3D printer and resin curing machine, my airbrush, a cutting mat, a paint rack etc.
Looking at this years output of hammer the backlog, a Bretonnian army, A Lizardmen army, the entire Blackstone Fortress collection, as well as my old 3rd/4th/5th edition Warhammer 40k Black Legion army and my childhood box of shame so neatly and safely organised into such a small space, while still having plenty of room for more units in each of the boxes, fills me with the giddy joy of the frustrated organiser.
SOCIAL MEDIA
A bit of a disappointing end to the first year of Hammer the Backlog on social media, with the current Instagram total of about 2,800. I had hoped for 3,000 by the end of the first year, but to be honest I haven’t been trying to grow it with the garage project taking up so much of my time this quarter. Next year might give more of a chance to try to grow the online presence a little bit.
Well, that is more than enough out of me this week. Please do join me next week for a very special update, the year 1 annual review and year 2 planning session.
What do you think, dear reader, the year two targets should be? Any guesses as to what might make it on to the trays for this next year?
Thanks again for stocking with me this far, it must be because you are good eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
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