Well hello there. Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. This week I fully recovered from my gastrointestinal distress of last week, and there was a bank holiday, so I got a lot done, and in good time too. Perhaps the biggest thing was that I played my first ever full game of Warhammer Fantasy, despite having owned the box since 1998!
Let’s get a move on by looking at the week’s scorecard, then taking a look at the painted models and finishing up with the overall state of the project.
SCORECARD
Another week of greens, thankfully. Thanks again to the bank holiday I managed to get 5 models fully painted, get all the photos taken and make some decent progress on the battle report rock.
The Wrath of Tlaxtlan rock is still lagging a little, but really I now just need one solid free day to get everything into the studio to film it. This rock has been a real wobble for the project, let’s be honest. The How to Play 5th edition video should have been uploaded a month ago and the Battle report video was due to be finished editing by next Thursday and I haven’t even recorded it yet! How did I let this happen? I really took my eye off the ball on this rock, which is especially surprising after how much I pushed on last quarter’s garage project.
On the other hand, the actual painting rock is coming along nicely. The five models painted this week brought the lost legion over into fully complete and got 3/12 of the Leopard Company painted, a solid 25%. I have no doubts that the painting rock for this quarter will be achieved.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
First up on the painting block this week were the last two of Pizarro’s Lost Legion. Two more Warhammer Fantasy conquistadors, the only difference this time being that a lot of the fiddly detail on the other models is covered by a rather fetching red poncho.
They were nice and easy to paint, with all of the paint recipes well established in my head and very little thinking required. One thing I did notice though, is that compared to my other models the very light bronze / yellow steel look was a bit lacking in contrast and detail.
Skeleton Horde is a very gentle yellow, little more than a wash really, so the final models, including the models from the last few weeks, looked a little washed out on the metallics. I decided to go back and fix this by adding a much darker yellow brown (in this case Snakebite Leather) into the deepest recesses. I’ll be going back and doing this for the others in the spare moments over the next few weeks.
The other models for this week were very interesting personally. I definitely fully painted Leopolds Leopard Company when I got them in the late 90’s. They were actually the first Dogs of War unit I bought, and are therefore pretty close to my heart.
At the time I painted them in exactly the scheme from the box, but with much, much less skill. So they wore full bronze plate armour, black pikes and had rather orange leopard heads. Sadly, no photos of that unit survive, if any were ever taken.
Then much later, but still decades ago, I saw this picture and thought they looked much cooler. With the gold and silver armour and the much paler yellow leopard skins, they looked much closer to their Roman inspiration. So I stripped them off and started repainting them. Being the hobby butterfly that I was back then, I got this far before getting distracted and moving on.
I was a much better painter by the time that I did this, and these guys don’t look half bad. Some of the back rankers could even fit in with my modern armies and painting standard if I don’t look too hard. This left me in the weird position of stripping off these decently painted models in order to repaint them slightly better!
Having said that, I am happy with how they turned out. They are definitely better than they were and it will be nice to have the entire unit painted to a good, coherent level.
My favourite bits are, and always will be, the leopard heads. The recipe is rather straightforward and fun to paint.
| Basecoat | Wraithbone |
| Contrast | Iyanden Yellow (a nice light yellow with orange in the recesses, like a real leopard) |
| Highlight | Wraithbone with a drop of Iyanden Yellow |
| Highlight | More Wraithbone, less Iyanden Yellow |
| Highlight | Wraithbone |
| Markings | Black Templar with a brush with a very very very good point (My W&N series 7 size 1) |
I’m very happy with how these are turning out, especially the leopard skins and white pants.
The white pants in particular are the biggest difference between my previous efforts to paint them up and this attempt.
I PLAYED WARHAMMER!
Well, I suppose it was inevitable? My very good friend and arch rival Dr. Coach Jamie McInerney called over and we played through the Wrath of Tlaxltan scenario from White Dwarf 204. We have played a fair few board and tabletop games over the years, but this was the first time that we played a successful Warhammer Fantasy Battles game from start to finish, relatively confident that we got the rules right.
Since this game is going to be the one that we adapt into the narrative battle report in a few weeks, I am not going to spoil the result, but I will treat you to a little gallery of the forces involved and a few in-progress shots, presented without context.
The whole game really was tremendous fun. I think I am starting to see the appeal in actually playing with my toy soldiers after all of these years! After making a big dumb tactical mistake, I’ve been running over how the game would have played out if I had done something differently. I’d also love to know how Dr. Coach Jim would have done it if we had switched forces and played again. Is that what people love about Warhammer?
WORKSPACE UPDATE
In other progress news, having a bank holiday break gave me the time to get my painting situation sorted out. Since I moved into the garage I have had all of my paints in a giant tool box. This is great for having everything in one place, but takes up a lot of shelf space and makes it difficult to just put your hand on a paint that you need.
I ordered these laser cut MDF paint stands a few weeks ago from Etsy, and after a bit of messing around with the post office they finally arrived. I decided to put them together with wood glue, spray them white to match the decor of the room and wall mount them.
They really weren’t designed to be attached together and wall mounted, I don’t think, so there is a bit of sag going on that I am battling with more nuts and bolts and wood glue, but overall I am very happy to final have a home for my paints.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Perhaps to no one’s great surprise, since I have returned to retro warhammer fantasy, Instagram growth has started back up a little. After almost completely stalling out, it looks like the Instagram account is going to finally hit 3,000 followers in the next few days! Hooray!
Well, thank you very much for reading this far
Hammer the Backlog 
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