Hi there. Welcome (or welcome back) to Hammer the Backlog. My name is Mick and I am using a productivity and accountability “operating system” to get more than 25 years of collected and neglected sci-fi, fantasy and other tabletop wargaming miniatures from bare to painted before my hands fall off. Each week I commit to getting 10 Hammer the Backlog points (or about 10 to 15 hours of real life currency) painted, photographed and online, while working towards quarterly targets, like getting a complete boxed set painted.
Then, each Thursday, I have a one-person meeting in which I update my progress with a small-business like scorecard, and write the whole thing up for you all to see!
Despite nearly 25 years of Warhammering, I had an odd realisation this week. I have only painted one standard mark VII space marine in all that time! Let’s see if that’s changed this week!
SCORECARD
Finally! The green has come back to the scorecard! It was a pretty smooth week this week, despite the actual models being much closer to 15 hours than 10. Working with such small numbers doesn’t leave a lot of space for granularity, so each of these marines with all of their edge highlighting counted as one point, the same as a nice simple skink. It’s probably better that way though, with more focus therefore on getting them done. Some weeks will be busier with painting, others will have more time to do other things!
I got back on track on the social media side two, managing to find a little niche to post in on Reddit. You might have heard of it, it’s called r/Warhammer40k.
As per semi-usual, I’m actually writing this before the models are 100% finished, to give myself time to get them done. Let’s assume future Mick hasn’t had something mad happen and everything has gone swimmingly.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So this week’s models are the first five normal space marines from the Dark Vengeance boxed set. Unlike some of the earlier 40k boxed sets, these are very clearly intended to be a specific chapter of space marines, in this case, the Dark Angels.
Hilariously, I realised while painting these that they are the first full squad of normal tactical marines I have painted despite being close to 30 years in this hobby. Isn’t that wild? I have, of course, painted nearly two armies of Chaos Space marines. And a couple of Space Marine characters. I even have half of a primaris army to about 70% painted.
But, start to finish, fully painted, tactical marines? Just Bob here. And now his five Dark Angels friends. I decided not to do their knee pads and squad numbers just yet. I haven’t quite decided who exactly these guys are and what company they are from, so I’m going to wait for clarity on that.
They were quite a bit more fun to paint than I thought they were going to be. I was dreading painting the armour, trying to get a smooth contrast coat and then all of that edge highlighting. It was a lot of work in the end and at times it felt like I was making no progress whatsoever. But! The cool thing about these guys is that once all that green is done, the model is pretty much done too. Unlike with chaos marines they are not covered in trim and gribbly bits. Only a few touches of other colours to get them done.
I guess this is a combat squad now. Four normal marines and a special weapon. That leaves 3 normal marines, a heavy weapon and a sergeant for next week.
I’m thinking of painting up some of the weapons on the next batch slightly differently. I like the idea of space marine armouring being a little bit random and personalised, rather than the full on uniformity of the primaris line. Maybe a black boltgun, or one with hazard stripes?
For the interested, here is the recipe for the green.
| Undercoat | Grey Seer Spray |
| Contrast | Warp Lightning |
| Contrast | Dark Angel’s Green |
| Edge Highlight | Warpstone Glow |
| Fine Edge Highlight | Moot Green |
| Dot highlight | Moot Green / Gauss Blaster Green |
WHAT IS MODERN?
I posted my Deathwing around social media this week with the question “What is the line in the sand for you in considering something “Modern” 40k?”. There were some very interesting discussions, particularly on reddit.
I have come down on this of these guys as the last gasp of the middle hammer era. They are from the very start of the CAD era of Games Workshop models, those tentative steps into computers doing a lot of the work that used to be done by hand, and you can see it. They have undercut solutions that only a computer could have come up with.
The deathwing from last week and the tacticals from this week are a stark contrast. The deathwing are almost modern, dynamic poses, high detail, individual characters. These tacticals on the other hand very much have their foot in the past. They basically used modern computer technology to make 1998 space marines, with almost no changes!
Well that’s it from me for another week.
I hope to see you back here in 7 days for 5 more Dark Angels!
You are the best eggs.
Hammer the Backlog 
Leave a comment