Quarter 3 Week 1 Update: Sick as a Christmas Pig!

Please excuse the coughing, I think I am literally dying with the flu.  Welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly Warhammer mini painting, accountability and productivity blog, where this week we are getting a start on quarter 3 of year 3 of the project! As with every other time, a new quarter brings new rocks, targets that are set at the start of the quarter that I must adhere to, come hell, high water or the worst dose of the dreaded lurgy.

Hammer the Backlog is all about me using the methodology of running a small to medium size business to keep myself productive and accountable. That basically breaks down into three main parts. Firstly, I have a weekly scorecard which keeps track of the health of the project. Green means things are going well, red shows that things might be slipping.

The second thing is the Rocks themselves. I usually have between 2 and 4 Rocks per quarter. The rocks are set in stone, be all and end all targets for the quarter. If nothing else happens in the quarter, but I get the rocks done, then the quarter is a success. I have to be very careful to make sure, therefore, that the rocks are SMART every quarter.

The final thing is the weekly meeting. The weekly meeting is where I check in on the scorecard, check the progress on the rocks, deal with any problems that have popped up, and then write the whole thing out and present it to you, the beautiful readers, as a blog.

SCORECARD

Not a great start to the new quarter this week, what with the double whammy of Christmas celebrations and getting absolutely walloped by a winter flu. I’ve spent more time asleep over the last week that I have awake. 

I did manage to make a start on the first two of my Bretonnian men, relishing in the fun of getting them from bare metal to nearly done in a single evening of painting. The joy of this ease of progress after 3 months of elves can’t be understanded. But then the lurgy kicked in and I didn’t have the energy to even think about going into the laboratoire, let alone do anty painting. It’s a miracle I’m even typing this, to be honest. 

Everything else progressed as expected with all other commitments met.

Let’s move on and take a look at this Quarter’s new rocks.

NEW TARGETS

Since I had the first quarter review and second quarter target setting session last weekend, I already know what this quarter’s targets are going to be.

1. 11 Deathwatch Overkill Marines painted, photographed and online
2. Bretonnian Men-at-arms painted, photographed and online.
3. Company of Honour painted, photographed and online

All four targets have the completion date of Thursday13th March 2025! 

Remembering that all of our targets must be SMART:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Timebound

Let’s take a look at the targets!

Specific – Kill Team Cassius, from deathwatch overkill, 11 plastic models

Measurable – photographed and online

Achievable – 35 Hammer the Backlog Points (History shows I can do 65 in a quarter!)

Relevant – It’s a blog about painting models!

Timebound – by the 13th of March 2025

If this isn’t your first Hammer the Backlog rodeo, you’ll notice that this is a slightly strange quarter, being almost 50/50 fantasy and sci-fi, and with a relatively small number of models on the sci fi side, taking up more of the points.

This is because I am going to be treating each of the Kill team Cassius members as mini characters, doing one a week, and breaking up the monotony of 12 weeks of painting black armour with two fantasy models each week.

THE RED DUKE’S REVENGE

The big meta target of last quarter was to get my follow up battle report for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 5th edition played, filmed, edited and uploaded. I decided to save the premiere day for sometime over the Christmas break, so I uploaded it on Christmas Eve. A big thank you to all of you who have already watched it and left comments! If you haven’t, give it a look here.

That is more or less it from me this week! See you next year.

 You’re good eggs!