Welcome back to what really is the home stretch of quarter 3 of year 3 of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly mini painting, accountability and productivity blog. It was a tough week of real life this week, but I managed to more or less hit the targets on the mini painting side of things, assuming that I am not counting my chickens before they hatch by writing this up before I have put the final touches on the models!
Let’s take a look, like every week, at the scorecard and this week’s models.
SCORECARD
Another green sweep this week, although there were a couple of niggles. As I’m typing this, the space marine is only about 75% done, so I’m assuming I’ll get a clear run of a couple of hours at him on Thursday evening to finish him off. He wasn’t a particularly challenging model to paint, to be honest. Although he is bigger than the standard marines, he has about the same amount of details, so he didn’t feel like a larger project in any way. I had also painted his base 10 years ago, so that was one less thing to do.
On the company of honour, I was in two minds whether or not to call the banner bearer “done” for the sake of the scorecard. Sure, I am going to spend the next two weeks painting the banner details on, but even in the state he is in now you could pretty happily pop him on a battlefield or in the background of an army photo. So, for the sake of keeping the scorecard green, he gets to count as done.
I’ll paint the front of the banner with the cool skeleton and slogan next week, and the back of the banner with an imperial cross the following week.
Only two weeks left in the quarter, with a Space Marine Librarian, Space Marine Sergeant, servo skull, teleport homer, four halberdiers and a banner left to paint? Can I do it?
Probably.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So the first of this week’s models are one more trooper for the company of honour, and the banner bearer. Both were painted exactly the same as the last few week’s models.
The banner bearer is not really, truly done, I suppose. Since in the end I want him to have the same banner as the art from the uniforms and heraldry book.
One good thing about the banner bearer, as well as the captain and musician, is that I was able to use mostly puffy sleeves for them. That means the front rank is going to be fairly puffy, which should tie the unit together nicely.
They are starting to look the part a bit more now with their full rank and a banner.
For Sci-fi this week it was Salamanders Terminator Garran Branatar. Sadly, another one with a covered head. HAving said that, with no skin to paint and with his base already done ten years ago, he was a surprisingly easy model to get done this week.
Look, Space Marines, I can take them or leave them. Especially space marines with black armour, after painting Black Legion and Deathwing over the last two years. My two favourite things in Warhammer 40k are exploring the depths of space and what horrors might be out there (hence Space Hulk) and what I’ve heard referred to as domestic 40k. What is happening with normal people on hive worlds and on mining planets. What sort of insidious cults and fouls secrets are hiding behind the lives of day to day citizens.
With these two things in mind, what really excited me about Deathwatch Overkill when it was announced was the Genestealer cult models and the setting. The cultists are normal men (more or less. Ok, less) in tatty mining suits that look like 50s sci-fi space suits. Gorgeous. Love it. This was before the rebirth of Necromunda, which has hundreds of models that scratch the same itch for me.
I also loved the board tiles. So much so that we used them in our game of Dark Heresy, the 40k tabletop roleplaying game.
So it always bothered me that the official models for this set ignored the setting and had the deathwatch and cultist models on brown battlefield bases. In hindsight, it was clearly because both forces were the vanguard of upcoming full armies, but that still didn’t sit right with me.
So one of the things I was most excited about doing with this set was to get everyone based up appropriately, and this guy was my initial test. Sadly, the recipe I used has been lost to the warp. Fitting, in the end.
SOCIAL MEDIA
It feels like it’s been a while since I covered anything to do with the non-painting stuff on the blog here, probably because we don’t have a non-painting rock this quarter. Well, it turns out that when you take your eye off of something, it doesn’t always go down hill!
The much neglected Youtube channel hit 2,000 subscribers this week! Check it out if you want the same as this, but in video instead of words.
Best of eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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