You might not have spotted me due to my camouflage, but you have stumbled upon the latest weekly update to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly painting, accountability and productivity blog. Are we still on the high of new year, new project, new energy, or have 2006 moldlines started to drag us down? Read on!
SCORECARD
It’s T-Two Weeks till Instant Agency Tools goes offline, so let’s enjoy one of the last all in the green original scorecards.
What is there to report this week? Painting time was good, if a little broken up by a trip to Puffin Island (real place, not a joke). I got a really good start on the models this week, getting them to about 50% done by Saturday, then, as always, started slacking a bit without the pressure of the deadline and crept from 50% to 80% done from Sunday to Thursday, leaving myself with a bit of pressure to get the last 20% done on due day.
Will I ever learn? Or is this just the way my brain works? Even thought they are only about 90% done at the time of writing this, I have every confidence they will be done on time.
That puts progress at 30% by week three. With “only” 17 models left on the tray to do, it’s looking like this quarter is going to be a pretty easy home run in term of getting the goals done. He says, with hubris.
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
This week’s models are five Space Marine scouts pilfered from my furtive Conquest Ultramarines army.
I’ve talked about Conquest a few times before on the blog, but it was Hachette’s first foray into the world of selling you old GW stock by getting you to commit to a subscription charge. Not that I am bitter, in my new post-FOMO life. I collected the whole thing with the intention of playing along with the whole magazine like a complete beginner, only using the paints and steps that were introduced each week.
I got about 60% of the way there before giving up.
On of the things I really didn’t like about the 2010s era of Space Marines was the awkward transition from Space Marines to Primaris. Conquest is about 80% Primaris Marines (great) and 20% first borns (undersized, old fashioned, wonderful). That means I have a small collection fo early 2000s Space Marines that will all probably join this force over the next couple of years.
The Primaris Marines will probably stay Ultramarines.
These were surprisingly fun and characterful models to paint. I’ve been tempted by doing a squad of them as Blood Angels ever since Lost Patrol was released, but I’m really glad I went with Blood Raves. The scheme suits them so well, and it is a really nice balance of dark but rich red, warm black and the really cool one shoulderpads and chapter icon.
The faces are pure 2005 wonk, though.
I decided to give the sergeant a lovely white haircut as I think it really suits the rest of the scheme. It’s probably why the games always gave the big name characters white hair.
The Blood Ravens symbols are decals which have been painted over, giving a “best of both worlds” result, I think.
I do the shoulder pad with a coat of Wraithbone. This gets a wash with Skeleton Horde contrast paint. Once that is FULLY dry, the shoulder pad gets a single thick coat of contrast medium, straight from the pot.
The decal is then added with Microset and Microsol. When that has FULLY dried, I give it another coat of contrast medium, straight from the pot. Then, the whole thing, including the decal, gets another thin coat of skeleton horde, really merging the symbol into the scheme. When that is dry I use wraitbone and pure white to edge the pad and the symbol and add a few scratches to hide any visible edges. The reds and blacks then get painted up with the rest of the model.
Scouts were my favourite unit in the first Dawn of War game, before the expansion, since you could stealth them onto the enemies movement lanes and wallop them with way out of range Whirlwind tanks. Great stuff.
I guess the next tray of Blood Ravens will need a whirlwind? And a land speeder! Maybe some assault marines? A land raider? STOP IT MICK!
Well, I’m off to reprimand myself for getting carried away.
See you next week for some SPACE MARINES!
Best of eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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