Hello and welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. We’re back on solid ground after last week’s disruption, so thank you very much for coming back. Let’s run through our normal week of Hammer the Backlog, taking a look at the weekly scorecard, progress on the quarterly targets and this week’s models and issues. Let’s do it.
SCORECARD
Uh-oh. No models finished this week is a pretty big red in the ledger, I have to admit. And since I have only been using this temporary excel method of tracking progress for a month, it has also dragged the average models painted into the red!
Everything is not as grim as it seems though, since I decided to treat the terminator squad as a two-week, ten point project, rather than dividing them into two one week and three the following week. It does mean that I don’t have any finished models to share this week, but on the other hand, the final squad will come together at the same time and to the same standard, keeping everything nice and coherent.
With these models done next week, week 9, that leaves weeks 10,11,12 and 13 to go and only a predator tank left to go. I originally thought the predator would take three weeks, but honestly having done the dreadnought with the spray cans and airbrush, I think I’ll get it done in two at most, maybe even one. If I have three weeks left over, what do I do? Expend this force with one more unit? I have:
5 scouts with sniper rifles and missile launcher
3 bikers and attack bike
5 sternguard veterans
10 legion of the damned
Landspeeder Typhoon
Or do I take a break from Blood Raven entirely and paint some random bits and bobs? Oh, the freedoms offered by a project ahead of plan!
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So, they might not be finished, but that doesn’t mean that I have nothing to say about the five assaults on black reach terminators.
These lads were originally straight out of the 2008 box set, but I took a notion to convert them to Ravenwing for use in Space Hulk instead of leaving them as basic marines. In fact, thinking back, that might have even been why I originally bought this whole set!
With each of them having a couple of dark angels bits, I have decided that they are actually terminator squad 1 of the first company of the blood ravens, recently returned from a campaign with the Angels of Absolution chapter. The Angels of Absolution were so impressed by the courage and dedication of the Blood Ravens that they honoured them with several relics of their chapter, including a power sword and a venerable assault cannon. The Blood Ravens now carry them with great honour.
I’ve been wrestling with how to paint my veterans over the last couple of weeks. In Dawn of War one, all terminators had red helms and a single bone shoulder pad, with black power fists and gold crux shoulder pads. As we know, this is not very codex compliant of them. The codex astartes says that veterans of the first company wear white helmets and have white shoulder trim.
Dawn or War two kind of addressed this by having them with cream helmets. I guess the cream could be seen as an off white. Later, more modern GW confused the issue even further by actually having veterans with bone white pauldrons and pure white helmets.
So without a single, clear answer I decided to go back to the original plan, like I did with the scouts, and go 100% Dawn of War 1. This pushes the issue of veterans and sergeants’ helmet colours down the road a little, but I can just do what the game did and not have sergeants wear helmets at all!
The transfer sheets I got for the Bloor Ravens have a slightly bigger raven icon that fills up the terminator pads beautifully.
Really looking forward to getting these lads done next week.
PEOPLE LIKE BLOOD RAVENS
So in the course of trying to solve the helmet dilemma, I’ve been scouring the internet for sources and opinions on Blood Ravens and have found a number of really cool subreddit communities, including r/bloodravens40k, r/midhammer40k and r/firstbornspacemarines.
In fact, this post on r/bloodravens40k, might be my most popular reddit post of all time.
Even more mad, instagram growth and reactions are at their highest in months. Long term readers will know that instagram growth is usually at its highest when I am doing some classic fantasy, and its lowest when I do 40. Well, the Blood Ravens seem to be the exception to that long held belief.
Well, I have 5 marines to finish off before next week. Thank good nothing strange or exciting is happening over the next few months to break my rhythm!
Oh no!
Best eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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