Welcome back to week 3 of year 5 (omg) of Hammer the Backlog, the weekly mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. It’s been another fabulously productive, start-of-the-year energy week of backlog hammering, so let’s jump straight into it.
SCORECARD
Another week fully in the green, with 5 little men painted, and all other commitments met. It was a fairly uneventful week this week, overall. I suppose the most noteworthy thing was that, since these models really were in terrible, terrible condition, most of Saturday morning was spent stripping, searching for matching bits and rebuilding. Amazingly, I think they turned out just as good, if not better, than the first week’s batch. Barring a small issue or two here and there.
I suppose the biggest issue was getting low on left arms.I couldn’t find one in great condition, so the model holding the blade is actually two combined, making his arm look ever so slightly too short. I think it looks fine in the unit though.
So we are now at about 20% done on the Dark Eldar project, with two more units, 3 characters and a vehicle still to do.
In the meantime, I’ve also been taking a look at the rest of my collection for the project of cataloguing the backlog. I’ve managed to mentally pull together a nice little future tray that I’ve called “Space Weirdos”. I imagine this as being a tray of all of my assorted 40k oddities that might, hopefully, someday make up the dramatis personae of an in person Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader or Imperium Maledictum TTRGP campaign.
Can anyone come up with a cool little scenario that might involve this set up?
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So after a couple of hours of scrubbing off old paint and glue, and gently sanding off overly ambitious teenage kitbashes, I managed to pull together this motley crew of 5 pretty normal looking Dark Eldar warriors.
The painting was exactly the same as the first batch, but as this is now the third week of this scheme, it has gotten substantially faster. I reckon each model is about two hours now, which I am fairly happy with.
I would have loved a few more spikes and blades here and there, like the modern models, but the plastic technology really wasn’t up to it back in the mid nineties, so they remain bare like the last batch.
My favourite head of the bunch is 100% the one with the two enormous blades on the side. I went back and forth and painted one of these as having actual metal blades, but I preferred the burgundy in the end.
My favourite model of the bunch turned out to be the most normal guy with the derpy foolscap helmet and bladeless gun. The pose and weapon loadout turned out to make him look pretty much exactly like the Dark Eldar version of the old monopose Eldar Guardians. Nice.
Full squad done and added to the army. Can a 10 man (eldar?) unit have two heavy splinter cannons? Well, too late to do anything about it now!
YES, LORD CAPTAIN
Part of the reason that the space weirdos tray caught my attention this week was that I’ve been spending a decent amount of time playing the Rogue Trader CRPG by Owlcat. This is, in my opinion, the best Warhammer 40k game ever made. There are other strong 40k games, obviously. Dawn of War for example. But they are good battle games. This one represents the whole setting, the mysteries, the lore, the Imperium. It’s just so good.
You fly down to the planets in a little, poshed-up Arvus lighter. There are Valkyries everywhere on wartorn planets. Mechanicus priests being weird and annoying on your bridge. You start off fighting basic Chaos Cultists (that look just like the models) and work your way up to demons, Chaos Marines and Xenos. It’s flippin great.
I could be wrong, and there is a very good chance I’ve talked about this before, but I feel pretty sure that this was originally in development as a Blackstone Fortress game. The default player character is Janus Draik by any other name. Yrliet is Amelynn, pretty much exactly. The navigator houses use the exact model for Locarno. Footfall is a pirate haven on the edge of known space, built from a collection of asteroids and derelict ships strung together, just like Precipice. Does anyone know anyone who worked at Owlcat in about 2018 who could check? It feels like the score grew and the limitation of staying as a BSF game only was ditched for the grander score. I would still love a BSF game though.
Or even a BSF expansion for Rogue Trader. Owlcat? Anyone read this?
HAMMER THE FRONTLOG
Well gang, in an effort to fully replace me in everyone’s hearts, Jim has actually committed to getting his models done. He is going to Hammer the Frontlog i.e do what we all should have done from the start and only buy models when everything he has is already painted.
At just over a week since he bought them, his Shadowkeepers Custodes are coming along very nicely.
The black was Black Templar over a “slap-chop” (eugh). The red is a classic Flesh Tearers over grey. I “taught” jim to “glaze” last night in about 10 minutes. Let’s see if that sticks. The axe blades and gems are going to be the classic GW teal triad of Stegadon, Sotek and Temple Guard bleen. Don’t try to autocorrect bleen, Google, I’m making a point about GW not seeing a difference between blue and green.
Jim has actually had the temerity to create an Instagram page for Hammer the Frontlog. Go give him a follow to force him to stick to it.
https://www.instagram.com/hammer_the_frontlog
Well, that’s it from me for another week. See you next week for 4 all metal Incubi!
Best eggs!
Hammer the Backlog 
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