Hello and welcome back to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. Last week, at only 10 weeks into quarter 1 of year 5, I finished all of my existing Dark Eldar collection, leaving me with a luxurious 3 weeks left in the quarter with no pressing models to paint. When we last spoke, I was making a mental list (as in, a list in my mind, not a bonkers crazy list) of potential candidates for this sumptuous extra time. What did I settle on? And did I get it done? Only one way to find out! (I know that you already know because this week’s models are the featured image, but leave a man to have his rhetoric).
SCORECARD
All in the green this week, with 5 models finished and no major hold ups. I did have to pop into a hobby store and buy some red paints as Jim has stolen all of mine for blending his cloaks and dragon. More on that later. In fact, I told Jim it was fine and then realised it wasn’t. And then I didn’t tell him and just bought replacements. And this is probably how he is going to find out. You, dear reader, don’t know just how annoyed that is going to make him. But trust me, it’s delicious.
With the rest of the time I had left over from not painting Dark Eldar, it was into the studio to film the next quarterly review video and planning session. It’s going to be weird sitting on a finished video for nearly three weeks!
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So in the end, this week’s models are five of the 4th edition mono pose High Elves, painted up exactly like I did with my 8th edition models from Island of Blood.
I’m very happy with how these have turned out, but they are one of those cases where I’m happier with how they look in person than in photos. I think it might be time to upgrade to a proper camera soon, rather than relying on the rather fickle AI that seems to live inside my phone. At least then I could get consistent (consistently bad?) photos.
These models have kind of an interesting history, which touch on a few of my areas of special interest around retro models.
I bought them after Island of Blood came out, in big batches, for a couple of cents per model. Some of them were painted, some were basecoated, some were converted, some were practically brand new. I bought four or five ebay lots for next to nothing. The reason I bought so many was that I wanted their shields. You see, the metal prince that was released with the IoB set had the classic High Elf starburst on his shield. And I wanted a “house-guard” unit to go with him with matching shields.
Now, you can make the starburst with the multipart plastic spearmen, which were current at the time. And amazingly, still are. But they are far too thick and chunky. The older ones were much slimmer and more elegant. So, even though you only got 1 starburst per six models, I bought enough plastic elves to get twenty of them. Amazingly, that’s how cheap “oldhammer” plastics were back in 2010. Literally cents per model.
Of course, time has shown that these models, who were destined for the bin, are actually much nicer than the multipart plastics. Sure they are shorter and less detailed, and completely monoposed. But they are much better proportioned in the head and hands and have this awesome, noble stance.
So I decided to give them their shields back and paint up the first five from Lothern. I think I am going to keep this as an ongoing side project, and add small blocks to an overall “militia” unit. Five blue guys with sea-dragon shields. Five red guys with phoenix shields. Five green guys with dragon shields, and so on.
HAMMER THE FRONTLOG
Aka, Jim’s been coming to my house and stealing my paints.
Jim threw a real spanner in the works this week by buying not one character, like he told me he was going to, but two. He can be tricky like that.
Can you see the plastic crack addiction seeping in, dear reader?
He decided to paint Inquisitor Bald Lady more or less like the box art, but with the little eldar dragon thing matching the red of his army and her cape and gorget matching the blue.
He also treated himself to a Trajann Valoris. He took the (bold?) step of painting him in classic Custodes colours rather than matching the shadowkeepers look of the rest of his army.
I feel this makes sense for the overall leader of the Custodes, but I don’t know their lore and I am too old and tired to learn at this point.
Well lookit, that’s all from me for another week. I’m not going to bother typing up the same final paragraph as last week, so let me copy paste it here.
I’d rather not paint up anything that would be better suited to being on a tray for a quarterly target. Having said that, I do have some ambition to do something a bit different with my upcoming Death Guard, and I have a whole second set of Death Guard models that aren’t on this year’s tray? Maybe I could paint up a couple of Plague Marines or Terminiatores to get the scheme nailed down before the quarter kicks off?
The other options are to paint up my last remaining grail knight for my bretonnian collection. I was super excited to get the brand new in box set of three grail knights all the way back in year one, so it probably really is his time?
I also have a handful of second edition Chaos Marines for my Iron Warriors that would be nice to get ticked off the list. Or go completely wild and paint up a rank of 3rd edition monopose High Elf spearmen? That could be super fun.
What about my recently added box of Palanite Enforcers? That’s 10 models that could be painted up over two weeks that would be really exciting? But would it be stealing from my potential future “Space Weirdos” tray?
Best eggs! See you next week!
Hammer the Backlog 
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