Welcome back, puss-filled rotbags, to Hammer the Backlog, the weekly mini painting, productivity and accountability blog. We’re already about a quarter of the way into quarter 2 of year five, and I’ve just put the finishing touches on the first full unit of models from the Warhammer Conquest collection I collected (collected is a euphemism for bought) more than eight years ago. As far as hammering the backlog goes, eight years ago is practically yesterday, but let’s not let that detract from progress.
SCORECARD
Good news, app progress is back on track. We are back up and running, and things breaking down last week was a good kick up the butt to get us going again.
That does mean that the numbers are a little bit messed up this week, since we missed a week. But everything went as planned, if not fully in the green. I “only” did two plague marines this week, as expected, counting them as 2 points each. So “only” four points in the models completed column. But that does get even out next week, with the last three plague marines counting for 6 points again.
I’ll be happy to move on to a couple of weeks of poxwalkers after that, as my enthusiasm and care for the plague marines did slip a little this week compared to last week.
SNITCHES GET STITCHES
Looking back for the exact dates for when I “collected” (bought) Conquest reminded me of what a funny experience it was. This was 2018, just about pre-pandemic times. Someone at Hachette Parkworks made the decision that Ireland should be included in their UK release of the magazine. I bet they lived to regret that decision.
The deliveries were a nightmare, often not showing up at all, apparently returned to sender by Royal Mail. When they did arrive, they arrived well after the issue had been in the newsagents, not before. Quite the opposite of the “advantages” you would think you would get by being a subscriber. Now, I knew these issues were due to Hatchette’s famously hit or miss distribution, and not GW. But Hatchette seemed to have outsourced their customer service to another company entirely, who could only tell me why things were not working, but seemingly not do anything to fix it.
So, knowing all that, here is the snivelling email I sent to GW customer service.
Dear Team,
I have been a customer, and more importantly fan, of your company’s products and worlds since the mid 90’s. In that time I have bought thousands of products. On the very rare occasion that a product or service wasn’t as expected your customer service team has gone above and beyond the call of duty to rectify the situation. I long believed GW to have the best approach to customer service of any retail company.
Last year I was very interested to see Warhammer Conquest on the Warhammer Community website and YouTube page. I eagerly signed up as a way to have a fun weekly challenge, keeping up with the painting of a weekly magazine and to try a ‘back to the very basics’ approach to painting.
The models, paints and background in the magazines is up to GW’s usual high standard. Unfortunately, I have found the service very disappointing. The last delivery I had was in February, of issues 22-26. Issue 36 is currently available in stores!
Further to this problem, it seems like the customer service for this magazine has been outsourced to a company called Jacklin Service. I’m not sure why Games Workshop chose this company, but their approach to dealing with my lack of issues can be essentially boiled down to ‘They will arrive when they arrive, nothing we can do about it’.
I suspect that the fact that these issues are being dealt with by another company means that there may be little to nothing that can be done, however I felt it was important enough that I wished to let you know.
Thank you very much for your understanding.
Kind regards,
Mick Leonard
Funnily enough, GW sent that directly to a Hatchette manager, who managed to solve the problem within a couple of days and get everything back on track. Ah, the power of snivelling. I imagine Hatchette’s distribution to Ireland is a lot better these days, anyone collecting (buying) any of the current GW/Hatchette partworks?
THIS WEEK’S MODELS
So, continuing on from the Conquest theme, this week’s models are two more of the lovely Plague Marines from that collection.
They are painted pretty much identically to the others so far. One thing I have found I don’t love is trying to paint the gross, bloated, dead heads that these guys sometimes use as grenades. You don’t want them to looktoo much like real faces, as what if seen of real dead bloated corpses (mercifully little) the faces can be almost unrecognisable as human faces unless you know what you are looking for. On the other hand, it’s always difficult to paint something as bloated and disgusting without it just looking like you’ve painted it badly.
Luckily, they are just unusual grenades, and shouldn’t detract from the focal point of the model, so a very rough and basic jobs works for me if it works for you.
That’s the unit up to seven now, Nurgle’s magic number. Not the original seven from the box, five of them and two of the easy to build sets.
Three left next week, for a full squad of ten, then into the trenches of 20 poxwalkers (to start with! I actually have 38 of them in my boxes).
No Hammer the Frontlog updates this week, as to quote Jim’s own words;
- I’ve been slow playing (painting the tank) for the codex
- Will aim to finish it by next weekend and I’ll decide on the next project following that.
He’s already got that modern 40k brainrot.
Well, best of eggs, see you next week for the last few Plague Marines.
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