[The Backlog Project was a January 2023 Otherverse Games and Hobbies community project. As such, you may happen across references to Otherverse and see its logos. The goal of the project was to dig into our respective piles of “shame”, select some yet-to-be started/unfinished projects, and see how much we could knock out in one months time.]
I Painted Some Things
When Robert proposed a Backlog Project for January, my thoughts were “I am already doing that…” and continued with Project Ultramar. But, Project Ultramar Phase Two changed pretty drastically. Where, once it was planned to be the second half of a 2k Zone Mortalis list, Phase Two mutated to begin preparing for a two-day Heresy event with the New England 30k group towards the end of February. As the month of January moved on, more and more gauntlets were thrown down resulting in my plans to bring more and more models to the narrative event. So, here I am, working on a different version of Phase Two, furiously charging forward into my Ultramarines backlog.
At the beginning of the month, I began work on ten Praetorian Breachers, the elite breacher squad unique to the Ultramarines with a resin assault squad, the Praetorian and Mk4 ultramarines upgrade kits, and some out of print resin torsos I sourced from eBay a while back: they were not cheap, but they look good. I also started 4 apothecaries at the same time and expected to get all 14 models finished that first week. Fail. Those fuckers have a lot of not-so-precise detail due to being a fairly old mold, and I struggled to get them done to a decent degree. I made it in the end, but much time was lost in the process.
I wanted to spend that week focusing on true backlog projects, models that had literally been on my painting table hoping to get a little painting love. Instead, after spending a frustrating week working on four Ultramarines Apothecaries, I needed to spend some time outside the hobby room. My wife and I started on a new living-room-painting-project; we dusted off the Deathwatch models under the cocktail table and I painted up a ten man Fortis Kill Team, an intercessor-based squad with some plasma tossed in, all with different chapter shoulder pads. I also got a limited edition Lieutenant that I ever-so-slightly altered with a deathwatch shoulder; I can’t remember what instance this model was sold for, but, I got it, and ignored it for a significant amount of time. I’m glad the hq and troop choice are done, and I look forward to painting more casually in the living room while the wife and I watch movies.
By that time the month was half over and I was arguing in my head over whether I should continue with those backlog models I picked out weeks before, or if I should get my ass moving again on Heresy Smurfs. The little blue guys won. I painted up the unique Heresy Ultramarine Terminator Praetor that I preordered and received on release, only to relegate to the shame pile, and while working on him (I named him Decimus, as I prepare for the narrative campaign I am joining), I also decided to finish up a model that I have been using in play for a while but never made it past tabletop standard. Constans, which is what I named my Chaplain with a Legatine Axe, is finally painted up to the minimum standard I expect of my Heresy models.
Decimus just seemed so lonely all by himself, so, next I moved onto his command squad. One banner bearer and four other cataphractii dudes with thunder hammers and combi-plasma later, and I had a full Proteus Land Raider worth of models. Now I just need a Proteus.
I found myself in my hobby room on my day off, as I am known to do. Turns out Robert was also at his desk; We both painted the Warhammer+ Assassin. I like mine better, but, don’t tell him I said that. Also, the Blade Champion that arrived a few days after release that had been built immediately and primed gold and left to populate the “paint me” pile in the middle of my painting table finally found some paint. Fun was had, with washes, drybrushes, a few highlights and a lightning pattern on not one, but two blades. I am back to “every custode I own is painted” which feels pretty good. This is, until I get some heresy Custodes. We all know it’s inevitable. But, wait, those two duders were in the plans for the month. Success. Minimal, but, success none-the-less.
For the end of the month, I decided that I would get the most done by picking up one of those squads that I had already started to “tabletop standard” which means I put some paint on them so I could use them some years past and never actually painted the models. Shit, the bases were just painted gray, no basing material. The white and gold details were so badly painted that they would need nearly as much work as if I had just started painting a primed model. On top of that, I have drastically changed my painting recipe for the ultrasmurfs. A coating of a contrast paint to up the intensity of the blue of their armor had to be applied between the other colors that I had previously rushed through. Yeah. Literally would have been faster to prime over them and start again, but, unfortunately I didn’t know that until after I was tediously updating them. In the end, the Locutarus Storm Squad is ready to go, updated, cleaned up and highlighted. With bases, too.
I moved onto some non-shame; I got a heresy land raider for Xmas from my family, and I bought another Proteus and a Sicaran to add to my planned February event army. I mean, those Ultramarines need a way to get across the Bridges that are being fabricated to fight across. I built them over the last week of the month, and even managed to do a little priming, so I can get the armor painted for the event. In the end I finished 45 models in January, all of which were dug out of my pile of shame. I even built a few models. I still didn’t paint the remaining Grey Knights. Or Gaunt and his ghosts for that matter.
Fuck it, I say. I found myself at the end of the month, just two nights remaining. not enough time to do a whole unit or whatever, but, still some precious time. I decided to dig out a small unit of heresy outriders. I got them from basic (ie ugly) tabletop standard to finished work in two nights. I mean, I literally finished them 20 minutes to midnight and managed to be in bed before February landed.
TAKE THAT JANUARY!
I Have to Paint More Models
Last year would have shaped up differently had my local store not waved a 40% savings in my face: I likely would have bought the models eventually, but how could I pass up that price. Same with the Bolt Action army; that was planned as my main non-Warhammer painting project for 2023. But, it happened already. I am sure a few things will come up but this is my plan for next 11 months.
The primary task for the first quarter will be Project Ultramar. This is several thousand points worth of Ultramarines that I am sitting on, and will get painted.
By finding my way into the New England 30k gaming group and being brought into the fold as an event organizer, work on my shame this year will benefit from both structure and deadlines. After the 2-day gaming event in February that I mentioned above, we have a Battlefeet Heresy event scheduled for April; I plan on 3d Printing and painting up a fleet for my Ultramarines, and hopefully, one for Kera’s Word Bearers.
June will bring a Heresy Aeuronautica Imperalis event; I have played the game before but I don’t even have the models to play the heresy version. Again, I expect at minimum an Ultramarines force, and hopefully one for the bearers of the Word.
Over the Summer I will finally get to a project I have been sitting on for years, something that has been on the “next project” plan many times. In August we will continue the narrative games with a full scale titan invasion thanks to Adeptus Titanicus, a game I have had since the launch but still haven’t built. Same can be said for the second starter set. I am really looking forward to the spelt out and time sensitive projects presented to me this year.
Oh, and I guess I may be doing a 24-hour paintathon with Ian. Anyway,…
Below, presented in some semblance of order, is a list of additional projects that I want to get done next year:
- I never got around to the 7 Grey Knight models in the January Backlog Project. That should be easy. By which I mean that should have been easy. The box has been sitting next to me since March
- Gaunt’s Ghosts have been attached to pill bottles since a few days after release, primed and ready to go. That should be easy as well… but, well, you know…
- I have felt daunted by the candy-apple red Thousand Sons in the Burning of Prospero box. But Contrast has been out for a while and I need to get a layer of red over the models that are already primed gold.
- I have been sitting on Space Hulk since they re-released it, like, a decade ago… I know, I suck.
- My random eBay purchase of Terminator: Genisys needs to get painted. Silver primer for the T-800s and some grey contrasts and weathering for the resistance soldiers should have them complete lickity-fuckin-quick.
- We (by which I mean also Kera) need to paint some boardgames to do some Let’s Play videos: namely Hellboy and Zombicide.
- I want to finish my Flesh-Eater court, as there is only a handful of models waiting
- Paint the entire Soulblight Gravelords army that I started with Cursed City, and posted in my 2021 article that I was ganna paint in 2023. And I need to finish the heroes in the Cursed City box as well. So we can play.
- Oh, and finish the Salamanders and Iron Hands ally detachments that are half-done so I can order the Raven Guard Ally Detachment models…
Oh, Wait. Fuck. I forgot that I have two full-sized Titans to build this year…
…sigh…
Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man