The Backlog

So I let really unacceptable ten days go without posting.  And today I do not have a "real" post either.

I have been letting the photo transfer process part of this bog me down.  Namely, I cannot get pictures from my phone to here as easily as I would like to.  It is a very trivial problem, and yet it persists.

I wanted to take some time today to discuss a very common hobby problem.  Namely:  the backlog.  I do not have any novel solutions to it, I think the ones that exist are fairly obvious, and yet I still get caught in it.  And so do many fellow hobbyists.

For those of you who are not hobbyists, or who do not play tabletop games, the backlog is when you buy more kits than you have time to paint.  For me, I find that I do this when a new release comes out that really excites me.  Even if I do not bake hobby time for that piece into my schedule.  It is, frankly, a waste of money and an inefficient use of time.  But I do it anyway.  Mostly because when I buy that new thing I always intend on making it my priority, then some future things comes along.

I started my tabletop wargaming hobby in early 2001 (I think it was 2001 anyway) with a single booster pack of Mage Knight figures.  Mage Knight, if you recall, was a click-base fantasy wargame (although, really more of a skirmish game) produce by the now Topps-consumed Wizkids.

Mage Knight figures came pre-painted, so I never had a "backlog."  Now, the quality of their paint jobs was just.... garbage.  But I was young and I did not really appreciate that.  They looked cool to me.  Some of them from that era still do, although that might just be nostalgia talking.

You could re-paint Mage knight figures.  I repainted some.  But anything you did not paint was not, by definition, unfinished.

I was introduced to Warhammer 40,000 by a friend in the fall of 2001.  He had just gotten into Blood Angels, and was easily able to interest me in playing.  I have always liked owning physical toys and representations of characters.

I wanted to play a very high-tech army, which in that era of 40k was not really a thing yet.  So I settled on Eldar, because although their theme was more "ancient," they at least had a polished look to them.  I bought a Phoenix Lord Fuegan (which is the same model today, except in "finecast" instead of metal) and primed him black.

I never progressed any further in painting Fuegan, because the next month the Tau came out.  And Tau were very much the army I was looking for.  High tech, optimistic and lots of battlesuits.  So I suppose then you could say that Fuegan was the beginning of my backlog.  But at least he was only one model.

During my teenage years I proceeded to collect four armies: Tau, Necrons, Space Marines and Bretonnians.  I had enough models for each of those forces, in theory, to field at least a basic army.

In practice, I only really painted enough Tau and Necrons to play.  And halfway through painting my Tau I switched paint schemes because I discovered that my initial black and yellow scheme was just too hard to do with my limited skills.  (Obviously, if you have read my other posts, you know by know that I have happily conquered black and yellow with my Legio Fureans Titans).

The Necrons got painted because the basic Necron scheme, especially in those days, was just unbelievably easy to paint.

Everything else I just... did not get around to before I quit playing late in high school to focus on attempting to date and applying to colleges.  So, while I think a lot of that backlog still exists in my parents' basement... I do not really count it as being a standing part of my current backlog.

That started when I re-entered the hobby in 2013 when I bought a Tau Riptide and Tau Commander the day of their release.  I mean, to be fair, those are both painted now.  Somehow I hammered out that commander in just under two months from start of build to finish while also working on the Riptide and relearning how to paint miniatures.

The Riptide took longer.  Much longer.  I would not finish it until March of 2017.  In the intervening years I worked on it and other projects.


Over that time my passions for different projects have waxed and waned.  I have some shining examples of completed work.  Apex Chelae (Acastus Knight Porphyrion) chief among them.  A healthy chunk of my Tau army is finished and my wife's (but you know... let's be honest... my) Adeptus Mechanicus Army is at a fieldable, if not finished state.

I am bound to complete the Warbringer Titan Romach Shel Raam.  Actually, I think this blog is a good piece of accountability for that.  And the same goes for my Titanicus Legios.

But for everything I am making progress on there is something that I built and never primed, or primed and never painted, or painted but never completed to a table ready state.  And when I buy something, that is never the intention.  But shiny objects capture my eye.

I think right now my solution is to be Titan focused this year.  To finish my Titans of all scales at the exclusion of nearly everything else.  (Although I would not mind closing out my extant Imperial Knight projects).

Hopefully one day everything will be painted, as it deserves to be.

Adeptus Titanicus: Legio Fureans Warlord and Reaver - Superstructure Basecoat

So I took a hiatus on displaying my Legio Fureans Titans during my wonderful (sarc) FedEx adventures with my Warbringer Titan.  But now - let us continue!

After priming my Titans, I split painting into two sections, as is customary.

The first bit, I do not have many pictures of, but it is the Titan superstructure, as follows:

I did not prime the superstructure with any Stynylrez Grey, only the black.  Following that, I airbrushed the superstructures of both Titans, and some of their weapons, with Vallejo Mecha Color Gunmetal.  Then, to help my wash flow into recesses better, I sprayed all of the aforementioned pieces with Vallejo Mecha Color Gloss Varnish.

A quick word on Mecha Color Gloss Varnish: I love it.  I just cannot get enough of it.  I have struggled and struggled to find varnishes that work well.  I do not like brush on varnishes because I feel like they lay unevenly.  I do not like spray can varnishes because, as I explained in my earlier Adeptus Titanicus post, the region where I live rarely has weather that facilitates spraying anything outside.  Period.  It is always too humid or too cold.  Other airbrush varnishes are either weak or clog my airbrush so much that spraying is an exercise in frustration.

Oh, and I need a varnish because I have the ability to rub paint off of anything.  Seriously.  Varnish is my best friend.

I follow that with a wash of Nuln Oil.  I apply it all over with a big shade brush, trying to keep it from pooling, occasionally using a paper towel or cotton swab to aid me.  Then, after that is quite dry, I drybrush a layer of Necron Compound over the whole deal.

The superstructure is fairly easy.  The technique brings out details and adds some character to the "metal" parts of the model, but it is not a high level technique, and it lacks a certain amount of finesse.  If I was really trying to compete in a masterclass painting competition, I would not do it.  Fortunately for me, I am not.  It looks pretty good and saves a lot of time.

Well, that about does it for this blog entry.

I feel like every post should have a picture, and seeing as I did not log my superstructure painting, I will, once again, post a picture of my current progress on my Warlord Titan.

P.S. - I am sure you noticed that I link to Competition Minis a lot when I talk about paints.  I am not affiliated with Competition Minis, nor do I receive any sort of compensation for mentioning them here on this blog.  I simply tend to do all of my paint shopping there because they have a great selection and they are sort of local to me.  Use them, do not use them, up to you.  But I just recall from reading blogs myself that I often wonder what paints painters are using and on occasion even saying the paint name leaves ambiguity.  This way, there is none.

Warbringer #000168

Good news!  My Warbringer Titan, after much tribulation, has arrived!

The Titan is number 168.  It will be part of my homebrew Legio Hashmallim, and its name will be רומח של רעם - Romach Shel Raam [pronounced ro'Makh shel ra'Am] (Spear of Thunder).  I have submitted it to the Titan Owners Club, and I hope that it will soon be accepted.

By the way, a BIG thank you to Morgan and David with the Games Workshop Customer Service team in the U.S.  There is no way I would have this without their diligence.  They stayed on top of FedEx and made sure that I got my Titan.  Absolutely top marks.

Here is a picture of all the boxes this came in:

For the record, the two red Titan boxes are the body and the white boxes (four of them) contain the head, two selections of arm weapons (in this case the Melta Cannon and Gatling Blaster), and the Quake Cannon (which comes in a box as big as the box for the Ta'Unar's whole body!).

A note on my weapon choices:  I selected the Melta Cannon and Gatling Blaster because I felt that their muzzle profiles looked the most substantial on the Warbringer's frame.  The best option for 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 is indisputably the Volcano Cannon, but I felt that its muzzle exacerbated the Warbringer's "T-Rex arm" silhouette.  See the right arm (so, your left) in the picture below:

 I may choose to grab some Volcanoes down the road, but I felt that I wanted the best display weapons for this "miniature," and that my opportunities to game with it will be so rare that having the best guns rules-wise was not very valuable if I liked the look of other choices better. 

That about wraps about the opening of my Warbringer saga.  Next up - Washing!  Wherein I copiously wash a tremendous amount of resin pieces.

Note:  The picture of the completed Legio Fureans Warbringer above is from Warhammer Community and is used without permission.  No challenge to Games Workshop's intellectual property is intended.

The Past Few Months: Adeptus Titanicus

I am still waiting for the arrival of my Warbringer Nemsis Titan, but FedEx tells me that it is "on the truck for delivery."  Of course this only makes me wish there was Sunday delivery.

While I wait, I thought that it would be good to start off with a little insight into the Adeptus Titanicus (AT2018) projects which I have been working on for the past several months. 

I really have quite a few AT2018 kits that I have been piling up in order to play what I think is the best game that Games Workshop has produced, rule wise, in quite some time.  I am probably a little biased, though, because AT2018 contains only the units I want to use, namely Titans and Knights (both mechs).  When I am playing 40k I constantly find myself fielding armies heavy on mechs (such as Imperial Knights and T'au), and the other units are frequently just sort of chaff to me.  Not that everyone should feel that way, just that I really like mechs. 

Over the summer I picked up two Grand Master edition boxes, followed up by six Reaver Titans, eight Warhounds, two Sunfury Plasma Annihilator equipped Warlords, and two boxes of Cerastus Knights.  The idea is to be able to field two full Legios, one loyalist and one traitor, so that I can dragoon friends and family into playing with me when no one else is around, or when my schedule does not permit me finding time to play outside the home (which, to date, has been pretty much the reality for me).

My loyalist Legio is still very much a work in progress.  It is a Legio of my creation - the Legio Hashmallim (Electric Angels) named after an order of Angels in Judaism responsible for, through its Greek translation "elektron," the name of electricity.  I am trying to find a suitably cyberpunk paint scheme for them that really stands out.  What I have to do is just paint some test cards and be done with it.  That, however, means airbrushing a bunch of note cards and it is just hard to get excited about doing it.  I want to get Titans on the table!

So what I have been working on is my traitor Legio - the Legio Fureans!  The Legio Fureans (Tiger Eyes) is a well establish canon Legio with a striking paint scheme.  There are a lot of other folks playing Fureans, so the Internet has a wealth of pictures to use for inspiration and guidance painting this scheme.

In order to get started I assembled and primed a Warlord Titan and a Reaver Titan, and magnetized them in order to swap their weapons.  I used Badger Stynylrez black primer run through a Badger Patriot 105 airbrush.  I do this for two reasons: 1) I like the finish it gives; and 2) priming from a rattle can is next to impossible in the Mid-Atlantic.  Seriously.  There are maybe two weeks out of the year where you can reasonably expect a good rattle can prime job here.  It is either too humid and the primer gets terribly fuzzy, or it is too cold and the primer congeals too fast. 

After the black primer, depending on the color scheme, I typically hit the miniature with a layer of Stynylrez Gray.  Usually this is at least partially zenithal (I aim the airbrush at an angle from above the miniature to hit mostly raised areas and areas that would naturally receive more light) and I try to leave recesses darker where possible.  For my two Fureans Titans I absolutely did this.  The yellow color scheme required a primer that was, at minimum, lighter than black.

Well, this has been a pretty big wall of text, so in the interests of my dinner and any potential reader actually reading this, I am going to end this here and pick up later.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my Titans in their current state: