The Battle to Stay Ahead

Like me you've probably got a backlog list of projects as long as your arm if not longer, but how do you combat the pile of miniature goodness that you refuse to acknowledge the cost of. Do you cut your spending until you've finished everything or to you ration out your project one by one hoping not to get swamped by the tidal wave of plastic and white metal.

For this article I asked the members of the Doom Room how they tackle their backlogs and after the horrified looks on their faces faded, I got some answers.

Sero - I aim to keep painting as often as I can, hitting a new project as quickly as I finish the last one. My Hobby spending has fallen in recent months so I'm able to pick up the pace on completing minis. Changing the project type helps keep it fresh, when I finish a marine squad I tend to look for something different whether that's a fantasy Nurgle lord or currently a character for  Dungeon Explorer. What I came away with from Salute this year is that the range of miniatures is growing at such a rate with the Halo, Doctor Who, Labyrinth and Dark Souls miniature games on the way I'm destined to always have a few kits ready to go next to my workbench.

LongBeard - When asked about his Backlog pile Longbeard said it is for when he old and has nothing else to do, when asked aren't you already old and have nothing else to do? He ran off into his man cave and played music very loudly and started searching for his Mordhelm Kislev bear handler, I assume, as some form of coping mechanism.

 

Nyx -I don't think I'll ever get though my backlog pile. I know exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it, but I always get to the build and prime stage and the enormity of the task puts me off. My entire Necron army, entire Nid army and a ton of Flesh Tearers are sitting at the primed stage. I think my mistake is I get build happy, build all the models and then get hacked off with it. Good intentions to batch paint disappear in the realisation you have to do 120 of them. When I do my 'not painting like a newbie' any more Vampire Counts, I'm building one small thing at a time and not going forward until it's painted. Batch painting works but it kills hobby joy.

Elvirith - I recently moved house and found that my backlog pile filled half a transit van. Pretty daunting really. I've decided to try and curb my spending (realistically it won't happen but we can all dream) and just chip away at it a mini/squad at a time. Like Nyx I find when I build and prime a whole project I just quit and move onto the next shiny toy. So I think the key is to pace myself and leave my bank card in an unknown location.

Bubo - I find it hard to get the motivation to start a project but once I start I can usually batch paint without too much trouble. Luckily the Summer is all mine and I intend to work as much as possible in the free time I have coming up.

  

Mörkö - Mörkö's first answer was that he plans to live forever, thus giving him ample time to work through it. But he has come to the inevitable conclusion that there always will be a Backlog pile. It also depends on what you want from the end result with models such has horde armies like Tyranids you can batch paint quickly and easily, making the backlog less daunting.

Conclusion

What I've learned from the other members of the group is that there'll always be a new shiny miniature and exciting project on the horizon and because of this there's always going to be a backlog. But that's OK! Collecting is also a massive part of hobbying. There's always going to be times where you have to bite the bullet and work through the slog of bulk miniature painting but balanced on that is the joy of HQ and Character painting and that Glorious feeling of finishing a project or fielding a full painted army.