Great War Miniatures and 1st Corps: Some British supporting units

After making some headway with the Highlanders in June and early July, I managed to finish off some Great War Miniatures British late war infantry, a Stokes mortar team, and a set of signallers towards the end of last month. These have been languishing in the painting queue for some time and I had been very keen to get them completed.

You know how it is. The same half-finished figures stare at you for weeks, for months, sometimes for years. You almost stop seeing them, and they become part of the general "stuff" on the painting table or in the "next project" box. They blend in.  They finally become become invisible.   The fresh green hope of how that unit would fit into your army starts to wither, and the figures end up being something you brush past quickly to get to something newer, more promising.  I am sure someone reading this will know the feeling!  Come on, own up!

Don't worry, I'm exactly the same.  One of my New Year’s Hobby Resolutions (gosh, remember those?) was to try and finish these half-done units off. And yes, there are a few of them coming over the next month or so ...

The odd thing was that as soon as I started painting these figures again, I remembered the plans I’d had to use the figures in the first place.  By the end, I definitely was of the thought “why on earth has this taken me so long to do this?”, and "I'm such a mug for not completing these!".  

I can’t remember what made me stop halfway through the Stokes mortar section, or the lovely little group of signallers.   But I’m really glad I started again, and got these chaps finished.

They were fun to do. The gas masked junior officer with walking stick and .455 Webley & Scott revolver is one of my favourites from the Great War Miniatures range.  It combines a few of the iconic images of a British junior officer on the Western Front from about 1916 onwards - the junior subaltern advancing on the German lines, the late war gas mask, the walking stick and the top-break Webley revolver.  This is the third such figure I’ve painted, and I’ve really enjoyed painting every one.

Also, I finished painting up a small group of 1st. Corps British sentries and some baggage (from Hovels) for them to guard against German trench raiders. The sentries are a very nice set, and match the scale of Great War Miniatures well, although they are slightly more slender. Both of the rifle-armed sentries look great when painted up. The sentry sitting disinterestedly in the storage area is adopting a pose that I think we can all associate with from time to time!

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Thanks to everyone for commenting over the past few days and for coming back to this Blog.  I realise that the Blog has had a bit of a stop-start existence this year, but I am grateful for everyone continue to follow, visit and generally hang in there.  I'm hoping to post more regularly during the rest of the Summer and through the Autumn, if at all possible.

I've some more Highland and Scottish focused posts to come in August, which will bring you up to speed on the rest of the Highlanders which were painted in July and earlier this week.  There's a "mechanical" post, featuring "Auld Reekie" (Scotland, again).  And hopefully there'll be a couple of game reports.

I'll also be starting a new series of posts entitled "Roundwood Recommends" which are a bit more light-hearted but hopefully of use to someone out there (with the bonus being that they don't involve painting lots of figures, and therefore are a bit easier to blog about).

Hope you can join me for some, or all, of those!