Monday, April 28, 2008

Back painting Sudan again..


I have been painting all sorts of other stuff lately, especially a lot of Darkest Africa stuff, but my recent visit to Egypt has got me preparing some more Sudan figures again.

I currently have about 10 more Beja undercoated and ready to go and hope to get them done in the next two weeks. I have actually put the first paint on my initial four Highlanders and I have based another three Beja on camels.

I put in another order to the Perry brothers today (and resisted buying any plastic ACW!). I've ordered some more Beja on camels, which I want to convert to standard bearers. The ones with rifles look to be in the right sort of pose. I've also ordered another three packs of ordinary Beja to enable me to finish my next two units.

For the British, I have ordered the high command pack, as I think it is about time my army had a commander, and the screw gun set, to be the Scottish Royal Artillery contingent.
I'm quite enthused about getting on with them again!

Sunday, April 06, 2008

First Egyptian Regiment


I have finished the Egyptians I bought on eBay the other month. They are going to represent the Cairo Gendarme Battalion which formed part of Sir Valentine Baker's 1st Brigade at first El Teb on February 4th 1884. No doubt they will be used as other Egyptian units as I need them too!

At this time Egyptian forces (the Gendarmes dressed in the same uniforms as the regulars) still wore white with the officers wearing blue. By 1885 the Egyptians were wearing khaki and puttees rather than gaiters.

The Turkish (which was the flag of Egypt at the time) flag is a slightly tarted up version of one of The Virtual Armchair General's from the Mahdist Wars Flags Collection.

I need to paint about another thirty of these to finish the Ist Brigade. They are pretty quick to do, though.