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.

Egyptian Infantryman

I finished my first Egyptian and apart from the amount of white paint I had to slap on he was quite easy to paint. I will continue to do a few a week until I have my first unit to keep some variety.

Walk like an Egyptian

Perry Sudan figures don't come up on eBay very often so I was pleased to pick up a bunch of Egyptian infantry at a (not very big) discount. Well I saved £7 or £8 I suppose. I got six command figures, 12 marching infantry and a field gun.

I have undercoated one just to have a see how he goes. They will either be really quick to paint or a nightmare. Humbrol white often needs three coats, even over a pale grey undercoat and so it would be sensible to do the undercoat for the rest in white.

I work with Egyptians quite a bit and should be going back to Cairo in March. They vary in skin tone enormously but I think I will be going for caucasian looking skin for the Egyptian infantry, darker skin for the Bazingers and very dark for the Sudanese units. I will shade the Egyptians with darker colours and see how this looks.