Painted: 2nd Battalion The Princess Victoria's Royal Irish Fusiliers

Here is the completed unit. It looks rather small but they were a small force, less than 350 men!

The Royal Irish Fusiliers landed at Trinkitat in late February 1884 and immediately began patrols with the Black Watch and the 19th Hussars into the surrounding country. There could be a few imaginary skirmish scenarios here! On 28th February they moved out, with the rest of the Expeditionary Force, to head towards El Teb, bivoucing overnight at Fort Baker. The RIF made up the forward section of the right hand side of the square with the KRRC next to them in the battle the next day.

At Tamai, in Buller's second brigade, they formed the front left hand corner of the square. The square, whilst heavily engaged, managed to drive off the Beja with rifle fire before they came into hand to hand combat, unlike their unfortunate comrades in the first square.

The Second Battalion (former 89th foot) returned to England in 1884 and were replaced by the First Battalion (former 87th foot) who joined the river column in the 1885 campaign, but that's a whole new army!

2nd Battalion The Princess Victoria's Royal Irish Fusiliers

Depending on the sources there were between 334 (Asquith), 343 (Preziosi) and 350-400 (Featherstone) troops of the Royal Irish Fusiliers present before El Teb. At 1:33 this gives between 10 and 12 figures. I am going for the lower figure of 10. This is small for a TSATF unit as British units are supposed to be 20 figures but until I have played a game I won't know if this works or not.

The Royal Irish Fusiliers had been formed in 1881 from the 87th and 89th Foot and some local militia forces from Armagh, Cavan and Monaghan. Both regiments had been formed in 1793 as a result of the war with France. The 87th served in the Peninsula where they became famous at the battle of Barossa on March 5th 1811 when the first French Imperial Eagle was taken by Sergeant Masterman (and not Richard Sharpe!).

The 1st Battalion were with Graham in Egypt in 1882 and saw action at Tel-el-Kebir.

There are several sources which describe them as wearing the new grey uniforms and they are illustrated like this in the picture in the Royal Engineers museum in Chatham. I have already painted four figures in this uniform so only need to do another six which I will try to get done next weekend.