After our first game of “The Men Who Would Be Kings” I decided to put together  a 20mm plastic Egyptian Army. I wanted the option of a variety of troop types, some not included in the “official” list. The advantage of this army is that it can fight for or against the European powers.

HaT Set 8193 Egyptian Camel Corps were used for the camels and the kneeling shooting figure from the same set for the “Regular” Sudan Unit. HaT Set 8268 German WW1 Askaris were used for the Irregular infantry. I only used those figures with Fez for these units. The artillery crew and the officers in all units were from the HaT 8299 set of Zulu British Colonial Command, and the gun was from the Airfix Set 01731 WW1 Royal Artillery set. The cavalry unit which at the time of writing the blog is not yet completed was the camel riders from the HaT 8193 Egyptian camel corps and the horses from the HaT 8274 set of WW1 Ottoman cavalry.

These figures were used because they were what I already had that best suited what I was trying to represent.

A good review of the figures with excellent pictures can be found at:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx

The units were painted using a very basic technique which included undercoating the figures with a spray can colour that  matched the main uniform colour (white or Tamiya Desert sand.

The army prepared for battle.

A view from the other end of the line.

The Artillery with British Officer

The Camels Picture 1

The Camels Picture 2

The Irregular Egyptian Infantry

Sudanese Regular Infantry

You may have also noticed the Airfix Foreign Legion fort which is still soldiering on from childhood days, albeit with a brand new paint job. The model itself is older than a lot of my wargaming colleagues – there a some advantages to being an old codger – “what would you know my figures have been around longer than you were born”!!!!

I have found that 20mm plastics are ideal for this period, especially now that there is an excellent range available which means no more cutting up figure to get something that vaguely looks like what you want. Do you remember how many ancient cavalry types we used to make out of the Airfix US Cavalry set and the Airfix magazines which told you how? The quality is good to very good and with a great range of acrylic clear sprays available the wear and tear on rifles barrels and swords is nowhere near as damaging as the bad old days. The main advantage is the cost, because the size of the armies and the generic troop types means you only need a few boxes to get started.

Happy Colonial gaming.