Sudan - Unusual Soldiers of the Queen

The Sudan adventure continues with a number of the more unusual British and Empire units.

Firstly we have a few batteries of Gatling guns with their Naval crews.

Keeping with the naval theme, I have then done the Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI) battalion with their grey serge uniforms and white helmets and webbing.

And for even more naval action there is a battalion from the Naval Brigade in their sailor uniforms with the straw boater.  I bought these as a battalion when ordering from Pendraken, but from my reading so far it appears as though they were actually used to man the Gatling and Maxim guns and were not fielded as a formed battalion.  In any case, they look good, are different and are always seen in 28mm Sudan armies as a formed unit - so I am having them.

Next up is a unit of dismounted Camel Regiment troops to go with the mounted camels (a few who are accompanying them for flavour - but painted earlier) that I put up as one of my early entries.  These are a smaller unit to match the number of figures in the mounted regiment.

Lastly we have a regiment of Indian Lancers.  Both the 9th and 13th Bengal Lancers served in the Sudan campaign.  However, as I could not find much description of their field uniform I have loosely followed a picture in Mike Snook's Go Strong Into the Desert.  If anyone is interested in the 1885 campaign this is a wonderful book.

Sudan - start of the Egyptians and British limbers

I’ve moved onto the Egyptians and wanted to get one unit of each arm painted so I could get happy with the paint recipes for future units.  

In the original purchase from Pendraken, I bought sufficient Egyptian infantry to make three battalions.  Subsequently I have looked at the OOB for the iconic Battle of Omdurman and have seen there are 16 Egyptian and Sudanese battalions on the field.  It is a decision for later whether I acquire the figures to refight that battle - which I think would look pretty spectacular.  However, that is a further 26 packs from Pendraken and at somewhere near GBP 7 per pack you can see that even 10mm can get pretty expensive.  I think I need to do some more research to see whether anywhere near that many battalions were used in other battles.

So first is the Egyptian 2nd Infantry Battalion.  

Then we have the first two of five batteries needed (for Omdurman) of Egyptian artillery.

And finally the first regiment of Egyptian cavalry.  I like the combination of the red fez and blue pants.

Lastly, for no other reason that they were the first bag I pulled out of the figure box, I have the first limber teams for the British Artillery batteries. 

Sudan - A few more mounted Mahdists and the big man himself

I thought I would take the opportunity to do a base for the big man himself - so here is my interpretation of the Mahdi.

While still 10mm Pendraken figures, this time the three mounted figures are from their Ottoman range. The Mahdi and the camel kettle drummer (I have no idea if they used kettle drums :) ) looked fine straight from the bag. But if you look close enough you may notice the Mahdi's personal flag holder has an Ottoman Bork on his head. The two foot figures are from the Sudan range and have appeared in many of my Mahdist foot units.

For the flags, I have tried to do an interpretation (because of size) of images in an article in The Mahdist Wars Source Book by The Virtual Armchair General. The green flag on the mounted figure is described as the Mahdi's personal flag which was captured in 1899 at Um Diwaykarat where the Khalifa was killed. The flag being held by the foot figure is based on one that is on display at the Khalifa's house in Omdurman and was captured in the Battle of Omdurman (again from the Source book).

I have finished off the Mahdist light cavalry.  

Then I have more Mahdist camels.  Previous camels were done in the white jibbah with their coloured patches and this time I used more earthy tones similar to those I used on the Hadendowah and Nile River Arabs.

Sudan - artillery and Mahdist cavalry

This time I have artillery for both sides and some Mahdist cavalry.

The British artillery is a 9lb RML battery from the Pendraken Zulu Wars range.

While the Mahdist artillery battery is using captured Krupp guns.

Finally there are two types of Mahdist cavalry - armoured and light cavalry. From reading I understand there is no evidence that they wore their armour into battle - but Pendraken make them, they are different and I hadn’t read anything about them when I made the purchase a few years ago. 

 

Sudan - more Nile Navy and supply train

Participation in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is giving me a great boost in getting my teeth into this project.  Since January when I started, I've covered one of the large really useful boxes and am now building levels so I can get more layers into the box considering the relative height of these 10mm miniatures.

A bit of mixture of units for the Sudan game this week:

• more for the Nile Navy
• baggage train 
• British mule trains for the guns and maxims

After the papyrus rafts of last week, I now doing the remaining two types of vessels that I have for the locals on the Nile. I have a few more of each of these - but wanted to paint some as a proof of concept and to get the colours right. So we have a ‘dhow’ and two rafts. Like the papyrus boats, these are actually 15mm and are from Museum Miniatures.

Next up is the beginnings of a baggage train - like all the other 10mm stuff they are from Pendraken.

I’ve got two different mule trains for guns from the Pendraken North-West frontier range. Three bases are Maxim Gun teams (standing in for Gatling Guns) and the others are a Mountain Gun teams with an extra base as they included three extra barrel mules. These will stand in for any British Artillery battery - even though I have limbers to do.

The actual baggage is made up of native porters and baggage camels. 

Next will be artillery and Mahdist cavalry.