The Esci Muslim Warriors are from too many dispersed tribes - not many of them would have fought together in the Middle East.

Lawrence (and many other British officers) went on sabotage missions with groups of Arabs, allegedly as "military advisors" but really taking part in the actions. A small group of arabs laying demolition charges and working the plunger (trigger) would be great. Similar, I imagine to the demolitions guy in this set:



and a kneeling guy with both hands on his binoculars as a helper for the demolitions guy, would be great.

Also a group of arabs using British supplied Vickers HMG would be great. Similar to this:



If you were following the handbook, the Vickers was operated from a seated position, not kneeling as the majority of sets depict them.

Hi Strelets, Demolition guys, Lawrence blew up a lot of railways, so one with a plunger, another laying explosives maybe, or one or two kneeling poses open handed and seperate demolition stuff, like explosives, cable, plunger etc. The Esci set is too generic, and very 19th century, the sculptor doing this set (your Lawrence set) is a genius , the mounted figures are or at least look to me to be your best ever. Not just the sculpting but the poses, they are all very very good. If he could do the same with an infantry set you will have another winner on your hands, I cannot wait to paint the mounted guys and already researching. Now a set of guys on camels too would tick all the irregular Arab forces boxes, please make them.Your on to a wining range here.

Further example`s can be found by watching the film Lawrence of Arabia , there you will see the railways being blown up, trains ambushed and the use of machine guns by Arab irregulars,sabotage , hit and run was the strategy employed by Lawrence and his irregulars, and an infantry set could better show that out of them all. But Arabia is a vast space so mobility was critical in order to stay a head of the Turks, so the two mounted sets would be needed too. If these are the winners I am confident they will be you can further expand the range, with other irregulars and regular troops for both sides.

might make good foes for the french foreign legion.

I would think these will be usefull figures for north african senarios, however what is needed is a less hollywood approach eg dismounted combatants are more usual, "uniformed" Sherifan regulars mounted and infantry, these would also work as Arabs in the turkish army and of course camel mounted irregulars some with two men on board master and servant who would dismount for battle...

for a big box set an individual vignet with an irregular coffee break group would be a nice touch....

Most rifles would be older forms of european firearms such as the Martini Metford/Enfield or possibly the japanese Arisaki, curiously airfix included it in their set of Arabs...

And two characters of lewis and Stokes (I forget their real names)nicked named after the weapons of their speciality, these two guys gave the specialist training to the Arab army so could be in a commanding position


:-)