Well - the weekend brought the first FoGN battle played and a spree of painting. As cavalry take up so much space on the table, I thought I would start to paint a regiment of Austrian-Hungarian hussars...and as the 4th regiment look like peacocks, I thought I would paint the one regiment of hussars I own as such.
Ahh, the Hessen-Hombergs.
The first unit on the painting table for most of us Austrian gamers!
They are looking very nice, although one observation, are your Shakos too dark for the required light blue?
(It may be that the blue you have used is just the undercoat, lighter shades to come).
Oddly enough I also did Hessen Homburg Hussars in my 20mm plastic armies, but did Lichtenstein Hussars as my first unit for 28mm FOG N Austrian army. My new unit of Hussars for Austria is the ever favorite Hessen Homburgs, can't have an Austrian army without those boys. Very slowly getting painted though. Hussars look great but they take a lot of work to get them done.
The shakos are indeed quite dark on the picture; but rest assured it is but the base colour. They will get ligther with the next coat of paint.
Do any of you how the trumpeter was dressed? Was his uniform the same or did he have different coloured pelisse, dolman, trousers and shako? Also, the bearer of the cavalry guidon; what did the flag of the 4th look like?
Probably exposing my ignorance here but weren't the campaign overalls - as opposed to the breeches (not reallly breeches, more pantaloons, I suppose) grey?
Trumpeters officially had the same uniform as normal troopers but with red plumes. Not sure about the flags, I usually don't include flags with light cavalry as I understand they were often (usually? ) left behind when in action.
The officer should have gold lace rather than yellow, plus a gold band around the top of the shako.
And yes, the overalls should be grey, but that's pretty boring. Maybe just paint the legs black below the knees (to represent boots) or don't worry about it?
Had a quick look at Street's Army of the Empire of Austria-Hungary and he says that the cavalry had smaller versions of the same flag as the infantry use, with a white one going to the first squadron and the remaining squadrons getting the yellow version.
Interestingly, the 4th were issued a Ehrenstandarte (honour standard) by the Pope in 1814. This was a white flag with silver double headed eagle and gold scrolling and fringe around the edges.
Street also mentions that many Hussar trumpeters unofficially wore reversed colours, so I guess you could give the trumpeter a red dolman and pelisse if you want.
Officers braid is all gold, the loops on the dolman and pelisse also gold, barrel sash around waist gold, horse blanket trim gold spurs and harness could also be gold plated if the officer chooses to pay for it. NCO will have a yellow band around the top of his shako, officers would have a gold band or if your really good at painting one or two rows of joined golden circles, I tried it but gave up early on it with the Lichtenstein. If you are using Perry figures the NCO also is carrying his cane, wood with a metal top basically.
Trumpeters have red feathers as pointed out above and I have also seen references to reversed colours, seems to be the whim of the regiments sponsor for lack of better word. I have also read that in some cases infantry drummers could have reversed uniform colours and even things like a Hussar Shako for head gear. Still up to whoever pays to form the regiment, must be the one bonus they got for forming units for the army. Of course all weird colour combinations were strictly unofficial.
