French hussars - 5th regiment

 

A new addition to my Napoleonic French army. These are 20mm hussars from Newline Designs, painted to represent the 5th regiment. They originally started off life as the 1st regiment, but I decided to change them to the 5th, which is more or less the same uniform colour except the 5th have a white pelisse rather than blue.

For reference I used mainly the Osprey book, 'Napoleon's Hussars', supplemented by internet searches. Hussar uniforms and their details and variations are a bit mind-boggling, and I'm sure there must be some inaccuracies in my painting. I'm not entirely sure, for example, if the shako cloth was actually red. I found some images that showed red, and others that showed blue. In the end, I do as I always do, which is to go with what I think looks best!

Probably my favourite figure from the unit is the bugler. Again, not sure if the red dolman is correct or not, but I really like how the yellow froggings stand out on it.

Hey, that's my horse!

It was all going so well until I realised early on that I'd glued the officer to the wrong horse. You can see the correct horse above with a trooper on it. Try as I might, the trooper could not be tempted to climb down off his steed, and both man and horse were in danger of ending up in the casualty tray if I'd persisted with my pliers-based persuasions. In the end, I decided to let the happy fellow keep his prize. He could either be the gallant soldier returning the lost beast to its rightful owner, or the scoundrel riding off with his ill-gotten gains.

Officers - always ending up on a horse they didn't start the battle with

Hussars like to look their best, even when running away

The slight horsey confusion aside, I'm pleased with how this lot turned out. Hussars are a lot of work, and this 5th regiment felt especially challenging with the yellow froggings. But, it was worth the effort and I'm delighted to have this new addition to the army.

I think I might have to paint something easier next. A unit of Pictons, maybe?