On A Vienna Roll!

The title of this post may well attract people who think they’re going to read about making open sandwiches on European speciality bread! If so, they’re going to be disappointed! The title instead refers to the fact that I’ve kept up momentum on painting my 1859/66 period Austrian hussars and got them finished in time for Christmas!

These 20mm scale figures are by Irregular Miniatures and, although slightly on the small side, they’re nicely detailed. Unfortunately the winter weather has conspired against me here in the UK so I haven’t been able to get decent pictures of them or get them varnished! The riders and horses don’t quite match up historically – for the 1859 war between Austria and France the horses should be wearing a shabraque instead of a simple blanket under the saddle, whereas for the 1866 war between Austria and Prussia the riders would be less likely to be wearing either the shako (headgear) or dolman (type of jacket).

Aside from that, though, they are nice figures. As far as uniforms go, there were three main differences that distinguished the various regiments; shakos could be red, white or green; jackets and breeches could be light or deep blue and buttons could be white or yellow. In this scale you can’t see the buttons so I didn’t need to worry about that! Being essentially lazy I opted for the deep blue uniform since that meant I could use a black shade coat that would work with both the blue cloth, black fur trim and black boots (two of these figures wear grey overalls instead of blue breeches)!

In the field the shakos were covered with a protective waterproof cover in the same colour as the shako itself and this also covered any decorative features on the headgear. Lacing on the jackets (the dolman and a fur-trimmed pelisse frequently worn over it as a short cape on a cord around the neck) was in yellow and black, but I’ve just opted to show it in yellow in this scale – in fact I use Vallejo Golden Brown as it’s not as harsh on the eyes as yellow and covers much better. As far as troops that fought in the 1859 war are concerned the combination of green shako covers and deep blue clothing marks these troopers out as belonging to either the 1st or 11th Hussar regiments.

Perhaps of greater significance for me is the fact that finishing this unit also completes this army, which I started in 2015! The picture above shows the hussars leading my unit of dragoons. The most significant difference for me between the units, aside from the uniform colour, is the fact that I’ve got more variation in the horse colour in the hussar unit, something I’ve tried to do more frequently. Having said that, it was not uncommon in regular cavalry units in various armies to restrict the colour of the horses, so sometimes it’s necessary to try and check up on this.

This will be my last post before Christmas, so I’d just like to wish everyone reading this a Merry Christmas, whether they came to find out what they could put on bread or to look at some pictures of miniature soldiers!

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