Luckner's Hussars

This unit for my Sharp Practice Seven Years War project was in action a month or back in our first game, but I've never posted pictures of the unit itself.

Luckner's Hussars were a Hanoverian unit and one of the iconic regiments of the campaign in Western Germany.  They were everywhere and heavily involved in the Kleine Krieg.  The figures are from the Perry Plastic box set of Napoleonic British Hussars.  So yes let's hear it from the button counters and war-games fashion police.  I had the box on hand, and except for the leg wear and shabraques the uniforms are pretty damn close to one another.  So yes officially, the shabraques should have the long swallow tailed corners seen on the officer figure instead of thew smaller saddle blankets seen on the other ranks.  And they should have the tight Hussar breeches with leggings and high boots instead of overalls.  I rationalize both of these by saying a hard run unit would have stripped down to more practical wear.  However, the fur hats, dolman and pelisse look spot on and the poses one gets from these perry figures are marvellous.

I've painted these figures (6 plus officer and trumpeter) in the later uniform, white dolman with red pelisse and fur hat, adopted in 1760.  The earlier uniform had a green dolman and pelisse and a  mirliton or flugelmutze, to use the lovely German term.  It was changed as it was nearly identical to that worn by the mounted members of Fischer's Chasseurs in the opposing French army.

The regiment's colonel Nikolas Luckner is pretty much the poster child for Lace Wars Soldeirs of Future.  A full bio can be found at the excellent Kronoskaf site, but the basics are as follows.

• Born in the Palatinate, he joined the Bavarian Army and transferred to a Friekorps unit.
• During the War of Austrian Succession (WAS), the Bavarians rented their army out to the Dutch Republic and Luckner served in the Dutch Army as a member of the Frangipani Hussars
• At the end of the WAS he resigned from the Bavarian Army, by which time he had acquired a rich Dutch Wife
• At the start of the Seven Years Was, he raised his regiment of hussars for the Hanoverian army. He served with distinction throughout the SYW but retired in 1763 at the war's end.
• Late he was approached by the French and Russian armies, and joined the former as a Lieutenant General in 1767.  In 1784 he became a Danish Count and in 1790 a French citizen.
• Still serving the French at the out break of the Revolution he became a Marshall and lead the Armies of the Rhine and North with success.  His successes were memorialized in a popular tune which later became the Marseillaise.
• As the revolution got more radical, he was removed from command along with other nobles.  He retired to his estate but came back to Paris asking about his pension and was guillotined during a purge.

You can't make this sh*t up!