The Battle of Marengo Project - Part One

Inspired by blogs such as “Napoleonic Wargames Project” (albeit some months since it was last updated) and the batch painting method beautifully demonstrated at “WAB Corner”, I’ve actually started to try and paint a ‘battalion’ of French Napoleonic Infantry at the same time.

The ‘battalion’ will consist of twelve French fusiliers, four grenadiers, four voltigeurs, a drummer, standard bearer and officer from the “Victrix” 28mm plastic box set ‘French Napoleonic Infantry 1804 – 1807'. They’ll be painted to represent the Infantry of the Line as shown in “Austerlitz – The Empire at its Zenith” by “Histoire & Collections”.

As the majority of the soldiers will be white, I gave them all an undercoat of Skull White, and then painted a second coat over the trousers, waistcoats and straps etc. I then picked out the collars, cuffs and epaulettes that will be red with Mechrite Red. I then gave these areas a wash of Baal Red. I used a combination of Iyanden Darksun and Gryphonne Sepia for the Voltigeurs’ collars.

My painting style is based upon separating the different colours with Chaos Black, and then giving those areas an appropriate ink wash. As a result I’ve started to 'box off' the white areas from the rest of the models using Chaos Black, and also ‘cut in’ around the red areas as well; tidying the collars, cuffs and epaulettes up with Mechrite Red as and when needed.

Truth be told, I wanted to see what a ‘detachment’ of four fully painted Fusiliers on a 40mm x 40mm base looks like, so as a mini project I’ve been working away on them as well. The more ‘advanced’ fusilier is the fourth one of these soldiers.

I’ve almost finished the white areas for the officer, whom I’m painting as a Subaltern from a Fusilier company.

My hope is to get this ‘Battalion’ finished in just under three months, working on the rate of two models per week (as I do have a few other painting projects on the go), with the ultimate goal being that for Christmas 2012 I’ll have enough painted French (and Austrians) to field two ‘Battalions’ per army in order to ‘replicate’ the battle of Marengo using some homemade rules.