230 : Painting Competition Entry

February saw the return of the Pendraken Painting Competition and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss to get something painted for the 1809 project. I chose to focus my efforts on a command base and enter it into the single base category. This turned out to be my first French marshal. The figure was listed as Marshal Ney (NPF38) as part of the 1809 range. As Ney didn’t play any part in the Franco-Austrian War of 1809 (he was in Spain) his 10mm likeness was sadly redundant to the 1809 project. However, there were other marshals needed. With the Pendraken Ney perhaps hinting at a fiery nature with his sword waving, his bushy side burns and jaunty tilted-back hat, it would do to cast him as a lively daredevil marshal such as Massena or Lannes. With his obviously round face, I preferred Massena.

I accompanied my marshal with another figure, sold as an officer included in Pendraken’s French limbers pack (NPF29). This figure is almost certainly based on a Général de Division in an 1812 uniform from Liliane and Fred Funcken’s The Napoleonic Wars I as illustrated on page 17, which would mean it was a most peculiar inclusion both in an artillery pack and in an 1809 range.

I’d liked to have populated my marshal’s command base with an additional general or an ADC but even now, a decade on from the start date of Pendraken’s 1809 range, there were still no French generals or ADCs available.

My entry didn’t fair well at all. It came in joint 10th out of 25 entries. I’d won in the competition a couple of times before but never with any of my Napoleonics and my marshal appeared to be carrying on that tradition – or should I say, relaying that baton. But the Napoleon of this project was not disheartened by such minor setbacks and the marshal made a welcome arrival in the 10mm 1809 French camp.