Warlord Games has put together a big preview looking at the release of some brand new Italian Army Sets for World War II and Bolt Action. They started out with the Bersaglieri Starter Army.

Bersaglieri Starter Army // Bolt Action

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This set makes good use of the plastic Italian Infantry, the Bersaglieri, that can be put together with their very flashy helmets! The plastic kit comes with all sorts of interesting elements that can be used to make dynamic Italian soldiers running into the heart of the action.

Italian Bersaglieri Sprue // Bolt Action

Allowing you to build thirty-six of these soldiers, you might be able to make the weight of numbers count when it comes to battling against the Allies in the deserts of North Africa and of course in Italy itself. Despite what you've heard about the Italians in World War II, some of their soldiers were pretty darn elite and stubborn. They even managed to impress Rommel!

These miniatures then form the core of the new Starter Army that they are going to be offering up on their webstore quite soon.

Bersaglieri Starter Army Set // Bolt Action

Inside this set, you'll find a plastic M13/40 Medium Tank or you can also build it as a Semovente 75/18 Assault Gun. You've also got an Officer team, a Medium Machine Gun, a Medium Mortar team and also a 20mm Anti-Aircraft Gun. With that new Bersaglieri infantry pack looking like a hot prospect, you'll want to grab this set as this is the main way for you to get your hands on them for now at the very least!

Italian Blackshirts Army Set

Another Army Set on the way takes things in a little bit of a different direction. You can also run a Blackshirts Army.

Blackshirts Starter Army // Bolt Action

This set offers up another great way for you to make use of that new Italian Infantry plastic set featured above. With a change of heads, you can turn these soldiers into the Blackshirts, Mussolini's fascist militiamen who battled it out until the bitter end.

Blackshirts Starter Army Set // Bolt Action

This set comes with the armoured support of the M13/40 Semovente kit and a similar lineup of Medium kits for the Machine Gun and Mortar team. You also get a 47mm Anti-Tank Gun, a pair of Officers, a Medic and a Radio Operator. Just like with the previous set, it should give you a workable army right out of the box and get you started with the Italians if they are your Axis force of choice.

Italian Army Expansion Sets

In addition to the two mostly plastic Starter Army sets from Warlord Games, there are also three different sets of troops that can be thrown into the mix to give you some variety and take things in interesting directions for themed armies.

X Arditi Infantry Section // Bolt Action

The first of these is the X Arditi Infantry section which was the equivalent of the British Commandos. They were both physically and mentally tough and had a lot of combat experience. This meant they were often sent out on raids behind enemy lines and could be quite the handful to deal with. Send them into the back lines to claim objectives and all sorts.

Next up, we have the addition of the San Marco Marines Infantry Section.

San Marco Marines Infantry Section // Bolt Action

This set again offers up some interesting elite troops for your Italian army. They were the pride of the Italian Navy and served all around the Mediterranean and Aegean before being deployed into North Africa. They were there at Tobruk and certainly offer up another great choice that might outwit your opponent. These aren't any old regular Italian infantry that can be scared off after the first shot is fired!

Last but not least, we also have the Italian Colonial Troops Infantry Squad.

Italian Colonial Troops Infantry Squad // Bolt Action

Drawn from the African colonies, these auxiliary troops fought alongside the Italians in East Africa and were key to defending the region against the Allied invasion. They were, unfortunately, often using very outdated weapons but still but up quite the fight. They were especially deadly when up close and personal with their fighting knives. I do like the idea of including some of these miniatures in an Italian army to show the variety of troops that were drawn in to fight alongside both the Axis and Allies.

So, that's your Italian haul for today! Are you going to be picking some of these up when they get released for pre-order?