'Avanti Savoia!' - Reviewing the new Bolt Action Italian Airborne

Following the release schedule for Bolt Action third edition we knew that Armies of Italy would come with yet another Italian plastic kit; I had some theories about a potential winter infantry set(following the Black Feathers White Hell miniature release) and there was a rumour going around that it might be plastic San Marco Marines. In the end Occam's Razor prevailed and we got the Paracadutisti, the Italian Airborne. I say Occam's Razor, because the Folgore Paracadutisti are as far as I can tell the most well known Italian units of World War 2, thus it would be the most obvious choice to put into a plastic kit. 

While the Army, Blackshirts, Bersaglieri, San Marco marines, Colonial auxiliaries, Guastatori and Arditi all received refreshed or new sculpts in 2021, the Paracadutisti were left as were except for some repacks. Seeing how the Paracadutisti are the last remnants of the original Bolt Action Miniatures Italian range it was to be expected that they would get the spotlight for the big release. And what a spotlight it is; A complete multi part plastic kit, 8 new resin officers and the obligatory Medium weapon teams; Curiously there were no new light weapon teams so you still need to get the old flamethrower-, sniper- and light mortar teams. I was absolutely excited for this upcoming release and am incredibly grateful that Warlord Games sent me all of the new releases to mess around with. 

Contents

Starting with the new plastic kit, we got quite the choice with this one; Not only can you build that standard Italian airborne as you would expect, but the parts also allow you to assemble Guastatori(engineers) for your paratroopers and the infamous Arditi X commandos. Aside from using this box as is, it also holds potential to kitbash with the other existing Italian plastic kits, but I will go into that later. Something that was missing here is an appropriate decal sheet; We have had a unique decal sheet for each plastic release thus far, so it is a bit sad to see it missing here.

One immediate innovation with this kit is the inclusion of 6 new bodies. You might be wondering why I am praising that, but if you collect Italians you will know that the Alpini, Army and Bersaglieri kits all share most pieces across their sprues. It becomes quite apparent in their bodies as all three kits come with the exact same bodies, only shuffling around some weapons and having different head options. That said, this kit eschews becoming just another clone of the others and is all new.

To equip those six new bodies you have 7 heads each for the Paracadutisti(both with and without the camo wraps) and the Arditi as well as one bare and one with an officer's cap. There are plenty of arms as well, the usual rifles, SMGs(there are enough to equip all six bodies), two LMGs and one single use flamethrower; That last one is something we have not had in plastic yet, so it is a welcome addition to the kitbashing arsenal. On that topic, the sprue also contains a handful of parts that you can use to recreate the 'Samurai' vests worn by the paratroopers and the grenade vests employed by the Guastatori. When it comes to the unusual arms needed to fill special positions this sprue has you covered with pistol arms, pointing arms, binoculars, anti tank grenades, a notepad and curiously an arm attached to a head that seems to be priming a grenade with his mouth. Last but not least the sprue also has the usual amount of pouches and such, but those are not all that interesting. Looking at the special parts this set will allow you to build the following special units apart from the standard infantry squad:

• Separate spotters for various mortars and artillery using the binocular parts
• Forward Observers using either the binocular parts or the maps/notepads
• Any officer using the same parts you would use for NCOs and the peaked cap head option
• Chaplains using the notepad arm and either of the two empty right arms
• Medics using the pistol or pointing arm and the LMG crate arm(painted as a medic bag)

  

  A medic and chaplain assembled from the Airborne Sprue

Kitbashing potential

This section is meant to talk about the kitbashing opportunities that came to my mind when working with this kit; They are most definitely not an exhaustive list of what to do with this kit, rest assured Scale History SLC is going to show me up in that regard soon enough.

Blackshirt 'M' Battalions

There is no difference between the Blackshirts and the Army in terms of uniform, but Bolt Action has never been concerned with keeping it 100% realistic. You are encouraged to differentiate the Army and Blackshirts units in your force with the extra heads on the sprue, you will run into an issue to further differentiate between the Blackshirts and the relatively elite 'M' Battalions. This is where this kit comes in, on Wikipedia page for the 'M' Battalions you will find the following photo. It gave me the idea to combine the parts used for a Blackshirts with the 'Samurai' vests you get in this kit; While you only get 10 of them in this box, you can simply pick a random number of your 'M' Battalion soldiers to give them these vests to stay economical.

While in my haste I ended up using a body from this kit as well, I would say this works extremely well to convey the more elite status of these guys. I add that you need to do some dry fitting and scraping to properly apply the vest to a non-airborne body and might need to add an extra strap on each side to properly 'hold' the vest. 

Gustatori Destruction Group

Thanks to the inclusion of the grenade vests and single use flamethrowers in this kit it is incredibly easy to switch the arms and bits around to make your own plastic Guastatori; For this I converted three Guastatori as an example

First was a rather simple job which is less specific to this kit, but the idea came to me and I could not pass it up. I took the body and a head from the Paratroopers and added the new plastic Flamethrower from the German Veteran Infantry kit; Previously it was difficult to bash that flamethrower with the old Italian kits, since they had smaller shoulders, which required much more work to make the weapon fit. In this instance Warlord seems to have decided that most of the new plastic kits will have a similar shoulder width. Either way, I combined the parts and got this guy; Sure the flamethrower is not the correct model, you could put in the extra work to add the characteristic nozzle and all that, but for a quick arm swap it will serve, especially when looking at it from afar.

Second was this Alpini Engineer; There were some issues adapting the vest to the old body as it does not have the suspenders that sell the illusion of the vest. You can work around this with some sculpting putty and a bit of patience or just leave it as is since it still looks okay without. Additionally you will need to scrape away the two pouches that sit where the belt buckle would be. To hide the then ugly looking surface, you can use one of the pouch belts from the paratrooper kit to cover it up. Given the modular nature of the previous three Italian kits you can use this technique to make Guastatori for Bersaglieri, Alpini and Army. 

Last but not least is a Bersaglieri single use flamethrower engineer; This guy is basically just putting the single use flamethrower on an old body. You will need to use some putty or in my case sprue goo to somewhat fill the gaps left between arms and shoulders when assembling him. IF all is done you will have a single use flamethrower guy for any squad, but given how the Gustatori now get to take two of these guys per squad, it is ideal for building Engineers.

Painting

I have painted the old Paracadutisti in the past, so I wanted to see how these new guys paint up. After spending a few evenings on this guy I have to say I am very pleased with the results

Left to right: Original Paul Hicks Paratrooper, New Airborne, Plastic Alpini

While I have had my doubt every now and again with the new direction the Bolt Action sculpts have gone into, I keep being amazed at how well these paint up. I want to first focus on how beautiful the face sculpts are on this kit. Not to say the old Bolt Action facial sculpts are bad, but there was something incredibly cartoonish about them, even the other plastic Italians. These newer kits seem to move towards less harsh gaps in the faces allowing for smoother painting on them. 

Faces aside, the uniform is also modelled very well, it still has the occasional spot where the two mould parts meet and the detail(especially recesses) get a bit vague, but those aside everything is rendered beautifully. Where I had some issues are the water bottles which were moulded onto the bodies; Given the limitations of casting they had very shallow recesses to really differentiate them from the rest of the uniform. I also found the detail on the 'Samurai' vests to be a bit too soft to really translate well without the use of shades to accentuate the lightest recesses(something I tend to not do due to the unpredictability of washes). On that topic, the details of the straps on pouches all over the model were also way too softly cast as you have to manually pick out things like the buttons and buckles which blend into the rest of the material too easy. If you want to see how I painted this guy, then stay tuned as I will be putting together a painting guide soon enough.

Final thoughts

This is usually the part of the review where I tend to struggle to really put my thoughts into words; I really like this kit, it fills multiple purposes in an Italian army collection with both choices of units to build(Arditi and Airborne) and the myriad kitbashing possibilities. It also gives Italian players a new set of bodies to work with, even if they have slightly different uniforms. This is to say, the kit is a well needed breath of fresh air for people who prefer to assemble their armies using plastic rather than metal or resin. Aside from the accessibility benefits, there are also the technical improvements to consider. All three of the other plastic kits for Italy lay firmly in 2nd edition's style of design and sculpting, yet this new kit is in line with the improved details of 3rd edition's design ethos. You have faces with much softer details and the cloth is no longer just exaggerated folds and edges. 

If you are someone who collects World War 2 Italians for Bolt Action or any of the other games out there then I think this kit is definitely worth your money and time; I already highlighted the upsides and while I also brought up the downsides, I feel they become negligible when you start focusing on army painting and playing the game. If you want to pick up a box for yourself let me know how you like them; I also want to put out another huge thank you to Warlord Games for sending me the entire new Italian release wave!