28mm Italians

Who doesn't love Italians?

This is a start for a Bolt Action force. It features 2 squads, a 81mm mortar, a medium machine gun and HQ.

To round out this force. I intend to get a few squads of Berseglieri, an anti-tank gun and a couple vehicles. I've always loved the Semovente 75/18 and the Carro Armato M14/41.

In the meantime, they can fight every other force I have, including the Japanese. (They had several dust-ups in China. Peking embassy, and I think a few others.) But specifically, they can face off against the Americans, Germans and Soviets. So they are really the utility force in my collection.

I'd like to get some partisans and do some fighting around Rome as well.

As purchased, this is a 500 point force for Bolt Action. 

Italian mortar and machine gun teams. I decided to go with the grey cotton uniforms. I just felt it offered more color than the monochromatic olive grey uniforms and helmets too. They wore these in Sicily, Italy and Russia. Good enough for me.

The HQ. The Capo di Capo in front, with second, runner and Observer. Unfortunately, the observer's radio was not included in the blister so I had to make one. not as hard as it seems; it is just metal sprues from other figures glued together. I'm thinking the runner could double for a medic if needs be.

Squad number one. 

Everyone, including me, likes their backpacks, so I included a shot.

Squad number two; identical except for the NCO figure. BTW, these guys are metal and the only part that needed attached was their heads which turned out to be a major pain in the ass.

For starters, for each squad of 10 there were 48 heads included which sounds ridiculous until you realize that a full 40 of them were for either North Africa (sun hats) of for Berseglieri (w/ feathers). Of the remaining 8, only 4 had helmets, the other 4 were soft caps. Well, I wanted helmets, so I had to use clippers to trim the feathers off the Berseglieri helmets. Just in case you're wondering why some of these guys have heads shaped like Milk Duds.

Oh yeah, and they are hard as fuck to glue too.

My good friend Armando. Pretty sure he has panettone in that pocket.