Military Model Scene

Title: Italy: Soft Underbelly
Author: Warlord Games
Publisher: Osprey Games & Warlord Games
ISBN: 978-1-4728-5268-7

This is the second edition of these Bolt Action wargame rules by Warlord Games, and published along with Osprey Games. A 176-page soft-cover book packed with detailed wargaming rules and accompanied by inspirational illustrations. This supplement to the basic Bolt Action games rules adds all the necessary details to cover gaming the specifics of WW2 in Italy.
Opening with some basic background to the history of events, the book covers Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, and goes on to tackle Operation Avalanche, the invasion of mainland Italy around Salerno. Then we get into the key attraction of the book as a whole, with 13 different wargame scenarios. The first 5 come from the fighting on Sicily, then 6 to 13 in Italy itself. The games each have a plan for the game table layout, the units involved and the number of turns along with clear victory conditions for each side. The second half of the book holds the details of all the new units and equipment peculiar to the early parts of the Italian campaign, for Italian, German, British & Commonwealth and US forces. Added to these are more elements such as Heroes of the Italian Campaign, the personalities and their effects when they feature in a game, The level of detail, tied into the history of the campaign is first class.
To my mind there are 5 quite varied attractions to what you'll find in this book. Of course there are the detailed wargame rules and game scenarios, while there are also good historical notes to give more context, some of the beautiful artwork with colour uniform illustrations taken from other books in the regular Osprey titles, along with beautiful photos of some superbly finished models and scenery shown on some gaming tables which are sure to provide even more modellers and wargamers with inspiration. All in all, the book is packed with a very detailed guide for wargames rules and equally clear game scenarios. I suspect modellers, even if not wargamers, will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Thanks to Osprey for our review copy.

Robin