I was contacted about this range of figures by Lorenzo Sartori back in November. I must admit, the Italian Army is not the first force that I think of when it comes to modern conflicts, but they have been active as part of UN Forces in Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The first packs were sculpted by Mark Sims of Crusader Miniatures fame, and consist of packs of four figures with seperate heads, providing a certain amount of variety/posing posibilities.

I would be the first to hold my hands up and admit that I know very little about the modern Italian Army, but these figures look pretty good when compared to the few pictures that I have found on the web (see left)

The figures have a great anatomy, with realistic sized weapons and head/helmets. They are sculpted with body armour, but otherwise have very little in terms of kit detail on them.
The figures have good, natural poses and look well balanced when assembled.
From a manufacturing point of view, they are well cast, with a near invisible mould line and no signs of flash.
The detailing on the figures is done to a very good standard, with nicely creased clothing and the body armour is not too big and bulky - perfectly in keeping with the detailing on the rest of the figure, although it might have been nice to have it in a little greater relief to the rest of the figures uniform, as it does tend to blend in a little. I'm sure that a decent paint job will cure this problem.

Personally, I think that the figures look a little on the bland side - it would have been nice to see much more light kit in evidence (Water bottles, small pouches etc).

It will be interesting to see if the figure style changes at all due the change of sculptor (see below), but I am looking forward to painting these examples - they will make a good multi-national addition to my 28mm figures for gaming "Stargate"..."Atlantis" anyone?

They are launching several new packs at Salute 05, this time sculpted by Paul Hicks of Bolt Action Miniatures. You could do much worse than to check them out...

Figure Size / Compatibility	28mm, Foot to Eye Ideal size to complement both MoFo and Mongrel Miniatures
Range Content	Modern Italians - Various Packs
Pack Size	4 Figures per standard pack.
Website	D&P Minis