WWI Italian Front Miniatures Options

With Father's Day approaching here in the US, I have been tasked with picking out just what it is I want as a gift. Italian WWII troops to oppose my early war French are one option, but another option is to make some gains for my Italian Front WWI armies. While I have a number of figures in 1/72 plastic in the unpainted pile, I'm not sure if I'll end up using them or not.

As I noted in a post some months back, I haven't made any final decisions about this project, but I am leaning heavily towards squad or platoon type games for playing out patrols, raids, trench assaults, and recon missions due to the domination of insane frontal assaults with poor artillery/infantry coordination by Italians against well protected fortified Austrian positions. It doesn't exactly scream thrilling war game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Front_(World_War_I)#/media/File:Italian_Front_1915-1917.jpg

I could either do these kinds of scenarios earlier in the war, 1915/1916, where standard infantry handled these kinds of things, albeit without the freedom of individual initiative, or later with assault infantry (sturmtruppen and arditi) with the other side being standard infantry,

The former option is obviously less expensive as I would only need two collections to function in both the role of the attacker and the defender, whereas the latter option requires standard infantry and assault infantry for both, if I want to play scenarios featuring either side as the attacker.

http://www.metropostcard.com/war7a-j.html

At least, that's how I am thinking of it now. There is still a small temptation to field large numbers of figures- perhaps even later war, when England and Germany were present as well

In any case, I thought for the benefit of others who might wish to game this era and theater, I would share links to what I know exists and is currently readily available at the time of this writing for the Italians and the Austrians.

Plastic

1/72
There are couple of offerings in this scale, including support weapons and artillery - you can find them on PlasticSoldierReview.com which I've linked below.

• Italian  - Sadly, there are no arditi yet available, but there are some nice alpini.
• Austrian - the link is to the Austrian section, but most of them are caps, not helmets, so primarily early war. Germans might make good substitutes or at least head swaps. No specific Austrian sturmtruppen sets. German sturmtruppen would work well enough for these.

1/35
Italeri and ICM both offer multi-figure kits in 1/35, but options are pretty limited, and pricey.

• Italian (Italeri)
• Italian (ICM)
• Austrian (Italeri)
• Austrian (ICM)
• Austrian MG (ICM) I couldn't find a link to the manufacturer's site for this.

1/32
The options in this nearly perfect scale are very limited as well.

You might be able to use some of the WW1 French AiP as the basis for helmeted Italian conversions. With the exception of those in great coats (the only pictures I can find of Italian troops in coats are officers and they look nothing like the French coat), I think a few of them would be passable with just a paint conversion, but I'm pretty lose with my historical requirements.

EDIT: It looks like someone at AiP agrees with me: World War 1 - 1915-1918 - Italian Army - Balkin Front


For Austrians in caps, I have often thought Airfix or Deetail Afrika Corps figures could be pressed into service with some conversion work. For helmets, AiP figures again, this time Germans in stahlhelms, EDIT: and again:(World War I - Austrian Sturbattalion Assault Troops 1916-1918) could be converted into later war Austrians.

• Waterloo 1815 Italian infantry  - the only offering I could in this scale. These figures are identical to some of their 1/72 figures, but larger, obviously.

Metal

Even in metal, no one covers every contingency. However there are a lot more scale options.

Scale	Manufacturer	Nationality	Notes
6mm	Baccus	Italian	Line infantry, bersaglieri, pioneers, cavalry, MG (line and bersaglieri), and artillery pieces
6mm	Baccus	Austrian	Line infantry with caps, MG, artillery, cavalry
6mm	Irregular Miniatures	Italian	Arditi, alpini, and  bersaglieri, the latter having an mg option as well, and an artillery piece
6mm	Irregular Miniatures	Austrian	Quite a bit more variety, including caps and helmeted infantry, cavalry, artillery, mg, and command
10mm	Pendraken	Austrian	Several sets, including vehicles and support weapons
10mm	Pendraken	Italian	Several sets including support weapons
15mm	Eureka	Austrian	Caps, mg.
15mm	Eureka	Italian	Caps, alpini, mg, artillery crew
15mm	Irregular Miniatures	Austrian	Nice variety although no stormtroopers.
15mm	Irregular Miniatures	Italian	Use the same link as Austrian. There's no direct link. Some variety including arditi.
20mm	Irregular Miniatures	Austrian	Early war.
25mm	Old Glory 25s	Italian	Infantry in both caps and helmets, alpini, bersaglieri and mgs
25mm	Old Glory 25s	Austrian	One infantry and one mg set.
25mm	Battle Honor 25s	Austrian	Al in caps, infantry and cavalry, as well as mg and field gun
28mm	Brigade Games	Austrian	All in caps, mg, trench mortar, mountain gun
28mm	Brigade Games	Italian	Infantry in caps, alpini, pioneers, arditi, trench mortar, mountain gun
28mm	Scarab Miniatures	Austrian	Mixed caps and helmets in same set, sturmtruppen, support weapons
28mm	Scarab Miniatures	Italian	Infantry in helmets, arditi, support weapons, trucks
54mm	Irregular Miniatures	Austrian	Early war Austrian officer and infantry in caps and a useful gun model
54mm	Irregular Miniatures	Italian	French infantry - provided not in great coat - could work and a useful gun model
54mm	Irregular Miniatures	Austrian/Italian	This is a link to the Irregular Empire-multi part figures which you can piece together to form either Italian or Austrian, early or late war, as desired.