Unboxing #1: 8th Army starter set and more

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As I have not posted in a couple of years I thought I would start off with an unboxing of an order I recieved from Warlord Games in September 2023. I originally posted it on Tumblr but thought I would do a review on here also. The post is picture heavy. 










The parcel arrived well packed and secure with a free sprue of Italian Bersaglieri (I hope I spelt that right) as a gift from Warlord Games 









The first model in the package was Warlord's soldier of fortune for September, Jock Lewes. Jock Lewes was one of the founding members of the SAS and inventor of the Lewes bomb which they used to great effect in the Western Desert against German and Italian planes. 

The blister pack contained the following:

  • SAS hero Jock Lewes (metal)






The second item I unpacked was an 8th Army HQ blister. I rather like these models, they're fun and full of character, particularly the officer who is standing there with his mug of tea and pipe, the other model I like is the radio operator who is feeding a monkey, this model I shall use as a forward observer. The remaining two models in the set are a soldier with an smg in a tin helmet, I shall use him as a second lieutenant and a medic carrying a stretcher.

The blister pack contained the following:

  • Officer (metal)
  • Radio operator (metal
  • Medic (metal)
  • Soldier with smg (metal)
  • Bases (plastic)




















The final thing that I recieved was the 8th Army starter set. At the time of ordering the starter set was in a sale thus resulting in me purchasing it before I really planned too. I struggled to work out how to fit the boxset into a standard reinforced platoon, it also didn't fit into any of the theatre selectors in the Armies of Great Britain book, I scoured the Western Desert campaign book and found the armies of the commonwealth selector, this allowed for everything in the box to be used. The contents of the box and the 8th Army HQ set gave me a solid 1000pt Army. 


The plastic infantry sprues contain a wealth of options for the modeler. There are a variety of head options, Punjabi Mussalman/Yusufzai, Scottish Tam O'Shanter, Sikh and finally heads with tin helmets. There are options for smgs, rifles, Boys anti-tank rifles, Bren guns, 2"mortar and options to build officers as well, along with the commonwealth sprue (not included in this box set) every head option for the British and commonwealth forces is available. The commonwealth sprue has the same options as the 8th army sprue except it has heads for South Africans, Canadians, Australians and SAS/SBS/LRDG, a sprue I used extensively for my SAS project...I digress, back to the 8th Army Starter set. 

The Starter set contains a number of metal artillery and support weapons these are 6-pdr anti-tank gun, 25-pdr light artillery, Vickers MMG team and finally a 3" mortar team, these are all produced in 8th Army uniforms in tin helmets.

The set comes with two plastic Bren carriers and metal 8th Army crew to go in them. The Bren carriers are, in my opinion fantastically useful in this Army as they can transport five infantry around or tow the artillery. 

There is a number of other things also included these are assembly instructions, decals, vehicle damage markers, stat cards for the bren carriers and plastic bases

The boxset contains the following:

  • 36x British 8th Army infantry (plastic)
  • 1x 8th Army 6-pdr anti-tank gun (metal)
  • 1x 8th Army 25-pdr light artillery (metal)
  • 1x 8th Army Vickers MMG team (metal)
  • 1x 8th Army 3" medium mortar (metal)
  • 2x Bren carriers and 8th army passengers (plastic and metal)
  • Assembly instructions 
  • Stat cards
  • Vehicle damage markers
  • Plastic bases
I am looking forward to painting these models, building them not so much. They're a nice set at a decent price (even better getting them in a sale) and overall I am pleased with it all. I hope this unboxing may be of some help to someone looking to get into the 8th Army for Bolt Action or any other game. I will soon post the armylist up for the box set but that is a post for another day.

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