Konflikt '47 Starter Set Review: Is It the Right Entry Point for Australian Players?

The Konflikt '47 Starter Set is Warlord Games' two-player way into their alternate-history World War Two game: two complete forces, a full rulebook and everything else needed for a game, in one $178 box. Warlord relaunched the whole Konflikt '47 line in July 2025 after nine years off the shelves, with new plastic kits and rules built on Bolt Action: Third Edition from the ground up. Australian buyers curious about this game want to know if this box is the smart way in, or if they're better off going straight at one faction.

What Konflikt '47 is, and why 2025 mattered

Konflikt '47 first shipped in July 2016, a stand-alone alt-history game built on the original Bolt Action rules, written by Chris Hale with art from Jon Cave and Russ Charles. The pitch hasn't changed since. World War Two keeps going into the late 1940s because a Trinity-style atomic test at Los Alamos, moved up in-universe to February 1944, tears open the first of a series of Rifts. Rift energy hands both sides mechs, gravity weapons and Tesla cannons, and the fighting gets stranger and nastier from there.

The timing of that original launch was bad. Bolt Action Second Edition landed two months later, in September 2016, and Konflikt '47 spent most of its life built on a ruleset its own parent game had already moved past.

That's fixed now. Warlord relaunched Konflikt '47 in July 2025 on Bolt Action: Third Edition, backed by new plastic infantry kits for the Axis and United States forces (most of the range had been resin and metal before) and dedicated single-faction Starter Armies. There's a narrative push too, including an in-fiction newspaper called The New World Sentinel. A year on, Warlord's own update from July 2026 has the plastic range still growing. Five factions have current army lists on Warlord Community: Axis, United States, British Commonwealth, Soviet Bloc and Empire of Japan. AdeptiCon 2026 ran the first dedicated Konflikt '47 event in April, the Cream City tournament: four games, 1,500 points, alongside the main Bolt Action tournament. That's a real base of organised play forming around the relaunch.

What's actually in the $178 box

The two-player Starter Set pits Axis against United States. That matters because it decides which two factions you get a head start on.

The Axis side gets an exclusive resin Platoon Commander, six plastic Stahltruppen heavy infantry and a plastic Vogelspinne light walker. The US side gets an exclusive resin Platoon Commander, twelve plastic Firefly Airborne Infantry and a plastic M2A5 Linebacker jump walker. Around that: a full rulebook, waterslide transfers, four frames of plastic ruins for terrain, a double-sided paper gaming mat, sixteen order and rift dice between the two sides, ten plain six-siders, pin markers and templates, and assembly guides. Everything ships unassembled and unpainted, and the two Platoon Commanders are resin rather than plastic, so you'll want super glue as well as standard plastic glue, plus a decent pair of clippers.

Neither force here is a full 1,500-point tournament list. They're a taster each, built to get two people playing fast. Check the free PDF army lists on Warlord Community before you assume either side is close to competition-ready.

How steep is the learning curve

If you already play Bolt Action: Third Edition, this is close to no curve at all. Same order dice activation, same stat lines, same turn structure. You're learning a setting, not a new engine.

If you're new to the hobby entirely, the included rulebook is a standalone read. It covers the setting and the core rules together, so you're not sent hunting for a base Bolt Action book to make sense of it. The weird-war layer, rift weapons, walkers and supernatural troops, sits on top of the conventional WW2 rules rather than replacing them, so the fundamentals come first and the strange stuff after.

Does the price stack up for Australian buyers

$178 is the Hobby Armoury price, in Australian dollars, with no import wait and no currency conversion to think about. Most English-language reviews of this set quote GBP or USD, and by the time you've added international freight and a currency spread to one of those figures, the bargain can evaporate.

The box earns its price against buying the same two factions separately. A dedicated Axis Starter Army and a dedicated United States Starter Army each run $214.99, so $429.98 for the pair, more than double the two-player Starter Set. Those boxes aren't identical to what's in the Starter Set. The Axis one adds Nachtalben and a Panzer IV. The US one adds a second Linebacker and an M5 Stuart. It isn't a straight swap, but the gap is wide enough that the Starter Set is the cheaper way to get a first force on both sides of the table.

What to buy next

Download the free army lists from Warlord Community before you buy anything else. They tell you exactly what's legal for your faction, so you don't end up with a model that has no home in a tournament list.

From there, the honest split is between deepening one of your two included factions or starting fresh with British Commonwealth, Soviet Bloc or Empire of Japan. Empire of Japan's Ghost Infiltration Platoon, $103.15, gets you twenty-five plastic Ghost Attack Infantry, three Shinobi Shadows and a named hero, all plastic and good value for the price. The British Commonwealth Starter Army, $214.99, has real appeal for Australian players on the connection alone, though most of that box is resin rather than the new plastic Axis and US got in the relaunch.

Paints are the thing new players forget to budget for. The Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Starter Set and the AK Interactive range both cover WW2 and weird-war colours, and The Hobby Armoury stocks both.

Who should buy it, and who should skip it

This box makes sense if you want two people playing a complete, balanced game in an afternoon with nothing else to buy first, or if you already play Bolt Action: Third Edition and just want alt-history flavour with a ready-made opponent included.

It makes less sense if your target faction is British Commonwealth, Soviet Bloc or Empire of Japan. You'd be paying for an army you may never field, so go straight at your own faction's box instead. And hold off if you're not set up for the hobby basics: nothing here is pre-assembled, so budget for plastic glue, super glue for the resin commanders, and clippers before any of it is playable.

The strongest case for this box is a two-player one. Split it with whoever you're going to be playing against, one of you takes Axis, one takes US, and the "who's my opponent" problem is solved for half a box each.

Verdict

The Konflikt '47 Starter Set is a fair way in, on one condition. You need to be happy fielding Axis or United States, because that's what's actually in the box. If either of those suits you, $178 for two forces and a full rulebook beats buying in separately by a wide margin.

The relaunch onto Bolt Action: Third Edition makes this a safer buy than the 2016 version ever was. That base game is current, AdeptiCon already has a dedicated Konflikt '47 tournament running off it, and Warlord's own update a year in shows a range that's still growing rather than one that's stalled again.

Check the free PDF army lists on Warlord Community before you spend anything beyond this box, and remember it won't clear the $200 free shipping threshold on its own. The Konflikt '47 Starter Set is in stock now, and the rest of the range, including the single-faction Starter Armies, is on the Konflikt'47 collection page.

If you're in Queensland and want a game, say so on The Hobby Armoury Facebook page.