Based in part on Donald Featherstone’s Close Wars, Close Little World Wars focuses on WWII Platoon level games.
World War Two
Painting Wargaming Figures: WWII In The Desert – Book Review
Painting Wargaming Figures: WWII In The Desert
by Andy Singleton
Publisher’s Site
Buy It On Amazon
As the title suggests, Painting Wargaming Figures: WWII In The Desert is a guide to painting the armies of British and Commonwealth, Italian, United States and German Armies of the North Africa Campaigns in World War II. Author Andy Singleton is a full time, professional figure painter.
Painting Wargaming Figures: WWII In the Desert is published in a perfect bound 17cm x 24.5 cm format with 158 glossy pages. the book has some 200 color illustrations. Nearly all of these are of figures in various stages of their “paint jobs.”
Singleton begins his volume with a brief discussion of the various “tools of the trade”: hobby knives, side cutters, files, glue, brushes and the like. A discussion on painting techniques, such as drybrushing, washes and glazing follows. I suspect that most experienced miniature wargamers will just skim past this.
The meat of the book is in the step-by-step painting guides. For each nationality, Singleton offers step-by-step instructions for producing figures at “conscript”, “regular” and “elite” levels. The ratings refer not the quality of the troops, but to the level of painting detail and skill required. Novice painters can start at the “conscript” level to quickly start fielding an army. As confidence and skill grows, a painter can step up to the higher levels.
In each step, Singleton includes a chart of suggested colors, describes which parts of the figure to paint and which colors to use on which areas of the figure. He also suggests brush sizes and painting techniques (dry brushing, for example).
If I were a beginning painter, I think this volume would serve very nicely to help me get started. As it stands, though, I’ve been at it for nearly fifty years and have probably painted some ten thousand figures. Still, I still gleaned some good information from the “Elite” instructions, particularly some aspects of using washes that I had not considered.
Hans Und Panzer WWII Rules
Hans Und Panzer is a set of free wargames rules for WWII tank combat. The author writes:
Hans in Panzer is a game of tank combat in World War II. Using small scale soldiers and vehicles, you can recreate an entire battle on a coffee table. The rules accommodate tanks and equipment used by merican, German, British and Russian forces. The average space for a game would be 4” by 8” or so. Using these rules, you can even play on a coffee table. All you need are miniature soldiers, terrain pieces, measuring sticks and six-sided dice.
Tank Craft: Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks – Book Review
Tank Craft: Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks: German Army and Waffen SS The Last Battles In The West 1945
Buy Directly from the Publisher
Buy From Amazon
Tank Craft: Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks is part of a series from publisher Pen and Sword that cover fighting vehicles from WWII to the present. Each of the books is offers full color visual references, as well as modeling guides and historical background.
Like others in the series, Tank Craft: Tiger I and Tiger II Tanks is published in a 21cm x 30cm perfect bound format with 64 glossy pages. There are 32 pages of color illustrations.
Ten of the color pages are illustrations depicting twenty different variations of the Tiger I and Tiger II tanks. The remaining color pages show photographs of scale model kits from a variety of manufacturers.
Gamers and historical enthusiasts will enjoy a timeline of actions in which Tigers were involved in 1945, as well as short operational histories of Tiger units engaged in the last months of the war. The book also includes unit organizations.
Color Interior of Tank Craft: Tiger 1 and Tiger II 
Color Interior of Tank Craft: Tiger 1 and Tiger II
This is a slim volume, but packed full of information for modelers and gamers interested in the Tiger I and Tiger II tanks in the last months of the war.
Tank Craft: Panther Tanks. German Army and Waffen-SS, Normandy Campaign 1944 — Book Review
Tank Craft: Panther Tanks. German Army and Waffen-SS. Defense of the West 1945
Buy directly from the publisher.
Buy from Amazon.
One of a series of books in Pen and Sword’s Tank Craft books, Panther Tanks focuses on late war models of the German tank.
The book is part history, part identification guide, part painting and modeling instructions. If you are a modeler or a miniature wargamer and Panther tanks appear on your table, this book strikes me as invaluable.
Tank Craft: Panther Tanks is published in a 21cm x 30cm perfect bound format with 64 glossy pages. There are 32 pages of color illustrations.
The color illustrations consist of twenty drawings showing various variations of the Panther, along with different camouflage schemes. There are also photographs of scale models in various stages of assembly, comparing the products of various manufacturers.
Color interior of Tank Craft: Panther Tanks 
Color Interior of Tank Craft: Panther Tanks
The remaining pages of Tank Craft: Panther Tanks are notes on actions fought by various Panzer units, unit organizations, and a general history of the tank.
It’s a good book, and I recommend it to people interested in WWII tanks and unit organizations.