This is the third of Andy Singleton's painting guides that I have reviewed ( Early Imperial Romans and WWII in the Desert). As usual, they are well researched and give some useful background on the period and theatre of war.
As the title suggests, it covers more than just a painting guide to the German forces (Wehrmacht and Waffen SS) on the Eastern Front. Also covering the Italians, Romanians, Hungarians, and also the Finnish forces. Due to the changing allegiances as the war progressed some of these could be used on either side in the conflict, and the Finns could also be used for the Winter War (technically separate from WWII, a conflict between Finland and the USSR from November 1939 to March 1940).
The book covers the preparation of the miniatures, a painting guide aimed at reasonable quality and speed, and a guide to basing in the various terrains experienced on the Eastern Front.
So far so good, and there is no denying the quality of Andy's finished miniatures. However, this book suffers from the same drawback that was seen in the previous two books. The photos of the miniatures as they are being painted are all "long shots" that include a lot of wasted space featuring the clamp holding the miniature. In this book in particular it is a problem as Andy has chosen to paint 20mm minis instead of the larger 28mm minis in the previous books. This makes actually seeing the different stages of painting very difficult (if not impossible). I even tried using a magnifying glass, and on some of the guides it is impossible to tell the difference from one stage to the next.
The following two examples of pages from the guides, I hope, demonstrate the deficiency in the photos.
The photos would be far more useful if they included some close-up shots so we could actually see the development from one stage to the next.
Even with the problem with the poor photography in this guide, I think it would still be a useful addition to any wargamers collection if they were planning to start collecting an Axis army from the Eastern Front.
I hope that Pen And Sword take on my criticism about this book and fix it for future volumes as I think they are developing into a valuable resource for wargamers.
The book is available now direct from Pen And Sword HERE.
