Finally!!!! I think I've found the set of rules that will allow me to make use of the buckets of Star Wars miniatures I have sitting under my desk (yes buckets).

I think every CoB player has been waiting for this release and here it is. As of 11th July it seems the download file is a Mac "Pages" document rather than the advertised PDF but I was able to get into the file (rename the extension to "zip") and print out the preview.pdf file. The images are a little fuzzy but it's the content that I'm really after here. At first glance seems to cover everything I'll need to convert the rest of my Warmaster units over to CoB.

A great supplement for a great game at a great price.

Great looking buildings that are easy to build. In fact I've made mine from 3mm MDF instead of cardstock and it was still effortless. The layers means you can build 2 or three of these without them looking the same which is very handy for bulking out the terrain on a skirmish table. I've also printed these at 10mm scale and they look great.

Have a look at some of the finished buildings on my blog: timbo74.blogspot.com/search/label/Dave%20Graffam

I bought this together with the British compendium so read my review of that one as all that applies there is relevant here. However there is one this that make the German compendium an absolute must buy for any Axis player: the Maus, 180 tonnes of uber gaming goodness.

The Russians may have had the most tanks but the Germans had the coolest.

The Book Itself: The British Vehicle Compendium (as all books in this series) is simply a must have for any serious World at War player. So stop reading this and go buy it, you won't be dissapointed. The range of vehicles seems to be fairly complete (to this WW2 buff at least) with all the vehicles I want to field being present. The quality of the layout is excellent and the stat blocks are quite easy to read. Most vehicles have photos, either actual photos of the vehicle or photos of some very nicely painted models. The colour version of the book is simply amazing to look at, the black and white one is very printer friendly without loosing too much of the look-and-feel of the colour book. The cards that come with the book have won me over, I can't imagine playing a game without these now. They look awesome and have all the stats and traits right there on the card.

Rules: There are new traits presented in this book that also enhance the vehicles found in the core World at War rulebook. The options for the vehicles allows you to field some nice variants of vehicles, some vehicles even have downgrade options that reduce the vehicles cost but also effectiveness in some way such as the removal of a weapon or adds a new trait unreliability. It adds a nice amount of depth to each vehicle while keeping the vehicle list to a reasonable size.

The Cards: This is simply the best part of the books. Each book comes with a set of cards for each vehicle and each option for those vehicles. This makes it easy to look up the rules for each of the vehicles traits as they're on the cards. It also makes it easier to remember which tank upgraded to a Mk III and which one you added the Pintle MG or Side Skirts.

Final Word(s): Buy one of these books and you'll end up getting the rest, and with more books coming soon from Agis and Dave then things are only going to get better and better for World at War players. Also if you play World at War using model kits (1/72, 1/48 and so on) then you will need to get these books, as they really open up the number of kits available to you.

Initially I wasn't going to buy these rules but Mongoose Publishing changed all that with their Open Content license. WW2 games tend to be theatre specific, which in itself isn't bad but it does mean that you are limited to what you can or can't play until the publisher decides to release a book covering that theatre. There is a lot of content out there for WaW and it seems to be growing almost daily.

As for the rules, the fit the three critera I expect from any good game:

• Simple core rules (although no rules for grenades?!? sigh).
• The details are where they belong: in the army lists.
• Use the miniatures you have: no game specific basing.

I look forward to playing these rules a lot, now if only Mongoose can get the Pacific book out soon.

TimC