They come pre-painted and ready to rock but feel free to paint away. All expansion pieces come painted as well. Easy game to learn but made to play as a stand alone game, not recomended for the board games. Although you can use the infantry pieces.
I saw your post sitting so long I registered to give you a few pointers on maps. Most if not all the WotC map packs are themed in some way. Originally they were 2" hexes but were changed some time ago. The map packs you mentioned are themed as follows: North Africa - 3 Desert maps and on reverse side 3 jungle maps. Eastern Front - 3 town/factory maps and on the reverse side 3 Russian steppes maps. There are two starters, the one in the cardboard box is the old one and contains 12mm mini’s and 2" hex maps. the new starter is in a blister pack and has 15mm mini’s and 3" hex maps. The maps in the new starter are mixed forest/hills/clear. The rules and revised cards are downloadable through the WotC site.
I started this summer with a starter pack. Then I bought some boosters (39-45), but now I’m buying on Ebay.
This way you combine your own army,depending on the side you want to play.
Something like MechanizedWarfare suggested works best; US & UK vs GE usually works well. A free-for-all is interesting to do sometimes, but often it simply ends up with two players joining up against the third who doesn’t have a chance.
I’ve used reinforcements before, but mine were much more simple. My opponent and I would build our starting army, at say, 250 points. Then on let’s say, turn 3 or 4, we would deploy our reinforcements, valued at about 150 points.