Turnbull used to offer a short video called "Introduction to metal preparation". I have a copy on VHS but no VHS player. Anyway, it has what you want in there, Jim.

Personally, I see no advantage to annealing if no metal sculpting, engraving or such is going to be done. Both, the annealing and casehardening process will take it up to critical temp. There's nothing obvious to me that would make annealing worth doing in your case.