WRG Illustration Index

Introduction

One of my best wargaming "investments" was a collection of hardback reference books released by the Wargames Research Group (WRG) in the early 1980s: the famous "Armies & Enemies" series.

In the intervening decades they have been used again and again; not least because so many 15 mm figure manufacturers use them as sculpting guides. I'm glad I bought the hard back editions as they have stood the test of time with few signs of wear and tear.

Birth of a project

The books' greatest strength is the sheer volume of illustrations. The books' greatest weakness is the sheer volume of illustrations. Thus a project was born.

My plan was to create a searchable online index of every image in all nine books of the ancient and medieval period. I own eight and was able to borrow the ninth. I knew at the outset this would be a mammoth task, and was proved right: the final index contains 1,322 entries!

Thankfully, I found partial lists for five of the books on the Internet. This made the task more bearable. Even so it took a while: I spent about a week of my spare time building both the index and the web page.

After a little testing, it is now online for all to use.

Data notes

To maximise search efficiency I have:

• Standardised the description format (text, type, dates),
• Standardised troop types (infantryman, spearmen, archer etc).
• Enhanced any generic descriptions based on the book's content.
• Checked all proper & common nouns and capitalise accordingly,
• Changed types to singular (man not men) unless the image was of a group,

Therefore the descriptions in the index do not always match those in the books, but they should be far more useful.

If you find any errors get in touch.

Technical notes

The data is held in spreadsheet on Google Sheets, and published to the Internet as a comma-separated values (csv) file. This file is used to produced the searchable table.

I used claude.ai to prepare a search widget linked to the published csv file. The "trick" is to ensure the widget is suitable for use on a Blogger page with its many restrictions.

The search widget is generic and has many other uses. If you'd like a copy get in touch.

Closing remarks

During testing, the initial feedback was positive. I know I will find it useful. I hope you do too.