WRG Illustration Index

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 preparation

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 capitalised them 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 leave a comment.

Technical approach

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 by email.

Closing remarks

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