Reply To: Sources for historicals: where, who, what?

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As an absolute beginner who wanted to look through a cross section of different fighting forces across all of history I used Blandford’s “Warriors and Weapons of Early Times” and Lilane and Fred Funken’s Arms and Uniforms (2 volumes) published by Ward Lock.  Both date to the early 70s so are not at the cutting edge of research or understanding but they do give a good chronological review of the appearance of fighting men from earliest times to the present day.  As a lad I spent hours looking through the copies I got from the local library and I now have copies here at home which I still turn to, not for historical accuracy but for the lovely artwork and the period snapshots that these summary works give.  Inevitably there is an Osprey that does something similar “Warriors: Fighting men and their uniforms” which will be a bit more accurate to modern understanding, although I’ve not read that one.

After that I always found the wargames magazines were a good source of inspiration, as were display games at conventions.

As a wargamer I’ve always gone with the rule of cool when picking out armies to build.  I enjoy research and have a history degree but for me wargaming is a visual thing, after all I spend hours peering intently at them whilst I paint so I need to stay engaged enough to finish them.  My toys have to look lovely or they just won’t play games in the right style. Once you’ve picked out something that you think looks cool you can turn to specific Osprey Men at Arms but as there are hundreds of those to choose from some easier method of picking a starting point might be preferable.

After that you can start on the deeper research and commenters have given some excellent suggestions for selecting suitable sources.