With the completion of a
complete index for Wargames Illustrated issues 1-259, I thought it would be interesting to make a histogram of all the articles divided over all the different periods. Of course, I might have mislabeled some, and sometimes I subdivided (or did not!) a period into several subgenres for no good reason except my own illogical judgement. Nevertheless, the results do look interesting. It reflects interests in (historical) wargaming from 1987 to 2009.
The data below are the raw numbers. Please interpret as you see fit.
- Articles which have a "blank" as period (usually modelling), have not been counted.
- Some periods have a general category as well as several subdivisions (e.g. WW2, Napoleonics). The numbers are exclusive. I.e. articles counted under "WW2/Eastfront" are not duplicated in the general "WW2" category. Every article is only counted once.
- A multi-part article in subsequent issues only has one entry in the database, hence it is only counted once here.
| Row Labels |
Count of Numb |
| Medieval |
106 |
| WW2 |
104 |
| Ancients |
102 |
| Generic |
91 |
| ACW |
83 |
| Napoleonic |
69 |
| Modern |
68 |
| WW1 |
53 |
| 18th |
51 |
| WW2/Eastfront |
50 |
| 19th/America |
46 |
| 17th |
45 |
| 16th |
44 |
| 19th |
41 |
| Colonial |
38 |
| ECW |
34 |
| Fantasy |
33 |
| 20th |
28 |
| Pulp |
28 |
| AWI |
27 |
| WildWest |
24 |
| Vietnam |
23 |
| Colonial/DarkestAfrica |
23 |
| Scifi |
22 |
| WW2/Naval |
21 |
| Colonial/ZuluWar |
20 |
| WW2/D-Day |
20 |
| WW2/Pacific |
19 |
| 7YW |
18 |
| FPW |
18 |
| WW2/Africa |
17 |
| Napoleonic/Peninsular |
17 |
| WarRoses |
16 |
| Napoleonic/Waterloo |
15 |
| CrimeanWar |
15 |
| WW1/Naval |
12 |
| WW2/Air |
12 |
| Renaissance |
11 |
| Pirates |
11 |
| BoerWar |
9 |
| Colonial/Sudan |
9 |
| 15th |
9 |
| Medieval/Asia |
9 |
| GNW |
9 |
| Ancients/Naval |
8 |
| 20th/Naval |
8 |
| SCW |
7 |
| War1812 |
7 |
| WW2/MarketGarden |
7 |
| 19th/Naval |
7 |
| RCW |
6 |
| Colonial/IndianMutiny |
6 |
| 19th/China |
5 |
| Napoleonic/Egypt |
4 |
| FIW |
4 |
| Ancients/Gladiators |
4 |
| WW1/Air |
4 |
|
|
| Grand
Total |
1597 |
Interesting, and close to what I would have expected, other than Napoleonics being further down the list. Then I added back Egypt, Peninsula and Waterloo, which brings Napoleonics up to 105, good for 2nd place. Of course, doing the same thing for WW2 brings it up to 180 articles which is first place by a wide margin.
ReplyDeleteOf course, numbers such as these have to be taken with a grain of salt. There is a bias, present in submissions and editor preference. But they do tell us something, I believe.
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