Wargames Research Group Ltd History of W.R.G. Susan Laflin-Barker Phil Barker

WELCOME TO OUR WARGAMING WEBSITES
www.wrg.me.uk

This page contains links to the relevant web pages.
The page for "Wargames Research Group Ltd" gives details of all the current publications, both new sets of rules and reprints of the "Armies and Enemies" series.
The "History of W.R.G." contains a history of the Wargames Research Group and pdf-versions of many of the out-of-date rules and army lists.
The two links to "Phil Barker" and "Sue Laflin-Barker" connect to our own personal websites.

In addition to the books published by WRG Ltd, which are shown on their website, we also have books published elsewhere and these are listed here.

"Wargames Rules for All-Arms Land Warfare from Platoon to Batallion Level" 1925-1950 and 1950-2000 . This is a single volume containing reprints of two earlier sets. In June 1988 the set covering 1925-1950 was published and became popular. It was followed by a set covering the period from 1950-1975 which was published in June 1979. This was extended in January 1993 to cover the period from 1950-2000 and this is the set reprinted here. These are particularly well suited to the 1/300 or 1/285 scale models and in place of the "Army Lists" accompanying sets for earlier periods, they contain tables of information about the arms used by different nations during the period covered.
Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.

"Horse, Foot and Guns" version 1.1. “Horse Foot and Guns” (HFG) is a set of quick-play army-level wargames rules for large land Battles for the period 1701-1914. This version 1.1 is a slight revision of the version 1.0 written in 2006 by Phil Barker and for many years available as a free download from his website. It is primarily intended for games between two players each controlling a complete army against its historical opponents using a minimum number of figures on a small table. The series' inspirations are that no current rules can cope with more than one corps per player; that few of the many wars of the period except the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars are covered by existing rule sets; and that great interest is being shown in smaller model scales for which casualty removal is impractical. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.

"Pirates! Smuggler! Robbers!" is a collection of after-dinner games. The Conference of Wargamers (COW) has been held at Knuston Hall in Northamptonshire, England for many years. During that time, the tradition of “After-Dinner Games” has developed and the term now indicates a light-hearted romp intended solely for entertainment. The games described here are not complete sets of rules and are not intended for competition wargaming. The point of this book is that players the world over will enjoy playing these games. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.
"Sue Laflin-Barker's Start Ancient Wargaming Using DBA 3.0" edited by John Curry. This book introduces the hobby of ancient wargaming and also gives instructions for choosing a period of history and the armies in use at that tiome, painting and basing the figures to create armies and making terrain. It gives a bound-by-bound account of DBA wargame and includes a copy of the DBA 3.0 rules. Finally a generous selection of army lists provides all that is needed to start playing ancient wargames. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.
"Phil Barker's Horse and Musket Wargaming Rules 1685-1845" edited by John Curry. These rules were written in 1979 and had remained in use for over 25 years, primarily for wargaming in the Seven Years War and Napoleonic periods but were written to allow wargamers to replay even the largest battles from this era. Standard dice were used throughout and the rules used an alternative move system. Details were given for figure scales ranging from 28/30 mm down to 6mm with one figure representing 40-50 men. This made it possible to recreate historical battles at a grand tactical level, for many periods including Marlborough's battles, the Highland rebellions, the battles of Frederick the Great, the Seven Years War, the War of American Independence, campaigns in India, the Wars of the French Revolution as well as the Napoleonic Wars. A few specimen army lists were included covering the Marlburian wars, the Seven Years War and the early Indian Wars. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.
"DBA 2.2 Simple Ancient & Medieval Wargaming Rules including DBA 1.0 and DBSA by Phil Barker, Richard Bodley Scott & Sue Laflin-Barker. edited by John Curry. For all the versions of De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) from version 1.0 published in 1990 to version 3.0 published by WRG Ltd in 2014, the aim of the rules has been the same, namely to provide the simplest possible set of rules that retain the feel and generalship of ancient wargaming. Each version of DBA up to 2.2 included the basic battle rules, simple campaign rules and suggested six-player mini-campaigns and over 300 army lists. This reprint includes DBSA - the original 4-page version used as the Society of Ancients Conference in 1989, DBA Version 1.0, DBA version 2.2 and also chapters on the development of DBA, an introduction to tactics, Using DBA for historical battles with a detailed accountof the Battle of Zama, as well as all the original sections of army lists. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.
"Phil Barker's Introduction to Ancient Wargaming and WRG 6th edition Ancient Rules 3000BC to 1485AD" edited by John Curry. This book includes the much-loved "Purple Primer" alias "The Airfix Guide to Ancient Wargaming" which presented Phil Barker's introduction to ancient warfare; advice on tactics; a guide to the available sources; an account of how ancient wargaming began; instructions on how to raise an army and some sample army lists.
At the time the current set of rules was the sixth edition of the WRG Ancient Rules and this book also contains a copyof these rules for those who wish to recreate this era in the development of the hobby. Copies may be prdered from AMAZON or direct from LULU.

Page maintained by Susan Laflin-Barker, last updated June 2022