Peninsula Wargames Group Gamesday

The Cape-based Peninsula Wargames Group recently held their June monthly meet at the Chavonne Battery Museum at the V&A waterfront. The museum preserves the site of a 18th century coastal battery that was discovered during construction of an office building. Despite having sunken to below the current sea level, the battery was remarkably well preserved, and the archeological structures and the museum elements were sensitively integrated into the basement and ground floor of the modern building.

Its not the first time the museum has offered its facilities to the club - it was the venue for the PWG "big game" in December last year - a 3-day marathon recreation of Operation Market Garden (see pix here).

This time three games were played - a recreation of Quatre Bras in 28mm with something in the region of 30 battalions on each side (using the Black Powder rules and the Albion Triumphant supplements to guide scenario development), a 20mm WW2 Eastern Front encounter using the Rapid Fire 2.0 rules, and a 28mm skirmish (using the Bolt Action rules) based in Italy 1944/5 between German defenders and recce elements of the South African 6th Armoured Division.

Additional images can be found in the PWG Gaming Gallery.

Its a great venue for playing wargames  "in the public eye" - plenty of space, comfortable, a sense of history; and with passing "traffic" who have some interest in military history. Unfortunately, the lighting makes for tricky photography  - the gallery-style spotlights create deep shadows on the tables, so the games held there are not as well documented as they ought to be.

More info about the museum can also be found on their Facebook page.