ON SATURDAY, January 31, Penarth and District Wargames Society will be holding their annual show Crusade.

This year’s show is their 20th anniversary and will be held at Cogan Leisure Centre, Penarth.

On the day there will be a whole range of games being run, with beautifully painted miniatures and exquisite scenery. There will be plenty of traders selling figures, models and everything else wanted by gamers of all types.

There will be displays by re-enactment and living history societies, showing off their carefully reconstructed and historically accurate costumes and equipment, weapons, uniforms and armour.

You can also attend lectures by experts in military history. This year there will be a new voice, Gareth Glover, who has edited and published a vast quantity of previously unknown sources for the Napoleonic era and will be speaking about his latest book “Waterloo. Myth and Reality”.

In addition Dr Adrian Goldsworthy and Dr Rob Jones will talk about the use of cavalry in the ancient and medieval worlds and explain how to represent the history of cavalry in the games. Both have written a number of books and regularly appear in documentaries on television.

There will also be a raffle at the end of the day in aid of their chosen charity BLESMA.

The Penarth and District Wargames society is one of the oldest and probably the most active wargaming society in Wales and includes gamers interested in many different types of figure games, periods, and styles of wargaming. These include Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, World War One, World War Two, Modern and Ultra Modern, through to fantasy and sci-fi using figures from 2mm to 40mm.

The society also holds meetings and is always happy to welcome experienced or novice gamers.

The club meets twice weekly, every Tuesday at the Glyndwr Hall, Glyndwr Road, Penarth from 7.15pm and every Thursday at the Village Hall, Taffs Well from 6.30pm.

In addition they hold a Saturday game once a month at both venues from 9.30am at Glyndwr Hall and from 10am at Taffs Well. They hold four weekend games a year to allow for bigger or campaigns games, as well as a chance to catch up and socialise.

Doors to Crusade open at 10am and costs £4 for adults and £1 for children/concessions. Email crusade@penarthwargames.co.uk for further information.