Lost in the mists of time, a rebel movement grew within Chaotic Beast that was the 'Crawley Wargames Club', this movement of young heroes grew and in time developed into a nucleus of the S.A.S.
The S.A.S. are many things, but most of all they are a group of friends who meet regularly to indulge their wargaming passions. Here is a quick thumbnail portrait of club members, some more frequent visitors than others...
     |
JOHN SEARS Offices:The Master of the Ales. Titles: Knight of the Grande Cru, Knight of the Squirrel Men., Order of the Tourneo, Minder of the Fallen Nuns, Master of the Poisoned Wind Tours of Duty: 6 'Big' John is a veteran wargamer who was grounded in WRG 25mm Ancients back in the early 70's. At this time he is rumoured to have been living in London and involved with the Warlords, luckily no-one would recognise him today without his 70's trademark 'perm' hairdo! John has seen the light and despite a lengthy period playing with 25mm ECW he has now migrated to virtually anything in 15mm. John has run a number of campaigns win the club, notably a 15mm Maximillian Mexico campaign, a 20mm WW2 Sealion campaign, 15mm Outreamer Campaign set in the Holy Lands and most recently an ongoing Series of linked The Russian theme has continued through to WWII, where his 20mm German army regularly clashes with Mikey N's Russian counterparts and most recently he orchestrated what can only be described as a 15mm Napoleonic Tabletop Campaign as French, Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies clashed for 6 straight weeks at the Battle of Dresden. |
 |
     |
MIKE NEWMAN Offices: The Keeper of the Keys. Titles: Knight of the Grande Cru, Order of the Squirrel Men, Order of the Tourneo, Librarian, Fat Cat Tours of Duty: 7 Mike is another lifelong wargamer, originally from Northampton, via Crawley he now lives in Horsham and is the provider of the Club's main venue - 'Newman Towers'. As such he has the honourary title of 'Keeper of the Keys'. His current forte is a magnificent Wild West skirmish set-up in 25mm, an equally magnificent Pony Wars set-up in 15mm and what seems to be the entire Red Army modelled in 20mm! Famed for his bizarre collection of several hundred dead 15mm Wars of the Roses figures.... Mike is now also a proud owner of a large 15mm Prussian army and last embarked upon a WW2 Campaign recreating the German invasion of Russia. |
 |
 |
PHIL 'The Hill' HARDY Titles: Order of the Squirrel Men, Order of the Tourneo Tours of Duty: 2 Phil's interests are wide and varied, but are probably best described as geological, his extensive collection of scratch built hills is near legendary, with wargamers terrorised into defeat just by glimpsing the undulating terrain set before them. Equally legendary is Phil's use of terrain when fighting out a game on the tabletop, all we can say is watch your flanks, that table edge can hold a lot of troops... His recent activity has been around 15mm WWI, fighting out the early war battles using a chopped version of the popular Shako rules - these have worked really well despite everyone's initial thoughts about such a radical period shift. Phil's last campaign was set in the Spanish Civil War. |
 |
 |
RUPERT WORREL Offices: Keeper of the Other Keys, The Master of the Squirrel Men. Titles: Lord Rupert of Handcross, Fat Cat Tours of Duty: 6 Rupert provides the secondary location for the Club's activities, used increasingly often as Mikey N continues to gallivant around Europe in his free time. As 'Lord of Handcross', Rupert owns estates covering vast acres of Sussex and thus he has space to stage the larger games we all like to play. Rupert is a Renaissance man when it comes to wargames, the Italian Wars Campaign he ran was a classic in terms of simple mechanics yet huge amounts of intrigue. Rupert is also into Fantasy, Napoleonics and Ancients in a big way - ie hundreds on 25mm figures! His current last campaign is a refight if the 1st Carthaginian Wars but he has an endless Fantasy Campaign on teh go that has been running for over 5 years! |
 |
  |
STEVE CAST Titles: Order of the Dripping Tap, Order of the Tourneo, Order of the Vauxhall Tours of Duty: 5 Steve participates in most club activities and his tastes are wide and varied as long as it is Medieval or 18th Century Smuggling, he has a huge collection of 25mm skirmish figures for both periods. Ironically Steve's other huge collection is in the microscopically small 6mm scale, where is collecting armies to re-create the Irish rebellions of the late 18th, as well as his foray into Fantasy/Sci-Fi with the War of the Worlds in 6mm.. |
 |
 |
MIKE WHITEFORD Titles: Knight of the Grande Cru, Knight of the Squirrel Men, Navigator of the Tourneo (1st Class), Navigator of the Transporter(1st Class), Navigator of the Citroen (2nd Class) Tours of Duty: 5 Mike is a veteran wargamer from the early 70s, and has wide ranging interests but is proud that his wargaming roots in Airfix 20mm American Civil War has carried through to today, albeit with modern 15mm kit these days! Mike could have been one of the Founding Fathers but as he was AWOL, working abroad at the time of the 'Founding', he missed his opportunity. His past campaigns have been a recreation of Jackson's Shennandoah Campaign and a Jacobite 1745 Campaign, plus an unfinished KINGMAKER game, with tabletop battles from the 'Wars of the Roses' in 28mm. During Covid times, Mike was Campaign Manager for two virtual online campaigns, one a recreation of the ACW and the other a rerun of the Jacobite Campaign, proving he has few new ideas! Other areas of interest are 15mm SCW and AK47 collections, 15mm Peninsular British. Mike also collects 1672 Anglo-Dutch War, Nine Years War & WoR 28mm, WWII Polish 20mm (now sold to Marky Mark) as well as Warhammer Fantasy, 40K, Warmaster & Epic miniatures. Current interests are 28mm Texian Revolution, Border Reivers and Irish Elizabethan Wars as well as Dark Age Saxon, Vikings, Normans & Anglo-Danes etc. |
 |
 | DAVE VALLANCE Titles: Knight of the Grande Cru, Knight of the Squirrel Men, Driver of the Tourneo (1st Class), Driver of the Transporter(2nd Class) Tours of Duty: 7 Dave is an excellent painter of figures and has previously been involved in collecting SCW, Napoleonics and Mexico 1860 figures in 15mm. Recently Dave has dabbled in Indian Mutiny15mm & Marlburian 6mm in an attempt to raise the profile of the period with the club. Rather bizarrely the scale at which Dave is working is rapidly decreasing, having started with 25mm toys he progressed to 15mm kit and is now down to 6mm, we are awaiting the announcement of his new 'Lumpy Counter' 1mm scale project with bated breath. Dave has now initiated a Sikh Wars campaign, that is being run by John, this is still at its very early stages but warming up nicely. More recently he has been pursuing 6mm Marlburian and 1860's European Wars collections. |  |
 | MARK 'Marky Mark' COOPER Titles: Order of the Citroen Tours of Duty: 1 Mark has been associated with the SAS for a number of years, although it is relatively recently that he has become a regular attendee of our Friday night soirees. Hailing form Kent, Mark's attendance is much appreciated by all. A keen re-enactor, along with Mike N & Phil, he has a wide range of interests covering the ECW, WW2 and he has been running an intermittent Vietnam campaign for some time now. He is now dabbling in Modern Naval Battles and has been running mini campaigns of linked WW2 Battles to everyone's enjoyment. |  |
| NIGEL HEATHER Titles: Order of the Volkswagen Tours of Duty: 1 Nigel was a regular attendee some years back but work took him away from the area. He has now returned and is a welcome long term addition to our regular crew. His background is in board games and as such he brings an incisive view on rule mechanisms which helps all to focus on game process and results. |  |
 | MAT TOY Titles: Minder of the Fallen Nuns Tours of Duty: 1 Matt is a former member of the 'White Company' re-enactment group and he has been involved with the club for a number of years now, previously on manoeuvres in South East Asia where he was involved in large scale building projects in Vietnam. He reckons he's building Dams and stuff like that, we all know he means 54mm re-enactment of the siege of Stalingrad.... Anyway he's back now to carry on where he left off - the SCW Anarchist commander came so naturally to him... lately Mat has taken to running a number of interesting games. Another 'Northerner' from Surrey. |  |
| PAUL BROWNING Titles: The Distant One, Guide (First Class), Junta Maximus Tours of Duty: 2 Paul is another of the group that tried to escape but his addiction is such that he constantly has to come back. Paul now heads the Somerset Squadron of the SAS. Paul's interests are in 25mm ACW & Western Gunfights and in 15mm he's well into ancients. Most recently he participated in our virtual ACW & Jacobite campaigns, playing an influential role in both the Confederate & Jacobite leaderships in those games, his knowledge of these periods providing good insights for that team. |  |
| GRAHAME HORWOOD Titles: The Collector of Men, Navigator of the Tourneo (1st Class), Navigator of the Transporter(2nd Class) Tours of Duty: 4 Grahame has the largest collection of nearly everything in the club, what's worse everything is painted to an excellent standard and what's even worse is that he paints and bases everything himself. As such he is a co-conspirator with Mike W, in entering eth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Completion for the past few years. Adding to his considerable talents is his comprehensive knowledge of a number of diverse periods - Seven Years War, WWII, Napoleonics et all he is a real asset to the club. On top of that he's as barmy as the rest of us! |  |
| OLLY HURD Titles: Captain Reckless Tours of Duty: 2 Olly has recently resurfaced after a number of years away from the club, his veteran status assured by continued if somewhat sporadic attendance over the last few years. Olly brings a new slant to table-top historical tactics - utilising his background in Fantasy games and Sci-Fi to throw in challenging conundrums for the club's 'Old Guard'. Now based back in Horsham, Olly's visits are even more irregular - though he is welcome whenever he can attend. |  |
 | WARREN MEHRTENS Titles: Knight of the Grande Cru, Not so Fat Cat Tours of Duty: 1 Warren is the club's walking encyclopedia on the American Civil War, he has been collecting 15mm ACW figures for at least 40 years and is finally nearing the end of his project to recreate the Armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia in miniature. We don't see as much of Warren these days as we'd like to, only once or twice a year at present. He is another of our Surrey contingent that have to journey south to beautiful Sussex for a game. |  |
A.W.O.L. (Once a member, always a member!)
| ANDY 'The Cowboy' FLATMAN Titles: The Devastator, Order of the Squirrel Men, Driver of the Tourneo (with Oak Leaves) Tours of Duty: 3 Andy has a large collection of 20mm Vietnam & WWII British / Greek figures, he is an all round player and participates in many club campaigns. Andy's favoured approach is to lay waste to buildings and all surrounding lands. This is a fairly blunt but effective tactic and has been used to great effect. Andy has now moved away from the area so we haven't seen him for a number of years.... |  |
| JULIAN COLES AKA: The Mysterious Mr Smith Tours of Duty: 2 Jules is a relatively elusive member of the club but threw himself into the 2011 Belgian Campaign Tour with gusto. His main interest is in board games but he is slowly being turned to the dark-side of tabletop wargames! Unseen for many years but still officially AWOL.... |  |
ROLL OF HONOUR
 Alan MartinTitles: The Worldmaker, Driver of the Transporter(1st Class) Tours of Duty: 2 Alan is a master terrain maker and figure painter and another of our Surrey based members. His terrain has won prizes at various shows and his figures are expertly finished. Sadly Alan acquired his masterly with the paintbrush and modelling tools by selling his luck to the 'Dark Side', as a result he is totally incapable of throwing a decent dice score - ever -during a wargame.His main interest lies in 15mm Biblicals but he has extensive Zulu and Napoleonic collections as well, though more recently working to build 28mm Thirty Years War armies.Sadly Alan passed away at the end of February 2018, he will be sorely missed by his family and friends. |
