Werwolf Interview: Clint Warren-Davey

 

A couple of days ago I discovered this game on Twitter. Seeing the theme and the mechanics I knew I had to bring it to the blog

The rules and images shown here are not final. You can find it here

1-Who are you and you favourite wargame/s?

I am a high school history teacher here in Australia and consider myself very lucky to talk about history for a living! I have young children to take care of so my schedule is very busy, but I have somehow found time to design this game.

Board games are of course my main hobby, even though it’s hard to get time to play them. I have dozens of games that I haven’t played in years, but still keep them in my collection. My favourite games include Axis and Allies, War of the Ring, Star Wars Rebellion, Bobby Lee (Columbia Games), Scythe and Cuba Libre. I used to be involved in tabletop wargaming (such as Flames of War) but this is harder to find the time for.

Aside from history and board games, I have several other interests such as fitness, wine and political philosophy. I’m also trying to learn online marketing in my spare time to maybe build a new career later in life. I am a practicing Catholic, which helps keep me grounded amid all the chaos of work and family life.

2-Why did you decide to do this game?

The concept for Werwolf came to me all at once on 15th July 2021. I was listening to a podcast on political philosophy and someone said – “it’s not like there were Werwolf IED’s blowing up American jeeps in Germany.” He was referring to how the USA had so thoroughly defeated and then ideologically dominated Germany in World War Two that there was no real Nazi resistance to the occupation. Despite Nazi Germany supposedly being one of the most fanatical populations of the 20th century, there was no prolonged guerrilla war or serious insurgency. Why didn’t 1945 Germany turn into something like 1965 Vietnam, post-2003 Iraq or post-2001 Afghanistan?

This question immediately intrigued me. I looked up the historical Werwolves (I’ll say here that the game uses the German spelling, dropping the second “e”) and found out that they were a real underground guerrilla group, comprised of SS and Hitler Youth members. These men and boys were intended to lead an insurgency against the invading Allies and Soviets when it became clear that Germany was losing the war in a conventional sense. They did in fact have a few successes and their own symbol – which you can see on control markers in the game. American intelligence officer Frank Manuel said that the Werwolves were prepared “to strike down the isolated soldier in his jeep, the MP on patrol, the fool who goes a-courting after dark, the Yankee braggart who takes a back road.” While General Patton claimed brashly that reports of these guerrilla fighters were nonsense, a U.S. intelligence report from May 1945 asserted, “The Werewolf organisation is not a myth.”

Luckily for the Allies, Werwolf was badly funded, poorly led and established far too late to make a difference. Hitler and other senior Nazis did not invest significant resources or quality leaders in an insurgency, and Werwolf was effectively destroyed by 1947 (see Perry Biddiscombe’s multiple books on the subject). I don’t want to exaggerate anything here with the real history – Werwolf was mopped up pretty easily and was not a serious threat.

Despite this ineffectiveness, the surprising thing is the fear that it generated among the Allies. Experts on the Battle of the Bulge may remember how General Eisenhower had to be kept under constant guard in Paris in December 1944, due to the fear of German commandos led by Otto Skorzeny assassinating him. This was highly unlikely, but the psychological reaction to such threats was real. Patton was complaining about the Werwolf “myth” because he saw that so many ordinary soldiers were afraid of them and behaving overly cautious in their duties.

At the time I was researching the Werwolves, I had also recently become interested in the COIN series, having played Cuba Libre only a few weeks before. The idea of a COIN-type game set in post-1945 Germany was clearly unique and had never been done. This was for an obvious reason – there was no real resistance. But what if there was? Had anyone thought of this? It turns out there were a few novels set in this kind of alternate history – one of which was The Man with the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove. In this story, Reinhard Heydrich was not assassinated, but convinced Himmler to allow him to train up a professional force of guerrilla fighters to resist the inevitable Allied invasion. This idea was intriguing. Basically, the Werwolf organization could have been an effective force if given funding, training and organization for several years before the Allied and Soviet occupation. This one counter-factual is the foundation of the game’s setting.

3-Can you talk about the mechanics?

Werwolf is strongly influenced by the COIN (COunter INsurgency) series published by GMT. I will point out that Werwolf is not officially part of the COIN series. GMT was given the opportunity to make it, but in the end we went with Legion Wargames as our publisher. As such, Werwolf might unofficially be called a “COIN-inspired” game, much like Hugh O’Donnell’s The Troubles, by Compass Games.

For your readers who are unfamiliar with the COIN series, I will go through the basics.

The COIN model covers everything distinctive about insurgencies as opposed to conventional warfare: shifting population loyalties, hidden guerrillas, asymmetric factions, etc. Like the Viet Cong or the Taliban, the Werwolf guerrillas do not have the firepower or numbers to stand toe-to-toe with their enemy. They must blend into the population, strike from the shadows and encourage civilian resistance to outlast the occupiers. The core mechanics of COIN handle this imbalance really well without getting down into the nitty gritty of weapon types, ground scale, battlefield tactics, etc.

COIN games also have a shared event card each turn (usually with two different options for the event) for all players, which determines turn order. This means everyone is directing their attention to the board and to each other, not to their own “hand” of cards. It is also more realistic in a way. If you are a military or political leader, events happen and you must react to them. You do not have a selection of events that you can choose from. It also provides an interesting way to structure turns. You can see one turn ahead into the future, but beyond that you have no idea what the turn order will be or who will be able to block, disrupt or help the other players.

The map in Werwolf is also influenced by COIN games, with cities, provinces and roads:

However, Werwolf departs from the COIN series with some very unique features:


-Cold War Tensions: The game takes place in Germany in 1945-1948, with the country divided into Soviet and Western Allied occupation zones. While nominally on the same side in putting down the Werwolf and Edelweiss insurgencies, the Soviets and Allies in this time period are certainly not best friends! The growing suspicion and hostility between these ideological rivals is represented in the game by the Cold War Tensions track, which is an absolutely crucial part of the game. This track starts at number 1 (Co-operation) but as it goes up there will be increasing restrictions on the Allied and Soviet players. If the track reaches 6 (War Imminent) the Soviets and Allies will declare war on each other at the next crisis round, ending the game and handing victory to the insurgents as the two Cold War superpowers destroy each other! The tensions track acts as an important “brake” on operations as the Soviets and Allies must waste turns “negotiating” to reduce tensions if they have been too aggressive against each other. It also redresses the imbalance between the militarily dominant occupation forces and the much smaller insurgent forces. Indeed, the insurgents will often deliberately use actions or events to push tensions up. Cards like these will affect it:

-Research Tokens: This idea came from the real history of Hitler’s investment into wunder-waffen (wonder weapons), which ranged from manned suicide missiles to a ridiculous “sun cannon” that would concentrate the sun’s rays with an orbital mirror. These ideas did not win the war, but many of them, such as the V2 rocket program headed by Werner von Braun, would prove directly applicable to the nuclear and space programs of the rival superpowers. NASA owed its early successes to Nazi scientists, which the Soviets would have preferred to take home if they found them first! The presence of advanced technology caches in 1945 Germany is represented by research tokens in the game. The map begins littered with these tokens and they can be captured by all the factions. More of them will pop up based on the event cards drawn as well. For the insurgents, these tokens can be sold for resources or sometimes used to attack enemy troops and terrorise civilians (the Werwolf faction’s “wunder-waffen strike” special action). For the Allies and Soviets, they are used to fuel the impending arms race, with the “research advantage” being a part of their victory conditions. They are also essential for the play of key events representing nuclear weapons. In early playtesting, I loved how the capture of Research tokens formed little side missions for the players, as they diverted forces to grab them before the enemy! Research tokens also let you play cards like this:

-HE Tokens: Along with Research tokens, we also decided early on to include another type of token scattered around the map at the start of the game. These are Heavy Equipment or HE tokens, and represent concentrations of tanks, artillery, assault guns, mortars, anti-tank guns and other useful weaponry. We could have included these as another type of wooden piece for all the factions, but went with tokens so that they could be captured by other factions. In particular, the insurgents have a few sneaky abilities that allow them to steal HE from the occupying powers. Having uncontrolled HE at the start of the game also nicely represents the immediate aftermath of the huge battles of 1945, with piles of wrecked Panthers or Shermans waiting to be salvaged. HE tokens provide a substantial boost to the attack power of the pieces carrying them and are a nifty little addition to the game.

-Event-based buildings: An interesting type of card that we included are events that add a special token to the map representing a major building or installation. These cards include Bundestag (the West German parliament in Bonn, which improves the Allied ability to build loyalty), Volkskammer (the East German parliament, which improves the Soviet ability to build loyalty) and Radio Werwolf (which improves Werwolf ability to do terror actions). These building tokens can sometimes be destroyed and will often form a target for enemy attacks, but while active they provide powerful long-term bonuses.

4-How the different factions work?

Here is an overview of each one:

This faction is the Allied Military Government of Germany and includes American, British and French military forces, plus the nascent regime of West Germany. The Allies are trying to de-Nazify and pacify the German population, build support for democracy, stamp out guerrillas, track down advanced German research and technology and contain the Soviets without triggering another world war. Being from democratic countries, Allied commanders need to avoid casualties as people back home are sick of the war and do not want to be tied down in an endless insurgency. This means they can’t afford to walk into too many ambushes and must be cautious. The Allies do have enormous strengths though. The huge American economy gives them plenty of resources for operations while civilian morale remains high, they have total control of the air and can shift forces anywhere on the map and they are the best faction for influencing the loyalty of the population through reconstruction efforts and public trials of Nazi terrorists and war criminals. They have a very tough job, but plenty of cash, firepower and mobility.

This faction is the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and includes the Red Army, the NKVD and East German military and police (including the Stasi). The Soviets are trying to take control of as much territory as possible, with the insurgency giving them the perfect cover to violate the Potsdam agreement in pursuit of guerrillas. They don’t want war with the Allies but tensions will inevitably rise and they will soon be getting in each other’s way. The Soviets also want to build support for communism through indoctrination and seize German technology for their ensuing arms race with the USA. Their counter-insurgency methods are a blunt instrument – if the populace is still harboring fascist militants, they can simply be deported to Siberia. If guerrillas are located on the battlefield they can be blasted with plentiful artillery. The Soviets can also build up their military forces faster than any other faction.

Unlike history, in the game’s timeline Werwolf is a huge, well-trained and fanatical guerrilla force that is brought into being from 1943 onwards. Hitler and other top Nazis like Heydrich or Himmler understand that the tide is turning against them, and so decide to deliberately fight an insurgency when the enemy invades German soil. They draw ideas from partisan fighting on the Eastern Front and elevate irregular warfare experts like Otto Skorzeny to positions of leadership in the organization. The Werwolves are recruited mainly from SS and Hitler Youth and they have a detailed plan to hold out in southern Germany and rise up against the enemy when the time is right. Hitler himself is not dead but has escaped Berlin to possibly lead Werwolf from the shadows. Their victory conditions are mainly based on building opposition to the occupying powers through their terror actions – very thematic considering what the SS were doing to German civilians in 1944-45 to keep them in the fight. Importantly, they do not care about control of territory or winning victories on the battlefield. However, they do have the ability to steadily inflict casualties on occupying forces through assassination, ambush and other means.

I decided very early in the process that we would need another insurgent faction due to the power imbalance of the Allies and Soviets. This is the Edelweiss Movement, with the name taken from a real group called the Edelweiss Pirates. These guys were actually youthful, romantic, anti-Nazi rebels before the war and took pride in beating up the Hitler Youth, but after the war they were a menace to the occupying Allies and opposed the spread of Communism in Germany as well. In the game’s new timeline, we have merged various other resistance groups under the Edelweiss banner – the Prussian aristocrats behind the 20th July Plot, disaffected members of the Abwehr such as Frieherr von Gersdorff (who revealed the Katyn massacre), anti-Bolshevik Wehrmacht veterans who joined the underground “Schnez Truppe'' or the huge numbers of civilians who took part in mass resistance to Soviet occupation in the Berlin uprising. This faction is not made up out of thin air – it is just a combination of several different groups who used insurgent methods to oppose the Nazi government and/or the post-1945 occupation regimes. In the game, Edelweiss are aiming for an independent, patriotic Germany free from foreign domination but not controlled by Hitler’s cronies either. They will use infiltration, extortion, ambushes and other guerrilla tactics to achieve their goals.

5-Scenarios and/or length of the game?

The base game has 3 scenarios: short (about 2 hours), medium (3-4 hours) and long (up to 6 hours). Note that all of these are playable solitaire, or with 2-4 players. The key difference between them is the composition of the deck and the number of cards. In the medium and long scenarios, each faction will get 2 very powerful “key event” cards which they can play when certain conditions are met. Here is an example of a key event for the Allies:

6-Do you have another game/project in mind?

Well, nothing is set in stone yet, but I am working on 3 new designs. Like Werwolf, these are all COIN-inspired games. It would be great if your readers could follow and contact me on Twitter (@Clint_Davey1) and let me know which of these they would most like to see next:

-Black Dragon: The sequel to Werwolf, set in the same timeline, but in occupied Japan. 4 factions: Communists, Nationalists (remnants of the IJA and IJN and civilian militia), Black Dragon (a Yakuza-affiliated, ultra-nationalist secret society) and the Allied occupation government. If I get really ambitious, I might even give players the option of joining the two games together…

-Kotongo: A 1-6 player asymmetric game set in the fictional African country of Kotongo during the Cold War. Basically a mash-up of the conflicts in Angola, Rhodesia and Congo in the 1960’s-1970’s. You can play as two opposing factions of mercenaries, the CIA, the KGB, the corrupt government or the insurgents trying to overthrow it. It will be my weirdest design yet but very unique in today’s market.

-After Appomattox OR The South Will Rise Again (haven’t decided on a title): A game about Reconstruction in the South (1865-1877) after the American Civil War, basically treating it as an insurgency - which it was. Population loyalties would be Democrat or Republican, and the various factions would be focused on getting Senate seats and governorships and passing legislation, as well as the conflict between insurgents (Confederate veteran paramilitaries) and counter-insurgents (Union occupation troops).