Last year, we were contacted by our good friend Randy Lein from Legion Wargames about a new project called Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948, which is a COIN Series inspired multi-faction game taking a look at a what if situation at the end of World War II with various possible insurgencies. He asked if we would be interested in doing some coverage through an interview and possibly some other mediums, such as our Event Card Spoilers format that we have used in other games, and we were immediately intrigued by the concept and the fact that the game uses some of the elements of one of our favorite series. I have been in communication with one of the designers Clint Warren-Davey since that time and he has shared lots of information with me, including the rules and some of their background work on this one, and I wanted to make sure we gave it some light to give you a chance to understand what the game is so that you can make an informed decision about whether you plan to order this one or not. Clint has been great to work with and has agreed to write a series of short articles on the Event Cards and their basis in history as well as how they are used in the game.
If you are interested in ordering Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948, you can pre-order a copy for $72.00 from the Legion Wargames website at the following link: https://www.legionwargames.com/legion_WER.html
#5 HV Peenemünde
The Nazis were renowned for investing vast resources into experimental weapons projects, including some of the first guided missiles.
The Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde, or German Army Research Centre at Peenemünde was the Wehrmacht’s main rocket and guided missile research base. It was at HV Peenemünde that Werner von Braun, Walter Thiel and their team worked to develop the V-2. There were also preliminary plans for long range V-3 rocket designed to hit targets in the United States. The RAF’s bombing campaign as part of Operation Crossbow severely damaged the site, but it remained operational, launching V-2’s, until February 1945. A Red Army amphibious force captured the site in May 1945 to find it largely in ruins. Werner von Braun had been moved under SS guard to southern Germany prior to this, and had escaped to surrender to the American Army. A Soviet team led by aerospace engineer Boris Chertok was disappointed to find that the German engineers had fled, and von Braun’s technical journals only showed the Soviets how advanced the Germans had been – much to Stalin’s ire. An earlier capture of the site and the German engineers who worked there may have given the Soviets an even bigger edge in the early days of the space race and in the development of long-range guided missiles.
Research Tokens are incredibly valuable in Werwolf, and this card is a way for the Soviet player to quickly grab some of them. The top row event imagines Chertok and his team finding valuable documents and scientists. If the Soviet player can then use a Transport Special Action or hold onto the tokens until a Crisis Round, they can be shipped back to Moscow to aid in the arms race with the Allies. The bottom row event represents the insurgents managing to launch one final devastating attack on London, perhaps with a prototype V-3 rocket. The Edelweiss player starts the game with guerrillas in Mecklenburg where there is also an unclaimed Research Token, making them ideally suited to pulling this powerful move.
If you missed the previous entries in the series, you can catch up on the posts to date by following the below links:
Even though the pre-order numbers are increasing and nearing their ultimate goal of 250, we are still hosting these card spoilers to share more about the game and its alternate history. In the meantime, if you are interested we posted an interview with the designers and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2022/06/27/interview-with-clint-warren-davey-and-ben-fiene-designers-of-werwolf-insurgency-in-occupied-germany-1945-1948-from-legion-wargames/
-Grant
The Players' Aid 