5 Questions with . . . Designer Wes Crawford

Brant Guillory, 5 August 2026

Wes Crawford is part of the new publisher Wharf Rat Games, and he and partner Ryan Heilman already have Forlorn Hope pretty far down the path toward publication.  Next in chute?  Looks like it’ll be Wes’s own Urgent Commands, a Battle of the Bulge game that involves… timers?

For anyone that doesn’t already know, what’s the core “schtick” behind your Urgent Commands system?  What makes this game different?

For starters, both players are 100% involved in gameplay during the duration of the game. Activations for both sides, along with their designated actions, are simultaneous. Between turns, players study the board and decide what they need to accomplish. Then, a two-minute sand timer (representing two days) is turned over and both players simultaneously roll their Action dice and move and attack as desired. Then, players keep rolling their dice until someone calls out “Attack!” The timer is turned on its side on the table and time is suspended until the battle is resolved. Then the timer is placed upright and time continues until one player notices it has run out and calls “Time!” While players are rolling their Action dice, they must also call out an item from the turn’s menu that they’d like to add to their asset board. One side of each die is “wild” and let’s them add this item. Possible items include expendable assets such as Fuel, Artillery, Air Support (not available every turn, of course), German Commandos, Reinforcements (Reinforcements don’t automatically appear on time like so many other games), Replacements, an extra Action Die (Allies), and more. As you might imagine, the German player must constantly attempt to replenish their Fuel since each Attack expends one Fuel. 

Analysis Paralysis is severely punished. 

But that’s not all. For those players with a weak heart or who like to sit and think a moment, there is a more relaxed way to play I call the “Relaxed Impulse System.” With this system no timer is used. Players roll their Action dice (probably behind a screen…I’m still testing this) and then take turns playing one of their dice actions at a time. This system, too, moves quickly and both players are constantly engaged. So, there are really two rather unique ways to play depending on how hyper-focused or relaxed players feel on a given day. 

This will be Wharf Rat Games’ second release with a crowdfunder tentatively planned for FEB, 2027.

click images to enlarge

Tell us about the research you did as you developing the game.  Obviously there’s the usual – maps, orders of battle, and such – but what are some of the other things you dug into through your development of the game?

Honestly, I first dug through my collection of Bulge games. I was amazed to see how varied the orders of battle and the maps were. My main book source was Antony Beevor’s Ardennes 1944. This game is mostly at the division level, so I did not have to worry about breaking divisions down into smaller units. 

What’s been the general reaction in public playtesting?  What have people really liked about it?  What are things they recommended changing or modifying or getting rid of altogether?

First, everyone says that they have never played a wargame like this. Then they either tell me it’s refreshing and a fun system or else they tell me how nervous they became playing it. That second part is why I designed the Relaxed Impulse System. Some players may prefer playing with one system or the other, and both are included in the game. One thing I discovered at Origins was that two players should be the maximum number to play this game. I believe you allowed four players to sign up to play and, with two players on each side, agitation increased rather than decreased as might be expected with diffused responsibility and attempts at player specialization of duties. I believe this was because there were too many chefs in each kitchen trying to do their thing while watching their teammate AND watching their opponents. I think it became a PSYC 101 experiment! This was fascinating to me and I would never have learned this lesson if you had not let four players sign up! 

By the way, this may be played two-handed solo just as satisfactorily as most wargames  that utilize chit pull. 

This game will show “1-2 Players” on the box. 

To that end, how close is the current form of the game to what you originally envisioned?  All games evolve during development, but some start much closer to their final form and others take a looooong time to get there.  What’s the journey been like here?

Except for designing the relaxed system, things have not changed too much. The timer was changed from three minutes to two. Cards have been tweaked. Oh…I had not told you about the cards. Each side starts with two cards and then draws another at the start of each turn. Cards provide battle bonuses and narrative events- one of my favorites is the 36^th Bomb Group Jackal EWF Missions Allied card which represents the first recorded use of electronic warfare from an aircraft and significantly downgraded radio communications between panzers for a while. Other cards tell narratives that I felt had to be included. While most people agree that the film, “The Battle of the Bulge,” has serious technical and historical flaws, the narratives still live in our consciousness if you are of a certain age and watched WW2 movies from the 1960s. So, the cards may allow the Allies to blow a bridge, but the German player may play a card that says their Commandos stop this demolition. Then, the Allied player may play a card that asks who won the 1944 World Series? If the German player has the card that says, “St. Louis Cardinals,” the demolition is most definitely stopped! Probably the most valuable cards for the German player are two that change possible victory conditions. Victory is still difficult for the Germans, but these cards might surprise the Allied player if they haven’t been careful.

Additionally, regular cardboard counters were first considered, but these were soon changed to blocks both to facilitate fog of war and to provide something less fiddly and more tactile for players to move around the board while under time pressure. 

It’s gotta be asked:  why a Bulge game?  Was the world really lacking in games about the Bulge?  Was that just the best operation in which to showcase Urgent Commands system?  Or is this the one you thought was commercially viable enough to get attention?  Or some other factor?

Brant, your question is the answer. When I came up with this system my first thought was to try it out with one of the most over-gamed battles I could think of figuring that, if I could give players a brand new wargaming experience for a battle that has been thoroughly gamed at so many different scales and granularity, then maybe my Urgent Commands system is worthwhile. With 115 existing games, including expansions (according to BGG), Bulge fit that criteria. My other thoughts were for Waterloo and Gettysburg, which I plan for next. Also, remember that all my published and soon-to-be published historical games cover lesser known events that have never been gamed such as The Andrews Raid (Engine Thieves), The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth (codesigned with Ryan Heilman), the attempted coup against the Japanese Emperor to stop the AUG 15, 1945 surrender (The Emperor’s Voice), and Yankee Scare Party (The 1864 Confederate raid on St. Albans, VT). It’s sort of fun to go to the other extreme now! Oh, and commercially, your Bulge collection won’t be complete without Urgent Commands!

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