Werner Werman (Cuphead)

Description

Werner Werman is a boss in Cuphead. He is encountered and fought in the level Murine Corps, which is located in Inkwell Isle Three and takes place in a house that Werner apparently lives in. Werner is a long-snouted brown rat who operates a dented red tin soup can that bears 4 gold stars perched on a wooden cart that he uses as a battle tank. (Although during his second phase, it crumbes, leaving behind only the cart that his tank was perched on and exposing him to his opponents.) He wears white gloves, blue shoes, and light brown pants (with a tan stripe running down each side of the pants) held up by a single suspender strap. His most notable feature is his metal Pickelhaube helmet strapped to his head, giving him a slight resemblance in his design to a Prussian soldier. He also smokes a cigar. In The Cuphead Show!, his appearance remains the same, only Werner has a pink fleshy tail with a bandage wrap tied around it and either a fake German accent or can also speak with an American accent. Werner Werman is cantankerous and a military master in his own mind.[2] Werner Werman acts like a stereotypical German soldier from World War I, speaking in a thick and exaggerated German accent (warping his TH sequences into Z's and his W's to V's) and making a salute whenever he charges forward to attack with his tank. He appears to be interested in the late 1700- early 1900 military as he is wearing a Prussian soldier helmet (Pickelhaube) and owns a Colonial British soldier figurine. Werner is also an incredibly skilled technician, having the talent to create both a realistic mechanical cat and a tank with multiple uses out of wood and a soup can. He doesn't seem to mind boasting about his own technology, as evident by his 2nd phase's death screen. However, he becomes completely irrational in the face of failure, since instead of giving up in the 2nd phase when his tank is demolished, he chooses to continue fighting while screaming wildly, although his weapon is now gone. Katzenwagen has no real personality, being an automaton created by Werner, although it is capable of expressing emotion as evidenced by the territorial and angry meowing noises that the Cat makes, and by the final phase death screen. As the battle commences, Werner places a cigar in his mouth and has it lit by a mechanical arm from the can's interior before going inside to pilot the tank. In this phase, Werner has two main attacks that he performs on either side of the arena while his tank moves back and forth: Cherry Cannon - A cannon attached to a spring comes out of the can, shooting out five cherry bombs that will damage the player(s) if they come in contact with them or the explosion they create. If the bombs hit the floor, they will send shock waves of fire that travel along the ground in both horizontal directions upon exploding. In Simple Mode, the cherry bombs are shot at a slower rate. In Expert Mode, they are shot at a faster rate. Scrap Attack - A catapult appears and hurls a spread of projectiles at the player(s). These projectiles can be bottle caps, gems, nuts, bolts, coins and 2 pieces of gum (the gum can be parried). In Simple Mode, there will be 3 pieces of gum. After performing one of these two attacks, he will send out two springboards that land on random spots. He will then charge towards the player(s) to the other side of the arena. The player(s) must parry these springboards that Werner throws out of his tank to gain extra height to jump over Werner, due to how big his tank is. Parrying the springboards doesn't count towards the parry total. The player(s) can also dash through his charge attack if they have the Smoke Bomb charm equipped. Even if the player(s) manage(s) to dodge his attacks and his charge, it is still possible to unknowingly bump into his tank and accidentally get damaged in the process. In Simple Mode, Werner's tank moves slower. In Expert Mode, it moves faster. After taking enough damage, Werner attempts to use what appears to be a bottle rocket in an effort to damage the player(s), but it backfires; the now-damaged mechanical arm is unable to handle the weight of the rocket, causing it to drop into the tank and explode. Upon exploding, the exterior of the can is destroyed as Werner gets moderately injured, as he yelps in surprise and alarm as this happens, but he continues to operate the tank. This commences the second phase of the fight. Hitpoints = 750/540/567. In this phase, Werner attacks the players by shooting fire streams on both sides from two flamethrowers mounted below his seat. This attack can be avoided by immediately moving to the area from which Werman moved, as Werner will cycle between moving up and down and firing the flamethrowers. While that happens, two columns of bottle caps that spin like saw blades appear on both sides of the arena. These bottle caps will spin and extend in pairs (one from each column). Sometimes, however, an entire column might activate at once (if this happens, the sound of a buzz saw can be heard). In Simple Mode, the bottle caps will not attack, though players can still take damage if they accidentally touch them. Also, since the bottle caps do not attack in Simple Mode, Werner can also move from left to right. In Expert Mode, the bottle caps extend at a faster rate and the possibility of an entire column activating at once is higher. After taking enough hits, Werner will start to panic and frantically shift his tank's control levers back and forth as the tank appears to have stopped working. All of a sudden, the Cat named Katzenwagen that had been occasionally peering behind the holes in the wall throughout the fight will break in and eat him, commencing the final phase. In Simple Mode, Katzenwagen won't eat Werner after this phase, instead, the battle ends with his tank sputtering. Hitpoints = 750/720/756. An unused pink version of the Cherry Bombs exists in the game's file, which implies that some of them could have been parried. Code exists for another attack during the first phase, called "Roman Candle", the attack would have homing properties and an Area-of-Effect, though it currently goes unused. From the transition from phase 1 to phase 2, the big firework that destroyed Werner's tank is in fact the roman candle for the unused attack, which would make a bit more thematic sense but would be less of a surprise. Most recreations of this attack lack the explosion animation to pair with it, so it is usually just a homing rocket in a limited space. There is an unused shot for the second phase, the cannon has an animation for shooting a bullet on either side and sometimes it could be parried, the bullets are the same as Captain Brineybeard's Octopus gun or Hilda Berg's Zeppeling and it has a chance of not being a placeholder as most assets would use Jareed's head instead.