In this article, we’ll look at another one of the major game mechanics that causes players to make choices in any Men of Iron series game. You might think this would be movement or combat, as in many wargames. But that’s the point. Although players’ choices made involving those two mechanics are important in Men of Iron, they are similar to decisions a player must make in most wargames. Instead, today we’ll examine another Men of Iron series unique mechanic: Seizure. To read more about the first Men of Iron series unique mechanic we discussed, “Battle Activation”, and the interesting and challenging battlefield decisions it presents players with, you can follow the link to part one here.
Men of Iron‘s Seizure mechanic is facilitated by the eight Seizure counters for each side. There are four counters, Seizure Opportunity, that allow a player to interrupt their opponent before they roll to Continue, roll a die, and, if successful, Activate a Battle of their own. These give the player a success range of 60-80% to stop their opponent and Seize control of the flow of the game (hence the name of the mechanic). Another Seizure counter is a Seizure Negation that allows you to cancel your opponent’s Seizure Opportunity. The other three Seizure counters give the player a minor in game effect. If the die roll is unsuccessful, the original player now gets a special Free Activation that can be used to Activate any Battle, including the Battle that was just Activated! Players randomly draw between two and four Seizure counters at the beginning of the game and they are concealed face down from each player’s opponent. The number of Seizure counters a player gets is one of the ways we tilt the balance of the game such that the historical winner of the battle wins more often that not.
All of the rules explanation leads to why the choice of when to play Seizure Opportunity counters, if you even received any, can be exceptionally consequential to the game. A well-timed and successful Seizure can allow a player to extricate one of their hard-pressed Battles or stop their opponent from doing the same, possibly swinging the battle in their favor. A failed Seizure can doom one a player’s Battles by allowing their opponent to follow up a successful attack before the defending Battle can recover or disengage. Note that due to the random nature of the initial draw, one or both players may not be able to take advantage of this mechanic. Though both players being frozen out of the Seizure mechanic is highly unlikely (about a 5% or less chance, though there is one small battle where the chance is about 12%), there are several battles where the historically losing side has only two Seizure counter draws leading to that player having a roughly 43% chance of not receiving a Seizure Opportunity.
Author: Ralph Shelton
