This is an excellent game, the rules are quite simple and accessible and then it is full of possibilities. What I especially like in this game is its high interaction between players.The only drawback is its theme, although perfectly integrated, it is not very appealing to most players.

Brass Birmingham

Brass may be becoming one of my favourite games. I’m usually a wargamer but was looking for something more Euro to broaden my collection, and I had played Lancashire with my brother a good few years ago so when I saw Zatu had this on sale I pounced.This is the standard version of the game but as of writing this review you can deluxify the game yourself if you like; the poker chips that come with the deluxe edition are available on Backerkit, have a search for Roxley Iron Clays and the exact same poker chips from the Kickstarter deluxe editions should pop up. They’re not essential but they sure are nice! They can, of course, be used with any other game you like.The game itself is deviously simple; build industries during the industrial revolution, and use them to ... MoreBrass may be becoming one of my favourite games. I’m usually a wargamer but was looking for something more Euro to broaden my collection, and I had played Lancashire with my brother a good few years ago so when I saw Zatu had this on sale I pounced.This is the standard version of the game but as of writing this review you can deluxify the game yourself if you like; the poker chips that come with the deluxe edition are available on Backerkit, have a search for Roxley Iron Clays and the exact same poker chips from the Kickstarter deluxe editions should pop up. They’re not essential but they sure are nice! They can, of course, be used with any other game you like.The game itself is deviously simple; build industries during the industrial revolution, and use them to gain more money and VP’s. This is accomplished by ‘flipping’ the industry tiles you have built by either using all of their produced resources, or selling the products of a business on the open market. Sounds simple, but the devil lies in the detail...Locations must be connected by either canals or railway tracks depending on the ‘era’ of the game (it is split into two halfs), and you anyone can use anyone else’s resources on the board so you often have to react to the market to see what is most in demand and produce that to earn quick and easy money and points. This is happening in tandem with your main strategy that could be to produce cotton or manufactured goods. There is always something else pawing at you trying to get your attention, and you are often planning three or four moves ahead. But actions are limited by a deck of cards that act as a timer between the eras that is constantly ticking down, making action premium an important consideration. You’ll often find yourself caught by the lack of turns or a change in the board state, forcing you to revise your strategies to make the most of the opportunities that have arisen. It’s a fiendishly brilliant and highly addictive puzzle that demands your attention. And when you finally tee up your strategy, very little is as satisfying as flipping four or five tiles in one turn. It’s like clockwork endorphin pump.l, only more cardboard and addictive.The game has a number of tricks to keep the gameplay fresh and tight; variable merchant tile placement means different goods will be in demand, and in different places. The card deck is also variable according to player count, limiting the map locations that regularly pop up meaning the bulk of the game will always be tightly focussed keeping player interaction as high as it can be. The game also does a great job of hiding who is in the lead. We’ve had a number of victories pop up out of left field thanks to clever tile placement, so you never feel like your out of the running.The game has a reputation for being complex, and while it has a number of moving parts I wouldn’t say it is massively rule-laden. Each individual action has a process that must be followed, and a few turns in you’ll be flying. The intro game which only covers the canal era is a great learning tool, and I have found no issues understanding or assimilating the rules. The rulebook is well laid out and the main rules only cover six pages or so. Coming from the wargaming background that I do, that’s pretty slim. It’s pretty slim by any estimation really.Overall I have found myself yearning to get this game off the shelf since I got it, and can’t wait to get more people around the table to experience this game. I’ve bought the e-raptor insert (it greatly helps speed up set up and tear down), have upgraded the cubes to look like coal and iron (lava cubes and copper pyrites on Etsy/EBay if anyone is interested), and have even painted the beer barrels. Totally worth it!

Brass: Birmingham

This is a game that I can give a 10/10 to without any hesitations. Everything about it is elegant.The artwork is beautiful and more important, highly functional. Either side of the game board is very readable, and as many reviews have pointed out, even the size / height of the components lend themselves to easy of readability. The box itself has a wonderful almost cloth feeling finish to it, and it's surprisingly dainty size almost seems to scoff at larger competing titles such as Power Grid.The rules may seem daunting, but essentially the game can be boiled down to a simple phrase. Discard card, do thing. The build action has a bit of nuance to it, but considering 90% of the game revolves around what has been built and where, that's not too bad.I'm a very big ... MoreThis is a game that I can give a 10/10 to without any hesitations. Everything about it is elegant.The artwork is beautiful and more important, highly functional. Either side of the game board is very readable, and as many reviews have pointed out, even the size / height of the components lend themselves to easy of readability. The box itself has a wonderful almost cloth feeling finish to it, and it's surprisingly dainty size almost seems to scoff at larger competing titles such as Power Grid.The rules may seem daunting, but essentially the game can be boiled down to a simple phrase. Discard card, do thing. The build action has a bit of nuance to it, but considering 90% of the game revolves around what has been built and where, that's not too bad.I'm a very big fan of the two phase scoring, as it gives everyone a nice stop point, where you can stand up, stretch, get snacks or whatever, before you dive back into the last half of it.

Brass: Birmingham

2-4 players, CompetitiveOverview-This game is all about properly managing your economy. You will be building up various factories, breweries etc. and trading those goods to specific border cities on the game board to try to achieve the most victory points possible. It’s all about finding the best and most efficient way to do this to maximize your points.Win Condition /Length-To win this one you just need to have the most VP’s (Victory Points) at the end of the game. To achieve this you will need to be very strategic and efficient during your actions, which I’ll explain more later. This game can be played with 2 players which took us a little over an hour and a half but as you start adding more players up to the maximum of 4 the game will take longer as each ... More2-4 players, CompetitiveOverview-This game is all about properly managing your economy. You will be building up various factories, breweries etc. and trading those goods to specific border cities on the game board to try to achieve the most victory points possible. It’s all about finding the best and most efficient way to do this to maximize your points.Win Condition /Length-To win this one you just need to have the most VP’s (Victory Points) at the end of the game. To achieve this you will need to be very strategic and efficient during your actions, which I’ll explain more later. This game can be played with 2 players which took us a little over an hour and a half but as you start adding more players up to the maximum of 4 the game will take longer as each player has his/her own player board to contend with. There can be a bit of analysis paralysis for those that like to really think about their move; however your hand of cards does limit that to some degree.Components –Excellent quality components here. The cards all feel nice and the tokens are of a good quality with some wooden squares for the iron and coal tokens and some wooden beer barrels that are shaped like little barrels. The cardboard stock they use for the player board tokens are thick and feel very sturdy.Setup/Takedown –The setup takes quite a while for this one. The card setup is rather fast as you just lay down the wild cards in their respective parts, shuffle the main deck and deal cards to each player and place the rest face down in its spot. The MEAT of the time it takes to set up are the individual player boards. Each player gets a board and on these boards you have to place all the industry tokens that you will use throughout the game. There are 29 different spots for these tokes and 4 or so of each specific token goes per spot, in a specific numbered order. So you can imagine that dumping out a bag full of these tokens will take you a bit to find and sort them out to put them in the correct place. Once you are finished with that you are pretty much ready to go!The takedown of the game is much quicker depending on how you have the game sorted. You can go the route of individual bags for each player’s tokens (there are 4) or you can opt to try and sort out each individual industry token by type (there are 6). The latter will make the setup quicker but at the same time will increase the time of takedown. As an aside there are 3d printed storage trays people have created that hold all these tokens perfectly and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this hit mass market eventually. But as far as the game comes, you will have to deal with baggies.Box/Storage –The box is on the small size and honestly nothing really stands out about it. Also since you will more than likely be storing most tokens in plastic bags you don’t really have to worry about stuff getting mixed up.Visual Appeal /Theme–I REALLY love the visual aspect of this game. The board looks amazing with the style and artwork. Not only that but the main game board and all the player boards are double sided. One side has the darker artwork of nighttime complete with painted on lit lanterns and the other has the day time look and feel to it. This doesn’t change the gameplay at all but it’s these little things like this that really stand out to me with games. The theme is really great as well, taking place during the industrial age of England with various city names adorned on the game board and the surrounding landscape painted in-between with the railroad and canals painted to connect the cities. The outer edges of the board have very elaborate drawings for the VP track and everything just looks….fancy. This is a very beautiful game indeed.Rulebook –This game is deep, no doubt about that. Luckily the rulebook does a great job of explaining it! It is fleshed out with pictures and good easy to read descriptions. As with most games you will more than likely need to grab it and search for specific rules of things as you play the first couple times but everything is easy to find with areas bolded for ease. Also included are directions for an introductory game for your first time playing to make it a little easier on you and a section of “Beginner Tips” which is awesome.Table Presence/Game Board –I talked about the game board a bit above and how great it looks and it just looks even cooler once you start playing and getting your industries set up along with your networks. As you build out the game you will remove those tokens from your player board and place them on various spots on the main game board. This will create your network for your economy. The board is a pretty good size and when combined with the players’ boards it does take up a decent amount of space on a table and that’s not including the space you need for the money tokens and other iron and coal chits.Table Talk/Fun Factor –I loved playing this and found it to be extremely deep. This might turn off some players who prefer a more simple straightforward game but the turns were easy and fun and honestly this game is only as complex as you make it. That may sound kinda weird but you can go in and just have a ball of a time building up your industries however you want based on what city cards you have in your hand OR you can really get down into it and plot out strategies to REALLY maximize those cards to their fullest potential and monitor what the other players are doing as well. I played with my wife who is a freaking master of strategy games (who also figured out a clever strategy about halfway in) and at the end of it she only ended up winning by 8 VP’s which is a very narrow margin as we both lapped the full VP track once already.And even though you are playing your own player board you do end up having much discussion around the events happening on the board between other players. I went into this game thinking I wouldn’t be doing much table talk but as it turns out this one creates all kinds of interesting discussions based around other players’ actions.Optimal Player Count –This is one of those rare games that I think any player count is optimal and here’s why. At 2 players the game is scaled back a bit as you cannot use the full game board or the full amount of cards. This is done to create that sense of interaction/competition with the other player. When you go to 3 players another section of the main board opens up as well as more cards added to the deck to draw from. And finally at 4 players the full board is open as well as all the cards to draw from. Personally I think you will get the same experience from the game no matter which player count you go with, with the only big difference being the game length. The more players, the longer the game.Final Thoughts –I’ve said it before that I’m not the biggest fan of VP’s and those styles of victories in games. But this one really stands out, and honestly it actually quite a bit of fun just playing the game and not having to worry about VP’s until the end. And then the excitement when you tally up everything and see who came out on top. I really love that tension it creates. The artwork is just amazing and the theme and feel of the game is great. Thus far this is my favorite strategic economy board game I have played.

Brass: Birmingham = Amazing

Brass is brilliant. I want to play this everyday since I’ve owned it. It’s such a well-designed game. There is certainly a reason this is ranked one of the best games ever. I can’t say enough good things about.

Brass: Lancashire

I am a huge fan of Brass: Birmingham and had to pick up Lancashire as well. While I think Birmingham plays just slightly better with the addition of the beer mechanic and additional factory options, Lancashire still holds up as a classic network/route building and economic engine game. Lancashire is definitely more streamlined and cut-throat than Birmingham, and sometimes that's just what my group and I are in the mood for. The re-design by Roxley is simply gorgeous. If you own and love Birmingham, and need more Brass in your life, it's an easy decision.

Complicated Fun

Reading the rules was a little intimidating, and I do recommend playing through just the canal era for the first game. But after that first play-through, we've played it multiple times since and really enjoy the different mechanics and ways to strategize.

Great Strategic Game!

We have two games of BB under our belts and we LOVE this game. So many fun choices to be made and strategies to try. So far we have only played it with 2 players, so we aren't sure how much fun it would be with three or four, but we will try it out. I think three players would be the sweet spot for this game though. Overall this game checks all the boxes for us with regards to strategy, design, and looks. We already love it so much that we have bought bling for it. It's a keeper and we are already looking forward to our next game.

Social and Networking

In Brass: Lancashire, players are rewarded for being social...that is by paying attention to what the other players may need to develop their networks and industries. In this economic strategy game, the tight hand management and interdependency of players' networks and resources are what makes this game stand out. The publisher also includes two official 2-player variants that players can use, featuring a double-sided board with gorgeous art.

Thematic, deep and thoroughly enjoyable.

Best with 4 players although there is an excellent 2-player variant.Plays in about 3hrs.Not for the inexperienced or faint-of-heart. It helps if the players have any interest in the industrialization of England.Wow what a game. This solves my few small nitpicks of Brass: Birmingham (which is also excellent) while providing a more streamlined design. The history is palpable, there is the push-pull of supply and demand across several markets and there is quite a bit of both competition and cooperation with your fellow entrepreneurs in a welcome change from the multiplayer solitaire style that has been the rage among Euro games for the last decade. This is in no way purely a train game, it is as much about the growth of industries as it is about the creation of ... MoreBest with 4 players although there is an excellent 2-player variant.Plays in about 3hrs.Not for the inexperienced or faint-of-heart. It helps if the players have any interest in the industrialization of England.Wow what a game. This solves my few small nitpicks of Brass: Birmingham (which is also excellent) while providing a more streamlined design. The history is palpable, there is the push-pull of supply and demand across several markets and there is quite a bit of both competition and cooperation with your fellow entrepreneurs in a welcome change from the multiplayer solitaire style that has been the rage among Euro games for the last decade. This is in no way purely a train game, it is as much about the growth of industries as it is about the creation of lines of communication and logistics. An excellent game that combines thoughtful game play and economic history in a surprisingly playable and rich package.As a note, I like the cardboard money tokens included in this retail version and don't feel that I am missing the iron clays seen in many online reviews.