THE 3rd place game both overall and in strategy in BoardGameGeek rankings
- 🏆 2018 The Golden Elephant Award People’s Choice Winner
- 🏆 2018 The Golden Elephant Award Best Heavy Board Game Winner
- 🏆 2018 Meeples’ Choice Winner
- 2018 Golden Geek Board Game of the Year Nominee
- 🏆 2018 Golden Geek Best Strategy Board Game Winner
- 🏆 2018 Board Game Quest Awards Best Production Values Winner
Brass: Birmingham is an economic strategy game sequel to Martin Wallace’ 2007 masterpiece, Brass. Birmingham tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870.
As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands.
Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following actions (found in the original game):
- Build – Pay required resources and place an industry tile.
- Network – Add a rail / canal link, expanding your network.
- Develop – Increase the VP value of an industry.
- Sell – Sell your cotton, manufactured goods and pottery.
- Loan – Take a £30 loan and reduce your income.
Brass: Birmingham also features a new sixth action:
- Scout – Discard three cards and take a wild location and wild industry card. (This action replaces Double Action Build in original Brass.)
The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870). To win the game, score the most VPs. VPs are counted at the end of each half for the canals, rails and established (flipped) industry tiles.
Birmingham features dynamic scoring canals/rails. Instead of each flipped industry tile giving a static 1 VP to all connected canals and rails, many industries give 0 or even 2 VPs. This provides players with the opportunity to score much higher value canals in the first era, and creates interesting strategy with industry placement.
Iron, coal, and cotton are three industries which appear in both the original Brass as well as in Brass: Birmingham.
New “Sell” system
Brewing has become a fundamental part of the culture in Birmingham. You must now sell your product through traders located around the edges of the board. Each of these traders is looking for a specific type of good each game. To sell cotton, pottery, or manufactured goods to these traders, you must also “grease the wheels of industry” by consuming beer. For example, a level 1 cotton mill requires one beer to flip. As an incentive to sell early, the first player to sell to a trader receives free beer.
Birmingham features three all-new industry types:
Brewery – Produces precious beer barrels required to sell goods.
Manufactured goods – Function like cotton, but features eight levels. Each level of manufactured goods provides unique rewards, rather than just escalating in VPs, making it a more versatile (yet potentially more difficult) path vs cotton.
Pottery – These behemoths of Birmingham offer huge VPs, but at a huge cost and need to plan.
Increased Coal and Iron Market size – The price of coal and iron can now go up to £8 per cube, and it’s not uncommon.
Brass: Birmingham is a sequel to Brass. It offers a very different story arc and experience from its predecessor.
2–4 players / 60–120 min / age 14+
English version
Features
Brass: Birmingham features a deceptively straightforward rule set which creates interesting gameplay dynamics including a highly innovative variable turn order system and robust gift economy. Unlike its predecessor, Brass: Birmingham features a dynamic board setup, making each game unfold completely differently each time you play.
Brass: Birmingham features meticulously crafted illustrations by Damien Mammoliti and Mr. Cuddington, elegant graphic design, and high quality components.
If you’ve played Brass in the past, learning how to play Birmingham will be a snap as it uses most of the same core ruleset. But Brass: Birmingham creates an entirely new and unique experience from its predecessor with a new mechanics, new industries, and new strategies waiting for you to discover.
- One of the highest rated board games on boardgamegeek.com
- A finely brewed full stand-alone sequel to the original game
- Dynamic board setup makes each game unfold completely differently
- Core rules stay true to the original
- New canal/rail scoring creates tactics in where you place them
3 new industry types include Breweries, Potteries and Manufactured goods - New actions, mechanics and strategies to discover
Deluxe Edition
In the Deluxe Edition of the Brass Birmingham, you will receive a set of 78 Iron Clays Game Counters to replace the chitboard money tokens. Other features include a custom storage tray and black died chitboard for all tiles and tokens.
Components
- 1 x Rulebook
- 1 x Gameboard
- 4 x Player mats
- 4 x Character tiles
- 56 x Link tiles
- 76 x Cards
- 4 x VP markers
- 4 x Income markers
- 30 x Black coal cubes
- 15 x Beer barrels
- 18 x Orange iron cubes
- 78 x Iron Clays (Deluxe Only)
- 77 x Money tokens (Retail Only)
- 180 x Industry tiles
- 9 x Merchant tiles
