Brass: Birmingham

Brass: Birmingham looks simple for the first forty minutes and then era two clears the board and you find out how many of your early decisions were quietly setting a trap for yourself. That’s the whole game in one sentence, honestly. It rewards you for understanding consequences you can’t see coming the first time you play it, which is either the best or worst thing I can say about a board game depending on your patience for that kind of lesson.

The shared market for coal, iron, and beer does more work than any single mechanic has a right to. You’re constantly bumping into other players, selling into the same limited demand, occasionally forced to buy a resource from someone you’re racing against because there’s nowhere else to get it. Most economic games this dry on theme don’t bother generating real interaction, and Brass does it without a single card that says “attack” anywhere on it.

I own the cheaper printing, not the deluxe one with the fancier color separation, and I’ll admit the board is a little less crisp for it. Doesn’t change how the game plays a single bit, but I noticed it, and apparently I’m not the only person who’s docked a star over print quality alone rather than design, which feels a little unfair to the game itself.

No minis to speak of, just wooden cubes and cards, but the box has real heft on the shelf and the two sided boards, day and night versions for both the main board and player boards, are a genuinely nice touch I didn’t expect going in.

Five stars. Long, dry, unforgiving of a bad opening, and I still want to play it again the moment it’s back in the box.