Overview
Brass: Lancashire is the latest version of Martin Wallace's
classic game set during the industrial revolution of England. The
original game was released in 2007 and owing to its popularity was reprinted in
2009 and in 2015. The 2018 Roxley edition eschews the drab-art of the original
and provides gamers with the most lavishly produced game I think I have ever
seen.
2-4 players take on the role of a Titan of Industry during
the late 18th century in the industrial powerhouse of England, i.e. Lancashire.
Through the game, players acquire Victory Points by building and using their
industries and providing others with resources whilst expanding their own network
of canals and rails.
Players compete with each other to fulfil the markets'
demand for coal, iron and cotton at the same time as using the same coal and
iron to expand their empire. The economic mantra of 'buying low, selling high'
and the euro-gamers mantra of 'do what others aren't' are pivotal for success
here.
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| Halfway through scoring the Canal Era |
This version of the game was kickstarted by Roxley Games and
as a frequent consumer of Kickstarter projects, I can honestly say that this
was the best campaign that I've ever had the pleasure to be part of. I think
Roxley have set other publishers the gold-standard of how to do a Kickstarter
and I will consider backing any future campaign they run purely on the merits
of this Kickstarter.
Gameplay
The game consists of approximately 16 rounds split over 2
eras. In each round, every player will take a turn of two actions by playing
cards from their hand. Each round the player order will alter depending on how
much money players spent during the previous round with the least amount going
first.
On their turn, players will be doing 2 of 5 possible actions;
attempting to sell cotton, building industries, building connections between
towns and markets, taking a loan from the bank or developing their industry to
get more bonuses when it is eventually built.
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| Handy Player Boards |
The industries in which players can invest and use are (left
to right in the image) cotton mills, ports, shipyards, iron works and coal
mines. As you would expect each of them has different yet thematic attributes
which provide a benefit to the owning player and often the other players as
well. Just as in the real world no industry will thrive without
customers.
All of these actions and industries are played through the
use of a hand of cards. The cards depict either a location on the map or a
specific industry type. Every action must be 'paid for' by discarding a
card. The build action, however, requires the correct card to be used. For
example, a player can place any industry into the specified location on the
card, or the specific industry on the card into a location that is part of or
adjacent to their own network.
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| Card Art Example |
However, having the correct card to build an industry is far
from the only consideration players have to think about when building. Some
industries, require access to and the use of coal and/or iron in order to place
them. Exhausting the resources of connected players may provide them with a
larger benefit than building your own industry does to you. Your cards may lead
you to focus elsewhere requiring a change of tactics. Money is also quite tight
in this game and often you will not have enough money to build what you want
without taking a loan first.
Constraining each player to two actions per turn does lead
to some agonising choices, particularly around shipyards, that have very
limited possible spaces on the board and iron works, whose market cycles far
quicker than coal or cotton. I nearly always wish that I could do a third
action thereby, for example, preventing another player from building the iron
works before I can afford it, or have access to coal in the right area and
allowing me to fulfil the iron demand and 'flip' my tile.
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| Player tokens and flipped industries |
Flipping a tile is done when it's resources are depleted.
When you first build an industry a certain number of coal or iron cubes are
placed upon the tile to show on-map availability of those resources. As they
are exhausted the industry tile is flipped which will score Victory Points for
the owning player at the end of the canal and rails eras and an immediate
income bonus. Each industry is quite different from in this respect; shipyards
flip immediately providing large amounts of VPs and little income. Cotton and
Ports have no resource placed on them and are only flipped when the sell cotton
action is taken.
Generally, earlier industries provide more income bonus and
later ones provide more Victory Points. Striking the balance between building
industries and developing them, i.e. getting access to the later industries is
key. However, another important source of Victory Points, especially in
the Rail Era are the connections. Each industry tile at either end of a
connection will score a Victory Point per connection. So a single rail link may
be worth up to 7 Victory Points to its owner; there is normally a mad rush at
the beginning of the rail era to build as many links as possible, primarily for
this reason amongst others.
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| Halway through scoring the Rail Era |
There are a plethora of difficult choices per turn for each
player whereby you have to balance immediate tactical benefits with longer-term
considerations, and the cards that you've got available with the actions/areas
that your opponents are playing.
Components
I feel like I say this for most board games these days but
truly Roxley has delivered a game with the most superb components I've ever
seen. Granted the iron and coal are standard wooden blocks but this is entirely
functional and does nothing to detract from the gorgeous art that permeates the
rest of the game. The artwork on the board is second to none, likewise, the
cards are similarly designed. I appreciated the industrial flourishes, littered
throughout the game.
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| Flourishes aplenty |
However, the best components in this game are the Iron
Clays. These are the poker chips that are provided with the Deluxe edition of
the game. They feel wonderful to touch and are the most tactile poker chips I
have ever used. I normally substitute cardboard or (heaven forbid) paper money
with poker chips in games and my generic chips feel and look terrible compared
to these. Apparently, there is a Kickstarter for Iron Clays from Roxley later
this year (or early next, considering we're almost in December) that I will
definitely be backing to replace all of my chips.
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| More please! |
The poker chips are only in the deluxe edition of the game
which can still be ordered. The retail version features cardboard token for the
money, and I'm sure they're functional and perfectly fine, but if you can and
you're interested I would definitely recommend the deluxe version as these Iron
Clays are something special. I even learnt to shuffle poker chips because I
enjoyed handling them so much...
Criticisms
I wouldn't recommend learning this game with 3 new players
or trying to learn where all 4 of you are new, you must have an experienced
player to instruct. I taught this to two of my group; they came over
requesting a 'brain-burner' and this was a perfect choice. It did take
the best part of 3 hours despite only reviewing the rules for about 20 minutes
or so before we got into it. However this isn't really a criticism as any
more-complex game will suffer from a similar learning curve. However, don't
think that this is overly complex as the rules fit into just 10 pages, the
duration came from every player suffering similar 'hard decisions' as mentioned
above.
I've played several games with less experienced players now
and they thought that they were largely at the mercy of the cards they drew.
There certainly is an element of randomness induced by the cards but
experienced players should be able to manage and mitigate any 'bad cards' by
strategising their hand and current opportunities. I've played the original
game, and the excellent
PC (also available on Android
and IOS) many times and I don't think this is a valid criticism. I would
however, love to see a collaboration between Cublo and Roxley to update the app
with Roxley graphics...
In most of my games with the Roxley Deluxe edition, we have
run out of coal cubes by just 1. Especially at the beginning of the Rail Era
when lots of coal mines have just been built in preparation for the Rail Era. I
have also seen bgg forums suggesting they've had games where they had run out
of iron cubes, which I find hard to understand how that is possible. However,
this doesn't affect game-play as you can substitute anything else for the
missing cube but one or two more coal cubes (maybe iron cubes as well) would
have been nice. This is a very minor nit-pick though.
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| App screenshot |
Conclusion
All elements of this game play subtly different from each
other, for example, the cotton market can be exhausted, whereas coal and iron
will always be available in the market. Each industry tile has different rules
regarding their bonus and utilisation, canal links and rail links have
different rules regarding their building and coal and iron themselves have
different rules to determine players access to them. These differences are all
clever design choices to more thematically represent the industrial revolution
in this medium-to-heavy Euro economic game.
The game is littered with hard choices and the ability to
deny your opponents spaces and opportunities is rife, especially if you manage
to pull off a last/first turn order combo effectively getting two turns on the
bounce. You're constantly having to reevaluate your position with respect to
your cards the available resources and it is certainly a brain burner that
warrants its playtime and reputation in the hobby.
Despite the over-the-top production, I thought the price
remained reasonable and for the retail version is an absolute bargain. It's not
a game for everyone though, as there are lots of subtleties to grok before
you're going to be competitive and there is a significant
but-easily-surmountable-with-an-experienced-player learning curve. The
next time anyone requests a brain-burner, this is the game I'd recommend.
I'd like to thank Roxley Games and especially Paul Saxberg
for providing the review copy of this game.
Players: 2 - 4
Designer: Martin Wallace
Playing time: 60 - 120 minutes
Deluxe version: Pre-orders still open for $75 + shipping
Retail version: Best price (delivered to UK) at time of
review: £46.10
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