Brass: Lancashire (2007)

How To Play Brass: Lancashire

Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following:

1. Build an industry tile
2. Build a rail or canal
3. Develop an industry
4. Sell cotton
5. Take a loan

At the end of a player’s turn, they replace the two cards they played with two more from the deck. Turn order is determined by how much money a player spent on the previous turn, from lowest spent first to highest spent. This turn order mechanism opens some strategic options for players going later in the turn order, allowing for the possibility of back-to-back turns.

After all the cards have been played the first time, the canal phase ends and a scoring round commences. After scoring, all canals and all of the lowest level industries are removed from the game. Then players deal new cards and the rail phase begins. During this phase, players may now occupy more than one location in a city and a double-connection build (though expensive) is possible. At the end of the rail phase, another scoring round takes place, then the one with the most VPs wins.

The cards limit where to build your industries, but you can use any card for developing, selling cotton, or building connections actions. This leads to a strategic timing/storing of cards. Resources are common so that if one player builds a rail line (which requires coal) they have to use the coal from the nearest source, which may be an opponent’s coal mine, which in turn gets that coal mine closer to scoring.

What’s new in the 2018 Edition

Brass: Lancashire, the 2018 edition from Roxley Games, reboots the original Warfrog Games edition of Brass with new artwork and components, as well as a few rules changes:

• The virtual link rules between Birkenhead now are optional.
• The three-player experience is also closer to the ideal experience of four players by shortening each half of the game by one round and tuning the deck and distant market tiles slightly to ensure a consistent experience.
• Two-player rules are now available and playable without the need for an alternate board.
• The level 1 cotton mill is now worth 5 VP to make it slightly less terrible.

Brass: Lancashire Review

“Brass is a stunning game that exercises the entire mind. More than that, it’s a twisting, morphing eurogame organism that shows how delightful games can be. It’s a representation of what’s best about board games. Mirroring the dynamics of a market, Brass is truly beautiful.”

thethoughtfulgamer.com

“Brass Lancashire is subject to a great deal of analysis paralysis. My gaming partner is patient and so I take full advantage of thinking things through and carefully calculating every potential move to arrive at an optimum selection. It’s not unusual for our games to last 3 hours. Note that this is very player dependent – if you’re playing with a group of quick thinkers, you might be able to finish the game in under 90 minutes.

I’m so glad I gave Brass Lancashire a chance. It’s got great replayability due to the many paths to victory in the base game and the advanced variants offered in the rule book (including the 2 player community-designed variant using the flipside of the game board). It’s smart. It’s beautiful. And the gameplay is unique and compelling enough that I don’t think I could choose between it and Brass Birmingham. That’s why I’m so glad I own them both.”

Jenni Stephens, thatswhatjennisaid.com

“Brass Lancashire has certainly earned its place in the top rankings in euro style strategy games. It requires tactical thinking, not just in developing your own industries and network links on the board, but it also requires keeping an eye on your opponents’ strategies.”

Tanya O, board-game.co.uk

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.