Brass

Spoiler alert – Owen won! Steve couldn’t make it due to his regular

visit to the Clinic (lets just call it “The Itch”). Why he would schedule

it for a games night I don’t know, but I digress.

Tonight we played Brass, a board game set in 18th century England at the

beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It is played over two periods:

Canal and Rail. You have 10 turns (in a 3 player game) each period to build

various industries: cotton mill (produces cotton which you can sell to a

port), coal mine (to produce coal), ironworks (to produce iron), ports (to

sell cotton), ship builders (er, to build ships). These industries are

represented by tiles (in your color) that are placed in the various cities

on the board. Certain industries require access to coal or iron, so you

need to build canals or rails to the city before you can place the industry

tile.

You start the game with 8 location cards. These cards represent either a

city on the board, or an industry type (such as coal or a port). On your

turn you spend to cards to perform two actions. To build an industry you

can discard the appropriate city card, or the appropriate industry card if

you have a canal/rail connection to a valid city. Each city only allows

certain types of industry to be built there. You get to draw back up to 8

cards each turn until the supply deck runs out. A period ends when all

players have discarded all their cards. Other actions include: getting a

loan from the bank, building a link (canal/rail).

Industries give you 2 benefits: income and victory points. Income is

required as you need cash to buy new industries. Victory points win you the

game. An industry must be “flipped” before you get these benefits. A tile

is flipped when the conditions are met for the particular industry; for

example, a coal mine is flipped when its coal supply is exhausted. Income

is increase right away, but victory points are not tallied until the end of

each Period.

Despite Bens’ early attempt to mess Owen up, he won by a healthy margin –

also helped by the fact Steve wasn’t there to do his usual chaotic moves. A

shout out should also go to Mike for building a rail link to Birkenhead so

Owen could build his second Shipbuilders (these score a LOT of points).

Final standings: Owen First, Ben second, Mike last… I mean third.

As a side note, what would cause a man to buy two tubs of chocolate mint

cookies? It makes no sense.

Harrowed Halls