Brass Birmingham Review

The industrial revolution, reconstructed in card and wooden disc form.

Brass: Birmingham is the kind of game that takes about ninety minutes to teach someone properly and then about three years to fully understand. It is a two-phase economic network builder set in 18th and 19th century Birmingham, where you are building industries, connecting cities, and trying to make enough money before the world moves on and your canal network becomes completely obsolete.

Designed by Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman, and Martin Wallace, and published by Roxley Games in 2018, it is a redesign of Wallace’s original Brass from 2007. It plays 2 to 4 players in 60 to 120 minutes. It has sat at or near the top of BoardGameGeek’s rankings since release, and in my experience at our table it has never produced a dull session.

If you have played Brass: Lancashire and found it slightly too punishing, Birmingham smooths some of the rough edges. If you have never played either, this is the version to start with.

TL;DR: One of the highest-rated board games ever made. A two-era economic network builder where everything you build in the first phase becomes context for the second. The learning curve is real, the decisions are weighty, and a first game will produce at least one moment of genuine frustration followed by immediate understanding. Worth every minute.

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Key Game Information

Players	2–4 (best at 3–4)
Play time	60–120 minutes
Designers	Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman, Martin Wallace
Publisher	Roxley Games
Year	2018
Categories	EuroGame, Strategy Games, Economic and Trading Games
Mechanics	Route and Network Building, Resource Management, Hand Management, Set Collection
Theme	Transport and Infrastructure, Historical, Economic
Complexity	Medium-Heavy
Solo mode	No official solo mode
Best for	Euro fans who want meaningful consequences on every decision and do not mind a first game that feels somewhat confusing before it clicks

How to Play Brass: Birmingham

Each player starts with a hand of cards, a player board showing available industries to build, and a set amount of starting money. Cards are city cards and industry cards. You need a card to take any action, and the card you play determines where or what you can do.

On your turn you take two actions. The main actions are: Build (place an industry tile in a valid city), Network (place a link between connected cities), Develop (skip a lower-level industry tile to unlock the higher-level version), Sell (sell cotton, goods, or pottery through a merchant city via a connected route), Loan (take money at a permanent income cost), and Scout (discard three cards to draw two wild cards).

Industries and Links

Industries have levels. A level one coal mine produces less and scores fewer points than a level three. You advance levels by exhausting lower ones or by developing. When an industry tile is fully consumed, it flips to its scored side and is worth points at the end of the era, but only if a link connects it.

This is where the real tension lives. Building an industry does nothing on its own. Scoring it requires a link. But building a link also does nothing unless it connects two useful places. Every action depends on something else already being in place, which means turn order and positioning matter enormously.

The Canal Era vs the Rail Era

In the canal era you can only connect to cities your own network touches. In the rail era, canals are wiped off the board entirely and everyone builds railways instead, meaning your careful canal network was useful in the moment but nothing more. Any industries you built and developed that survived the canal era carry over. Everything else is gone.

At the end of each era, points are tallied from your built and linked network. Whoever has the most across both eras wins.

The canal era is tighter and smaller. You are essentially playing in your own corner of the board, learning the core loop, getting your engine started. The rail era opens everything up. Railways can pass through any city, meaning you are suddenly fighting for the same spaces and merchant cities everyone else wants. The board fills up fast.

At our table: In our third game, someone spent their entire canal era building a coal network that supplied everyone else’s iron works without getting a single link built to score it. By the time the rail era began, the cities they needed were claimed. They understood what had gone wrong immediately and that understanding made their fourth game excellent. Brass teaches through consequence, and the lessons stick.

Beer

Birmingham adds beer as a resource that Lancashire does not have. Building rail links requires beer alongside coal and iron, and beer is only produced by breweries, which means you are often dependent on your opponents’ production, which is sometimes a feature rather than a problem. Using someone else’s brewery to build your link scores them points, which creates a tense interdependency that does not exist in Lancashire.

Playing at Different Player Counts

2 Players

Two-player Brass: Birmingham works, but the board feels notably spacious. There is less competition for merchant cities and more room to build without interference. The game becomes slightly more of a puzzle and less of a fight. Purists will say it plays better at three or four, and they are probably right, but at two it is still a worthwhile game. Community-designed two-player tweaks exist on BGG that tighten the experience.

3 Players

This is where Brass: Birmingham really comes alive. Three players gives you enough competition that merchant cities start to fill up, enough opposition that network positioning matters, and enough breathing room that you can still execute a coherent plan. Three is the sweet spot if you cannot get four to the table.

4 Players

Four players is the fullest experience. Merchant cities get competitive early. The board fills quickly. Turn order decisions become critical because going last in a round can mean the coal you needed is gone. The jump from three to four in terms of tension and memorable moments is significant. If you can get four people willing to commit to learning the game, that is where to aim.

Playing Solo

Brass: Birmingham does not have an official solo mode. There is no automa system or included solo variant in the base game. Community-designed solo variants exist on BoardGameGeek, and Roxley has acknowledged demand for an official solo mode, but nothing had been published as of mid-2026.

If solo gaming is important to you, Brass: Birmingham is not currently a strong option. The digital version (see below) offers AI opponents as a substitute.

Components and Production Quality

The production quality of Brass: Birmingham is excellent. The board is large, clear, and handsome, a warm sepia-toned map of the English Midlands that somehow manages to look attractive while also being genuinely functional. Every city, every merchant location, and every link slot is readable at the table without squinting.

The wooden industry tiles are distinct enough to tell apart. The player boards are thick and satisfying. The money tokens feel appropriately weighty. The insert is functional.

The rulebook is well-laid-out, which matters more than it might seem for a game that will confuse new players on their first read-through. The quick-reference cards cover the things you will forget between sessions.

One genuine complaint: the cards are standard size, which makes them slightly fiddly to shuffle after repeated plays. Sleeves are worth considering if you play regularly.

Expansions and Other Versions

Brass: Lancashire

Not an expansion but the sibling game, the original Brass, republished by Roxley in 2018 alongside Birmingham. It covers Manchester and the surrounding cotton-mill towns, plays somewhat differently, and is notably harsher. There is no beer resource, fewer merchant slots, and a tighter map that punishes passive play more severely. Start with Birmingham. If you love Birmingham, Lancashire is a very different and very rewarding second game.

Brass: Pittsburgh

Announced via Gamefound in February 2026, Brass: Pittsburgh takes the series to America’s Gilded Age. The same design team of Martin Wallace and Gavan Brown, a new map covering the Steel Belt, and new mechanisms on top of the familiar structure. Targeting late 2026 release. The most anticipated game of the year for many serious strategy gamers.

Deluxe Components

Roxley has released metal coin upgrades, neoprene mats, and premium component sets through their Kickstarter campaigns. These add nothing mechanically but improve the tactile experience notably if you play regularly.

Digital Versions

Brass: Birmingham is available on Board Game Arena and plays very well there. The asynchronous mode suits the game’s deliberate pace, being able to plan your placement over the course of a day rather than holding up a live session is a genuine benefit. The interface takes a session or two to navigate comfortably but faithfully replicates the physical experience.

There is also a standalone digital version available on Steam and mobile (iOS and Android) from Handelabra Games. The AI is competent enough to teach you what not to do and provides useful practice before bringing the game to a live table.

If You Like This, Try These

Brass: Lancashire: the sibling game. Same engine, harder economy, different map. If Birmingham has you hooked, Lancashire is the natural next step.
Power Grid: another economic network-builder with a punishing shared supply chain. Power Grid shows its age in some ways, but the underlying tension of buying resources from a shared market before your opponents do is very similar.
Age of Steam: Martin Wallace’s railway game before Brass, and even more unforgiving. If you want to know where Birmingham’s design DNA comes from and are not afraid of a steep difficulty curve, Age of Steam is a classic worth knowing.
Concordia: a more accessible network-builder that is lighter in weight but shares the feeling of building a connected economic system across a map. Good for groups who like Birmingham’s concept but want something faster to teach.
Wingspan: much lighter and very different in theme, but if what draws you to Brass is the engine-building satisfaction of watching your tableau do useful work, Wingspan delivers something similar in a more accessible package.

Final Thoughts

Brass: Birmingham is the kind of game that your group will play once, feel slightly overwhelmed by, and then spend the next week talking about. The canal-to-rail phase transition is one of the best mechanical ideas in modern board game design: everything you built becomes context for the next phase rather than infrastructure you can rely on, and that single design decision gives the game a tension that most economic games never achieve.

The learning curve is real. Your first game will involve at least one player building a coal mine with no connection to anything useful, one player running out of money in the canal era and spending the rail era catching up, and at least one genuinely tense moment around a merchant city that two people both desperately needed. All of that is fine. It is part of how you learn.

Where Brass: Birmingham succeeds most is in making you feel like your decisions have weight. Running out of coal at the wrong moment stings. Watching someone take the last merchant connection you needed before your turn is properly frustrating. These are not flaws; they are the game working as intended.

Three to four players, two hours, a willingness to be mildly confused the first time out. That is the pitch. It holds up.