I couldn't believe it when I got the email saying my copy of Brass Birmingham was in already! 2-days from shipped out to my door. Amazing for Canada Post. Especially since my fish oil supplement has been "delayed" for 3-weeks now (coming from the same place... Toronto... only 2hrs away 🙄).
As I mentioned in my last post, Brass Birmingham has been on my wishlist since I got into the hobby a little over a year and a half ago. Since playing it on Steam (early access) I decided it MUST be on my shelf as part of my collection.
It's been said before how amazing it is (and now I get it), how such a deep game comes in such a small box. 😎 I'm impressed.
Above shows all the components after punching them out. You really get alot with this game. In particular the 180 building tokens and 56 link tokens (total), as you can see sorted out in the pic above. Wow!!
But my personal favourite being the
15-beer barrels!!!
OMG!!!
As well as...
-48 total cubes (30-coal and 18 iron)
-77 money tokens
Although, I had a disfigured piece of coal AND piece of iron... LOL I'm going to see if maybe I can get a couple cubes sent to replace those.
And then there's the merchant tiles, income and VP trackers etc... Pretty awesome!
The 4-player mats are double sided like the main board. Simply a night side and day side. Zero difference except the esthetic look. I've heard it said while being reviewed that the night side is "too dark" and hard to see. I kinda get that, but I didn't find it that bad at all really. To each is own in that regard.
Each of the 4 character tokens are also double sided, with what I believe is real people. So there's plenty of choice of male or female and each of the 8 characters have a bio in the rulebook as well telling you about their role in the industrial revolution. Cool! (Sorry, forgot to snag a pic of those)
There are 72 total cards (64 location/industry cards and 8 wild cards). The picture above shows the backside, as well as a location card (middle) and industry card (right). The cards are really well done and have that nice feel to them.
The artwork in Brass Birmingham absolutely connected with me right away for some reason, as well as the history in the theme. It just makes me smile. Below is a shot of the daytime side of the main board.
I have to say, it's probably one of the best rulebooks I've encountered as well. Twelve pages... TWELVE! WHAT!!?? The game has a 3.91/5 complexity rating on BGG and it's 12 pages!?!?! Incredible. And so well done. Lots of pics, labels and big titles that easily lets you jump to whichever topic you need to refer to. I'm very impressed. They even have a few historical notes to give a bit more detail on theme/reasoning for consuming iron, coal and beer. I love that. It just reiterates the theme a bit more. 😀
So here it is. I set up the game to run through 2-handed. I didn't bother with testing out a solo variant just yet, as I wanted to better understand the rules while at the table. I have a good idea since I've played the early access digital version (despite some rule bugs there too), but naturally the table forces more brain power (which I love).
It went well. I won! 🤣 Although, I may have done the odd thing wrong, it's amazing the simplicity in the mechanics (like many games) and yet the strategy is very deep. I love it! I'm beyond happy that it has a home in my collection and can't wait to get it to the table again. It was refreshing as well to take my mind off our craziness this month, and finally sit at the table again with a game that you have no choice but to immerse yourself in.
And did I mention the beer barrels???? 🤣
One of the most beautiful euros out there, especially compared to what the previous edition looked like! Well done on your purchase, Derek!