Brass Lancashire vs. Brass Birmingham: A Buyer's Guide

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Wondering what the deal is with Brass Lancashire/Birmingham? We've got you covered! In this video we cover what the Brass series is, what is the difference between the two, should you get both, and what you need to know before buying. We've divided the video into sections, so feel free to jump to the section that is relevant to you. If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing and checking out our other Buyer's Guides!

In brief, in either Brass you take on the role of an industrialist during the industrial revolution in the Lancashire/Birmingham region. You'll use card play to build industry tiles and form connections between them, with the eventual aim of "flipping" industry tiles to reveal their victory point values by selling or using goods.

With them being widely considered as some of the best board games of all time, it's no surprise that Lancashire and Birmingham are currently ranked 20th and 3rd, respectively, on the BGG best board game ranking. Our copy of Brass: Lancashire was kindly provided to us by Roxley Games.

0:00 - Intro
0:51 - The History of Brass
2:18 - How Do They Play?
5:25 - What is Brass: Lancashire?
6:18 - What is Brass: Birmingham?
7:33 - What is the Difference Between the Two?
9:40 - What Do You Need to Know?
10:35 - Which Game Should You Get?
12:23 - Interlude
12:48 - What Do We Think?
15:15 - Outro

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[BoardOfItReviews]

Hey everyone! We really appreciate you watching! If you found this helpful, please consider subscribing as it helps us grow our channel. More subscribers makes us more attractive to publishers, which allows us to create more Buyer's Guides due to how cost and labour intensive these videos are!

[valeryalenine]

I like how you made a clear distinction between objective comments and your own thoughts on the game. Great job.

[kickouttv]

Lovely review! This was the best comparison I found between the 2 games. Thank you.

[Ben-umcy]

Excellent review. I've only played Birmingham, but it's one of my favorite games ever so it was hard for me to justify going back and getting Lancashire

[lelandcheng]

Awesome review, and I totally agree. Lancashire is great, but the randomness from not only the card draw but also the cotton demand deck when selling to the export ports can be devastating if you draw that -4 tile and you just needed to sell that dang last cotton mill! Whereas with Birmingham, you can plan to have your beer available, but have to make sure that others don't go in and swipe your barrels before you can use them to sell. But that is at least something you have some control over. And the scout action has saved my rear end on more than one occasion when I had a bad card draw. So Lancashire is a great game, but Birmingham is truly a perfect iteration of the same theme and mechanisms but removes the randomness just enough to make it a flawless design.

[pm]

Thanks. I have BB, but not yet played it, but your comments wrt BL was exactly what my intuition told me about whether I had reason to buy the other. Nice to get it confirmed.

[jcheung]

I preordered Birmingham, but I managed to find a good deal on a used Lancashire. I'm excited to play Lancashire without the bias of playing Birmingham first!

[jacktorrance]

I’ve played both of these new versions quite a bit now and while I do enjoy Birmingham I think some of the additions are pretty superfluous based on my plays with multiple different gaming groups. For instance, I’ve never seen anybody do well when choosing to put any real effort into the manufactured goods track. There just seems to be way too many tiles that you need to burn through to get to any decent scoring ones.

I also think that the beer resource is a bit too overpowered as it’s linked to so many actions. Often we’ve seen that whoever controls the beer (or most of it) will win the game and usually by quite a large margin. And given that it’s such a limited resource it can feel quite restrictive and completely ruin your turn if a beer you need is used by someone else. The beer also makes the teach for Birmingham that bit more complex.

There are some other things too like how taking loans is handled in Birmingham versus Lancashire with the former being more forgiving. We quite like the limitation of not being able to just keep taking loans right to the game end.

Finally, I think the variable setup is good for replayability but sometimes the tile placement can just really hamper everyone around the table by sheer luck of the draw. I think that while Birmingham is the darling right now since it’s the new kid on the block the original will have continued staying power.

Great comparison and review guys!

[SBod]

Thanks for making my mind up on which one to pick.

[thijsschipper]

After a dozen or so games of each, for me it really just comes down to: what makes Brass, Brass?
If you ask me it's the jostling for best spaces and connections, predicting and dealing with others' placements and needs, playing around the scarcity and abundance of the different resources.

When I look at those aspects, I think Lancashire is the clear winner. Most of the stuff Birmingham adds serves to take the focus AWAY from them and make sure everyone can get along and do nice Euro-y feelgood stuff. But that's not why I play Brass.

Brass Lancashire is the most Brass of the two, hence why I'd always rather play that.

[neilgulati]

Its helpful to hear your personal opinions and especially that Birmingham is well designed and they are both in your top 10 games. I was reluctant to purchase because they both sound so complex to play but havnig heard your review I'm going to give Lancashire a go because I love that part of the country.

[timk]

I have played Lancashire 4 times and Birmingham once. Going to Birmingham after playing Lancashire a few times, I didn't find it more forgiving or flexible. I remember beer being very scarce, which was frustrating and limiting. Even when making beer, other players could use it before me so I still couldn't achieve my goals. That's just one game, but I was happy to go back to Lancashire.

[feliperodrigues]

This video was very helpful and made me decide that I really just want Brass Lancashire as I prefere a more tight and cutthroat experience, dont know if I like the way beer works. Birm also seems to have a longer setup and gameplay time which would make us play it less. Thanks for the video!

[TeutonicSpeedracer]

Brass Birmingham! Top 3 game of mine. Barrage #1.

[quinterx]

We play only as 2p (me and my wife), I already bought Birmingham (because looks awesome from design and gameplay side), but after this review. I am not sure if i bought right game, and if Birmingham is right for us, and if Lancashire wasnt better choose. Oh my oh my.... conufusion lvl 9000

[Herendill]

What do you think about manufacturers in Birmingham (crates)? Are they useless to build?
Thanks in advance

[bearhustler]

Birmingham is amazing, one of my favourites ever. Lancashire I find much crueller and less fun. Lancashire can horrible if the layout comes out awkwardly.

[aaronnatera]

I own both of these. I like them so much I 'm tempted to buy them again. (Which is completely bonkers but that's how much I like them.)

[haribhaipatel]

I have Lancashire. Is it a good choice ? Plse anybody reply.

[jeffersonwu]

errr, which one would you recommend for 2 players?
Also, you mention that they are not subpar at 2 players. But are they any good at 2P?

Thank you!