Brass - Tips & Strategies

There are three main sources of VPs in Brass, and two minor sources. The major sources are rails, cotton mills, and iron works. The minor sources are shipyards and ports. Typically, most players will rush towards rails for both points and a tactical advantage, forcing you to chose between an iron or cotton mill strategy. Prepare for this when choosing what to develop in the canal era.

If following a cotton mill strategy, developing in the canal era is vital to maintain your score advantage. Try to flip two or three mills at once as an action – actions are a more limited and important resource than money. Your staggered income from timing your sales mixed with the expense of building expensive mills will force you to rely very heavily on loans. A few coal mines will be necessary to avoid disaster, but don’t build more than you need to.

Building iron works will often see a player with more cash – leverage this to save a few loan actions and throw out some extra ports. While iron works are valuable and cheap sources of points, they are, more than cotton mills, subject to fierce competition from limited building spaces. Perhaps more importantly, they are very easy targets for overbuilds by competitors. Keep an eye on the foreign supply market and try to time builds to minimize opportunities for opponents to snipe one of your businesses. Try to use overbuilds to muscle out any opponents looking to move into your sphere.

Rails, while critical to winning Brass, can be tricky. Most experienced players will start the rail phase by rushing out tracks in the most profitable areas. Try to establish a good position in turn order when exiting the rail phase (this is perhaps more difficult for players going for a cotton strategy). Be especially wary of building a late coal mine in the canal phase – if an opponent with better turn order acts before you, you have given a very valuable edge to a rail baron. Finally, look at your hand before blindly building rails; it’s worth sacrificing a few points to establish your network in a more tactically viable area. These areas of tactical importance will probably be rushed fast by rail barons looking for points, so act quickly.

Not being able to take a loan in the railroad period when the draw deck is exhausted is a rule that is easy to forget. After this point, money is going to be very tight, and you’ll want as much in hand as you plan on spending.

It is generally a good play to take at least one loan in the 4th round of the railroad period. With only 4 turns remaining, you are not sacrificing much long term income (3 per round), giving you a net gain of 18 for each loan you take.

There are a number of games that a player can sit down to, learn the rules, and start playing. Brass is very difficult to do this with. A full rules explanation can easily run over 30 minutes, with many rules that sound minor, but can influence play later in the game (for instance, the “virtual link”).

You’ll be a happier player if you do your homework before playing Brass. Head over to BoardGameGeek (or gaming site of choice) and look at video reviews, and rules teaching guides (such as the How to Play podcast). Also, take a look at some player aids and bring one with you to the game.

Doing this won’t eliminate the need for a rules explanation, but it will help it go quicker, and make sure you’re better prepared for what can be a very deep, strategic, fun game! You’ll be glad you did.

Good move is to quickly export cotton. When on second turn You can get decent profit You are in advantage. And when big minus card shows up Your opponents will have to risk if they want to export too.