Brass!
That done, I returned to Joe's on games night proper to find Brass set up and ready to go. Adam had chips, Joe had pretzels. I had chipsticks, which I felt were thematically resonant with an industrial age game, as they appear to be a confection of factory floor sweepings and animal glue.
Although Joe had finished ahead of me on points on the previous nights run-through, I felt equipped enough that I could compete with two old hands. Who knows, maybe I could even pull off an unlikely victory?
For those unfamiliar with Brass, players are taking the role of unabashed capitalists intent on sullying the hills of north England. They mine, they build factories, they build ports, they build canals (in the first half of the game) and railways (in the second). They spend a lot of time shipping goods and taking loans. It's not a simple game but, one or two rules aside, it is (as I was promised) a more intuitive affair that Last Train to Wensleydale, where you can feel like you are being phased into an early grave*. Though there are a heap of options generally your choice will be guided by either a. what gets you victory points or b. what gets you money, which could get you even more victory points, if you use it wisely.
Tiles!
I felt I hadn't built enough canals on Monday so I was much more active establishing connections. Joe, too, was busy with the shovel. But Adam pretty much ignored the canals, focussing on developing (discarding cheaper, less rewarding buildings) and building handsome buildings, using our connections to get around. The strategy looked a sound one as the halfway scoring round saw him take the lead. Despite trying to keep abreast of the others, I realised I had about half the amount of buildings on the board that they did - not a good state of affairs.
The second round saw things become a little more combative as Joe and Adam knocked each others buildings to the ground in order to establish their own. Though I managed to create a bit more of a foothold on the board, it was clear from the lack of wrecking balls swinging my way that the others were in a battle for first place.
So it proved, though it wasn't as close between them as I anticipated. Despite Joe's multitudinous trainlines, the explosion of yellow pieces over the south Pennines made it look like someone (guess who) had struck gold - or possibly custard.
Adam 190
Joe 174
Sam 158
Brass again!
My personal verdict on Brass is that I liked it a lot. I don't think it's a game I'm likely to win, especially playing Adam and Joe - but I really enjoyed the variety of options and the theme. I struggled slightly with when you're allowed to build what, where... but that's a minor reservation. The only thing that'd stop me playing it again soon is the sheer length - three hours plus playing time for three people. That said though, it didn't drag at all. So - I'm in the fan club! Join me. Join me.
On the form table it's a bit of a one-horse race at the moment, with no-one able to challenge Adam's supremacy. In fact the person who is nearest him hasn't even played for two weeks, as Andrew moves into second by virtue of the 'most recent result' rule. Joe stays in fifth thanks to Brass - it gave him a very respectable 2nd place, but because we didn't have time for another game he hasn't shaken the 5 yet.
| Points | ||||||
| Adam | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Andrew | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 12 |
| Sam | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 12 |
| Anja | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 12 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 14 |
| Steve | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 18 |
*on a first play. Andrew and I found it relatively straightforward second time around.
I neglected to doff my cap to Joe for the lovely redesign on here, so consider it doffed now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for playing Sam, I now feel sated. If we don't play a whole-evening behemoth every once in a while I start to feel like I'm just eating fast food (which I'm sure you know I'd never do...)
ReplyDeleteAnyway a good showing for your first game, I expect to have to be overbuilding you next time! I think the secret to Brass is the number of turns you use, not the money (as you can get as much money as you want from taking loans) so building two railways to get about 10 points in a turn is much stronger than one canal for ~5 points. With shipyards too the number of turns it takes to build them makes them pretty inefficient.
Although with no-one building shipyards last night the rest of the board was massively crowded, so maybe in a busy four player game Andrew's shipyard strategy could just pay out!
You know, I noticed that no one built any shipyards, and I was about to suggest I drop it too. Now Adam's gone and confused me!
ReplyDeleteGlad you like Brass. It's a game that risks over-egging the pudding, but gets away with it... just. Looking forward to a four player game.
by the way. I went to Kyoto's leading board game shop today. A bit rubbish. Mostly card fighter games and some Eurogames in the corner. A disappointment. Still, one of the few places in Japan where I didn't feel fat.
Nice write-up Sam. Hey I'm glad you liked it - as I said last night, it remains my favourite 'heavy' - very happy to get it to the table once or twice a year. Whilst we all at various points deliberated over individual actions, it flows along at a decent rate generally.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way the coal and iron markets work, and also the turn order mechanism; timing your cheap actions (taking loans and shipping cotton) in order to ensure you get two turns in a row is very satisfying.
It also seems to play very differently each game - the 'rush to rail' usually happens at the end of the rail age rather than at the beginning, and as Adam noted many buildings were built in the canal phase, it seemed.
Adam's strategy of all but ignoring infrastructure in the canal phase was clearly sensible, but I wonder if he was rather lucky with the cards he got - it's often necessary to get links in place in the canal phase to be able to build. Not that I wish to detract from what was a resounding victory.
A very satisfying game, thanks chaps!
I'll add a couple of photos . . .
Oh, and thanks to Joe for the spiffy new look.
ReplyDeleteCheers - Sam was a good sounding board, and the snacks were his idea, replacing my meeples - much more relevant!
ReplyDeleteI was forewarned that shipyards hadn't proven to be a winning strategy - yet. I think I got a decent set of cards by and large, it was only in the last quarter of the game with my stacks of industry cards that I realised how lucky I'd been previously. Nice to have an element of luck thrown in.
ReplyDeleteI think my good cards in the first round were balanced by the terrible ones in the second - so bad that I was seriously considering building shipyards with three turns left...
ReplyDeleteVery unusual that you had literally nothing to do on your last turn, Adam.
ReplyDeleteThe general consensus on the Geek is that the three player game is a little too open, with too many spaces to build. Perhaps we fell foul of that, though it didn't feel like that to me particularly.