Brass: Birmingham tells the story of 
competing entrepreneurs in the West 
Midlands during England’s Industrial 
Revolution, between the years 1770-1870. 
During the game, you will expand your 
empire by establishing canals and rails, and 
building and developing various industries, 
including Cotton Mills, Coal Mines, Iron 
Works, Manufacturers, Potteries, and 
Breweries.
11 Cotton Mills
11 Manufacturers
7 Breweries
5 Potteries
4 Iron Works
7 Coal Mines
Are you more of a visual learner? We’ve got 
you covered. Open your web browser and 
head over to roxley.com/brass-tutorial for 
tutorials on how to play!
Game Design: Martin Wallace
Game Development: Gavan Brown & Matt Tolman
Illustration & Graphic Design: David Forest & Lina 
Cossette, Damien Mammoliti, Gavan Brown
Expert Player Advisor: Edward Chen
Rulebook Writing & Editing: Simon Rourke, Gavan 
Brown, Matt Tolman, Michael Van Biesbrouck, Orin 
Bishop, Ricky Patel, Daniel Danzer
Rulebook Feedback & Criticism: Adam Allett, Dan 
Le, Dave Thomas, David Goldfarb, David Werner, 
Gimo Barrera, Graeme Edgeler, Jeff Lee, Jered Biard, 
John Merlino, Jørgen Grøndal, Mark Nichols, Mikolaj 
Sobocinski, Sam Lambert
Historical Advisor: Judith Bennett
Rulebook Lead Translators: Alexandre Limoges 
(French), Ketty Galleguillos (Spanish), Daniel Danzer 
(German), Andrea Mondani & Guido Marzucchi 
(Italian)
Rulebook Translation Feedback & Criticism: 
Raphaël Biolluz, Marielle Dessel, Andréa Trépanier, 
Marco Ghitti, Marco Paccagnella, Raffaele Mesiti, 
Nicolas De les Essarts, Christophe Fergeau, Xabier 
Pérez, and Daniel Gómez
AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
VIDEO & DIGITAL TUTORIALS
CREDITS
COMPONENTS
1 × Board
4 × Player Mats
4 × Character tiles
4 × Income Markers
8 × Wild cards 
(4 × Wild location, 4 × Wild industry)
64 × Location and 
Industry cards
4 × Player Aids
4 × VP Markers
30 × Coal cubes
15 × Beer barrels
18 × Iron cubes
9 × Merchant Tiles
56 × Link tiles (14 per colour)
180 × Industry tiles (45 per colour)
67 × Money tokens 
(Or Deluxe Edition: 70 Iron Clays)
Copyright 2018 Roxley Games. 
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
This rule book is a living document. 
Download the latest version from roxley.com/brass-birmingham-rulebook 

Sir Richard Arkwright
(23 December 1732 – 3 August 1792) 
Taught to read and write by his cousin, 
Arkwright began as an apprentice barber, 
but after an early widowing his business 
ambitions grew, and his second marriage 
provided the funds to pursue wigmaking. 
When wigs fell out of fashion, he turned 
to textiles and made improvements on 
the spinning jenny with the clockmaker 
John Kay. Taking his business to the 
small village of Cromford, Arkwright 
encouraged weavers with large families to 
move there and work in his mill, including 
children as young as seven. Arkwright 
pioneered the use of the steam engine with 
textile machinery, a precursor to Edmund 
Cartwright’s development of the power 
loom. In his later years, after an extended 
court battle, Arkwright lost many of his 
patents and his domination of the textile 
industry, but shortly after this he was 
knighted. Ambitious, religiously devout, and 
at times difficult to work with, Arkwright’s 
ingenuity and organizational skills would 
make him known as the “father of the 
modern industrial factory system.”
James Watt
(30 January 1736 – 25 August 1819) 
Tinkering with models and ship’s 
instruments at his father’s workbench from 
an early age, Watt left for Glasgow at 17 to 
learn to make measuring instruments such 
as scales and compasses, and befriended 
the chemist Joseph Black. In his 30s, while 
repairing a model of the Newcomen steam 
engine used widely for pumping water out 
of mines, Watt noticed that the design 
wasted energy on cooling and reheating 
the cylinder, and he improved upon it by 
adding a separate condenser which would 
revolutionize the steam engine. However he 
was unable to make progress on this venture 
for several years as he was busy at his day 
job surveying Scottish canals. This changed 
when English manufacturer Matthew 
Boulton took an interest in his patent, 
and Watt moved to Birmingham to form 
a partnership that would last 25 years and 
spread his improved steam engine across 
the world of industry. Though a somewhat 
feeble businessman on his own (Watt once 
said he “would rather face a loaded cannon 
than settle an account or make a bargain”), 
he was greatly respected by his peers, and 
the basic unit of power, the “watt,” bears 
his name.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
(9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) 
At the age of 15, Brunel’s father Marc was 
sent to a debtors’ prison, but his debts 
were paid by the British government 
when he made it known that the Tsar had 
offered him a position as an engineer in 
Russia. Brunel studied in France under 
the clockmaker Abraham Louis Breguet. 
Upon returning to England he became 
an assistant on Marc’s project to create a 
tunnel under the Thames, but a nearly-
fatal flooding incident put the 22-year-old 
out of commission for several months. 
This didn’t stop Brunel from becoming 
one of the most prolific engineers in 
history, creating tunnels, bridges, railways, a 
portable hospital, and a vacuum-powered 
‘atmospheric railway’, though unfortunately 
for the latter the leather flaps sealing the 
vacuum pipes were eaten by rats. His ‘Great 
Western’ was the first steamship to conduct 
transatlantic service, and his ‘Great Eastern’ 
was the largest ship ever built up to that 
time, but Brunel died of a stroke at 53 just 
before her maiden voyage. Brunel is known 
today as an engineering giant.
Sir Henry Bessemer
(19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) 
Like Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s father, 
Bessemer’s father Anthony was forced to 
flee France during the French Revolution. 
Anthony had become a member of 
the Académie des sciences at 26 for his 
improvements on the optical microscope, 
and made his fortune in Britain with a 
process for making gold chains. Bessemer’s 
first innovation mirrored his father’s 
affinity for gold. After carefully analyzing 
bronze powder from Nuremberg, used in 
the manufacture of gold paint, he reverse 
engineered the process and created a series 
of six steam-powered machines that could 
manufacture the powder. He later developed 
a cheap system of creating steel by blowing 
air through molten pig iron to burn off 
impurities. The goal was initially to reduce 
the cost of military ordnance, but this 
technique of affordable steel revolutionized 
structural engineering and made bridges 
and railroad tracks, previously reliant 
on wrought and cast iron, much safer. 
Bessemer pioneered over 100 inventions 
in the fields of metalworking and glass, 
including a steamship cabin on gimbals 
intended to stay level to prevent seasickness 
which was sadly lost at sea, and he gained 
considerable commercial success leveraging 
his innovations.
Eliza Tinsley
(17 January 1813 – 17 January 1882) 
Following the death of her husband 
Thomas and his father, along with the 
death of her eldest of six children, Tinsley 
continued both her late husband and her 
late father-in-law’s businesses in the Black 
Country as one under her own name. The 
Eliza Tinsley company produced nails for 
horseshoes, and chains and anchors for 
ships, the latter of which would become 
the focus as motor vehicles replaced 
horses. Chainmaking was a particularly 
male-dominated industry, but Tinsley 
excelled, employing around 4000 workers, 
and she established an offshoot company 
in Australia. Many of Tinsley’s employees 
were women and young girls, and she 
fought against government efforts to restrict 
women, and girls under 14, from working 
in the nail and chainmaking industries, 
arguing that “the conditions of both 
trades are favourable to moral and physical 
health.” Known as “The Widow,” Tinsley 
was respected for her industry expertise. 
She sold the company at 58, but it would 
continue operating under her name into the 
21st century.
Robert Owen
(14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) 
Falling in love with Caroline Dale, daughter 
to the owner of the New Lanark mill 
co-founded by Richard Arkwright, Owen 
convinced his business partners to purchase 
the mill. He ran it with great success, but 
displeased his partners with egalitarian 
activities such as paying wages to his 
workers over a four month period in which 
the mills were closed during the War of 
1812. An avid scholar, Owen became critical 
of prevailing religious thought on human 
self-determinism, and he developed his 
own philosophy that one’s circumstances 
are largely the result of external forces, and 
that therefore education and philanthropy 
should be paramount in society. He 
undertook a variety of social reform 
projects such as lobbying for workers and 
children’s rights and for an 8-hour work 
day, and temporarily left Britain to found 
a socialist commune in America called 
New Harmony. The experiment was an 
economic failure that bankrupted Owen, 
but it did produce one of the first public 
libraries and a free school open to both boys 
and girls, and his philosophies are deeply 
woven into socialist movements within the 
United States.
George Stephenson 
(9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) 
After the death of his wife and daughter, 
the 25-year-old Stephenson, having no 
formal education, left for Scotland to find 
work but returned to West Moor when his 
father was blinded in a mining accident. 
When he offered to improve the mine’s 
deficient pumping engine, Stephenson 
was made enginewright and became 
an expert in steam-engine technology. 
His Northumberland accent made him 
unpopular with the scientific community, 
and when he presented his design for a 
safer mining lamp that would not cause 
explosions, the Royal Society accused 
him of stealing the concept from parallel-
inventor Humphry Davy. But Stephenson’s 
big claim to fame was his contribution to 
rail transport, and the invigoration of the 
rail industry. At age 40 he began work on 
the first public railway, and his locomotive 
known as ‘Stephenson’s Rocket’ won a 
competition by achieving the record speed 
of 36 miles per hour, which led some to 
fear that such speeds would cause women’s 
uteruses to literally fly out of their bodies. 
Thankfully this did not occur.
Eleanor Coade
(3 June 1733 – 16 November 1821) 
Bringing her up a devout Baptist, Coade’s 
parents were both successful merchants. 
Her grandmother Sarah Enchmarch had 
run the family textile business in Tiverton 
with 200 employees, using spies to acquire 
new manufacturing techniques, and was 
known for travelling around town in a 
sedan chair. After Coade’s family moved 
to London, she ran her own linen draper 
business at age 30. Six years later she 
purchased an artificial stone business from 
the struggling Daniel Pincot, but fired him 
within two years for “representing himself 
as the chief proprietor.” Her ceramic 
stoneware called “Coade’s Lithodipyra” 
went on to be used in over 700 sculptures 
across the globe, many of them overseen 
by the sculptor John Bacon, though she 
worked with a number of high-profile 
designers and architects as it allowed her to 
produce multiple copies of their designs. 
The South Bank Lion may be Coade’s 
most iconic piece, but her product was 
also used for the Gothic screen of St 
George’s Chapel, and in the restoration of 
Buckingham Palace.
I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N
H I S T O R I C A L F I G U R E S

Place the board on either the day or 
night side.
For a player count of less than 4, 
remove all cards and Merchant tiles 
that show a player count greater than 
your number of players, and return 
them to the box. 
The 2-player (
 ), 3-player (
), 
and 4-player (
) counts are 
shown in the bottom right corner on 
the front of the cards A and along 
the top of the merchant tiles B .
Separate the Wild Location C and 
Wild Industry D cards and place 
them face up on 2 of the Card Draw 
Areas.
Shuffle the remaining cards and 
place them face down on the 
remaining Card Draw Area E ; this 
is the Draw Deck.
Shuffle the remaining Merchant tiles, 
and place 1 (face up) on each of the 
Merchant spaces marked with the 
number of players in your game F , 
located near the edges of the board.
Result: In a 2 player game, no 
Merchant tiles are placed in 
Warrington G & Nottingham H . 
In a 3-player game, no Merchant tiles 
are placed in Nottingham H .
Place 1 beer barrel on each beer 
barrel space beside a (non-blank) 
Merchant tile I .
Place 1 black cube on each space of 
the Coal Market J , leaving 1 of 
the £1 spaces open.
Place 1 orange cube on each space 
of the Iron Market K , leaving both 
of the £1 spaces open.
Place the remaining cubes and beer 
barrels beside the board; this is the 
General Supply L .
Place the money beside the board; 
this is the Bank M .
In addition to helping players 
find locations on the board, the 
colours of the location banners 
also indicate which Location cards 
are in the Draw Deck. This varies 
with the player count:
•	 2 players: blue N and teal O
coloured Location cards are not 
in the Draw Deck.
•	 3 players: teal O coloured 
Location cards are not in the 
Draw Deck.
•	 4 players: all Location cards are 
in the Draw Deck.
BOARD SETUP
Take a Player Mat.
Take £17 from the Bank P .
Choose a coloured Character tile.
Place the matching coloured Link 
tiles in your player area Q .
Stack the matching coloured 
Industry tiles (which consist of 
Cotton Mills R , Coal Mines S , 
Iron Works T , Manufacturers U
, Potteries V , and Breweries W ) 
on their appropriate slots on your 
Player Mat. The side of the tiles 
with the black top half should be 
face down.
Place your Victory Point (VP) 
Marker on the “0” space of the 
Progress Track X .
Place your Income Marker on the 
“10” space of the Progress Track 
Y .
Draw 8 cards from the Draw Deck; 
this is your Hand. Do not reveal 
your Hand to other players.
Draw 1 additional card from the 
Draw Deck and place it face down 
in your player area; this is your 
After all players have set up their player 
area, shuffle all players’ Character tiles 
together and place them in a random order 
on the Turn Order Track Z .
PLAYER AREA SETUP
LOCATION BANNERS
X
Y
O
Z
P
R
U
T
S
V
W
Q

Perform the following additional steps at the 
end of the Canal Era:
Remove Obsolete 
Industries 
Remove all level 1 
Industry tiles from 
the board J (not 
from Player Mats), 
and return them to 
the box. All level 2 or 
greater Industry tiles remain on the 
board K .
Reset Merchant Beer 
Place 1 beer barrel L on each 
empty beer barrel space beside a 
(non-blank) Merchant tile M .
Shuffle Draw Deck 
Shuffle all players’ Discard Piles 
together and place the cards face 
down on the appropriate Card Draw 
Area N .
Remember: The bottom card of 
each Discard Pile will be face down, 
and needs turning over before 
shuffling.
The game is played over 2 eras: 
the Canal Era (1770-1830) and 
the Rail Era (1830-1870). The 
winner is the player who has the 
most Victory Points (VPs) following the end 
of the Rail Era. VPs are scored at the end 
of each era for your Link tiles and flipped 
Industry tiles.
For each action, you may choose to perform 
one of the following (you may perform the 
same action twice):
Build - Place one of 
your Industry tiles onto 
the board, paying the 
appropriate cost and 
consuming any required 
coal / iron. 
Network - Expand 
your canal or rail 
network by adding Link 
tiles to the board.
Develop - Gain 
access to higher-level 
industries by removing 
Industry tiles from your 
Player Mat.
Sell - Flip your built 
Cotton Mill, 
Manufacturer, and/or 
Pottery tiles, by selling 
to a Merchant, and 
consuming beer if necessary.
Loan - Take a £30 loan 
from the Bank, and move 
your Income Marker 3 
income levels (not spaces) 
backwards.
Scout - Discard 2 additional 
cards from your Hand and replace 
them with 1 Wild Industry and 1 
Wild Location card.
**Exception: You may not perform 
this action if you already have a Wild 
card in your Hand.**
Passing - You may choose to pass 
instead of performing an action, but must 
still discard a card for each action you pass.
Spending Money 
Any time you spend money 
to perform an action, you 
must place it on top of your 
Character tile A on the 
Turn Order Track. Placing 
spent money here, rather 
than in the Bank, will allow 
you to determine the 
players’ turn order for the 
next round.
After all players have taken their 
turn, perform the following before 
moving on to the next round: 
Determine turn 
order for the next 
round Rearrange the 
Character tiles on the Turn 
Order Track.
•	 The player who spent the least 
money this round will go first 
next round B , and so on, 
while the player who spent the 
most will go last C .
•	 If multiple players have spent 
an equal amount, their relative 
turn order remains the same 
C .
•	 Afterwards, take all money 
from the Character tiles, and 
place it back into the Bank D . 
This resets the money spent, 
ready for the next round.
Each era ends following the round in which 
all players use the final cards in their Hands. 
When this occurs, perform the following 
steps:
Score Canal/Rail Links 
For each of your Link tiles G , 
score 1 VP for each 
 displayed in 
adjacent locations, by advancing your 
VP Marker along the Progress Track 
H . Remove Link tiles from the 
board as they are scored.
Score Flipped Industry 
Tiles 
After all players have 
removed their Link 
tiles, score the VPs 
shown in the bottom 
left corner of your 
flipped Industry tiles (those with a 
black top half), by advancing your 
VP Marker along the Progress Track 
H . Unflipped Industry tiles I do 
not score.
Note: If you score more than 100 
VPs, record the additional points 
by starting another loop of the 
Progress Track.
After performing Rail Era scoring:
•	 The player with the most VPs is declared 
the winner.
•	 Ties are broken, first by the highest 
income, and then by the most money 
remaining.
•	 If still tied, those players draw.
Each era is played in 
rounds, which continue 
until both the Draw Deck 
and players’ Hands are 
exhausted. There are 
exactly 8/9/10 rounds per 
era in a 4/3/2-player game. 
During each round, players 
take turns in the order of 
their Character tiles on the 
Turn Order Track.
On your turn, perform a total of 2 actions.
**Exception: During the first round of 
the Canal Era, each player performs only 1 
action.** 
•	 For each action you perform, 
you must discard a card from 
your Hand and place it face 
up on top of your Discard 
Pile.
**Exception: Wild cards are placed back 
onto their Card Draw Areas.**
•	 After all of your actions 
have been completed, refill 
your Hand back up to 8 
cards with cards from the 
Draw Deck.
•	 Place all money spent during your turn 
on top of your Character tile on the 
Turn Order Track.
•	 Once the Draw Deck has been 
exhausted, your Hand will decrease each 
round until you have no cards left.
THE GOAL
ACTION LIST
END OF ROUND
END OF CANAL & RAIL ERA
END OF CANAL ERA
WINNING THE GAME
ROUNDS
PLAYER TURNS
P L A Y I N G T H E G A M E
E N D O F E R A M A I N T E N A N C E
•	 If you have a shortfall 
when paying negative 
income, you must acquire 
money by removing one 
or more of your Industry 
tiles (not Link tiles) from 
the board; each being worth 
half of its cost, rounded 
down. You keep any excess 
money.
•	 If you have no way to pay 
a shortfall, lose 1 VP (if 
possible) for each £1 you are 
short.
Note: You may remove any of your 
Industry tiles, but must stop as soon as 
you have acquired enough money to 
cover the shortfall. You may not sell 
Industry tiles for any reason other than 
paying for a shortfall.
Take Income 
Take money from the Bank equal to 
your income level. **Exception: 
Income is not collected at the end of 
the final round of the game.**
•	 Your income level is the number 
displayed on the coin beside your 
Income Marker’s current location on the 
Progress Track E .
•	 If your income level is negative F , you 
must pay that amount of money to the 
Bank.
£6
£6

Performing the Build action allows you to 
place Industry tiles onto a location on the 
board. 
To perform the Build action:
Discard an appropriate card. Unlike 
other actions, which allow you to use 
any card from your Hand, the Build 
action requires an appropriate card 
be discarded face up onto your 
Discard Pile:
•	 Location card 
May be used to build 
any Industry tile at the 
location named on the 
card, even if the location 
is not a part of your 
network.
•	 Wild Location 
card 
May be played as any 
Location card. This does 
not include the 2 Farm 
Breweries (see “Farm 
Breweries”). 
•	 Industry card 
May be used to build the 
Industry tile matching 
an icon shown in the top 
corner of the card, in a 
location that is a part of 
your network.
•	 Wild Industry 
card 
May be played as any 
Industry card.
At the end of each era, 
flipped Industry tiles score 
VPs. When flipped, they have 
a black top half and a VP icon 
in the bottom left corner.
Different Industry tiles are 
flipped in different ways:
•	 Cotton Mills, 
Manufacturers, and 
Potteries: Flipped when 
you perform a Sell action.
•	 Coal Mines, Iron Works, 
and Breweries: Flipped 
when the last resource 
is removed from the 
tile. This often happens 
during an opponent’s turn.
G A M E P L A Y C O N C E P T S
Whenever your income is 
increased, immediately advance 
your Income Marker along the 
Progress Track A by the 
number of spaces (not income 
levels) shown.
**Exception: You cannot increase your 
income level above level 30.**
Two locations are considered “connected” 
to each other if you can trace a route of 
Link tiles (owned by any player) from one 
location D to the other E .
Take the lowest level tile L of the 
chosen industry from your Player 
Mat and place it (the side with the 
black top half face down) on an 
undeveloped space in your chosen 
build location, obeying the following 
rules: 
•	 If possible, place it on a 
space displaying only 
that industry’s icon M .
•	 Otherwise, place it on a 
space displaying that 
industry’s icon with 
another industry’s icon 
N .
•	 If no undeveloped spaces display your 
industry’s icon, you may not place it 
in that location. **Exception: (see 
“Overbuilding”)** 
The cost of the Industry tile you are 
building is displayed, to the left of its 
slot, on your Player Mat O . Pay 
money onto your Character tile on 
the Turn Order Track, and consume 
any required iron and coal O . 
Remember: If coal is required, the 
location you are building in must be 
connected to a source of coal (see 
“Consuming Coal” and “Connected 
Locations”).
If you built a: 
Coal Mine or 
Iron Works 
Place coal 
 or iron 
onto the Industry 
tile, equal to the quantity 
shown in the bottom 
right corner of the tile.
Brewery 
Place 1 beer barrel on 
the Industry tile if it is 
built during the Canal 
Era, or 2 beer barrels if 
it is built during the Rail Era. 
Moving Coal and Iron to the 
Market
If you build either a:
•	 Coal Mine that is connected 
to any Merchant space 
 (even those without 
Merchant tiles); or
•	 Iron Works, regardless 
of whether or not it is 
connected to a Merchant 
space:
You must immediately move as 
many cubes as possible from the 
Industry tile to available spaces in 
its associated Market (filling the 
most expensive spaces first).
For each cube moved, collect the 
corresponding amount of money 
displayed on the coin to the left 
side of its Market space P .
If the last cube is moved from 
your Industry tile to its Market, flip 
the Industry tile Q and advance 
your Income Marker along the 
Progress Track by the number of 
spaces shown in the bottom right 
corner of the tile.
Coal is required to build rail 
Links and certain Industry tiles.
To consume coal, a rail Link or Industry tile 
must be connected to a source of coal (after 
it is placed).
Coal must be consumed from:
The closest (fewest Link tiles distant) 
connected unflipped Coal Mine F
(owned by any player). If multiple 
Coal Mines are equally close, choose 
one. If a Coal Mine runs out of 
coal, and you need more, choose the 
next closest Coal Mine. Consuming 
coal in this way is free.
 If you are not connected to an 
unflipped Coal Mine, you can 
purchase coal from the Coal Market 
G , starting at the cheapest price. 
This requires a connection to a 
 icon (shown on the 
Warrington, Shrewsbury, 
Nottingham, Gloucester, and 
Oxford Merchants around the edge 
of the board). If the Coal Market is 
empty, you can still purchase coal for 
£8 /
.
Consumed coal cubes are placed back into 
Historical Note: Coal was required in 
large quantities, so a robust transportation 
network was critical.
You may be required to consume beer when 
selling cotton, manufactured goods, or 
pottery; or when performing the Network 
action during the Rail Era. The amount 
required, if any, will be shown in the top 
right corner of the Industry tile.
Beer may be consumed from 
any of the following sources:
Your unflipped Breweries J . 
These do not need to be connected 
to the location where the beer is 
required.
An opponent’s unflipped Brewery 
K . These must be connected to 
the location where the beer is 
required.
The space beside a Merchant tile that 
you are selling to (see “Action - 
Sell”).
When multiple beer barrels are required, 
each beer may be consumed from a different 
source.
Consumed beer barrels are placed back into 
Historical Note: Unpolluted drinking 
water was in short supply in expanding 
settlements, so beer was often the purest and 
safest drink available.
A location on the board is considered to be 
a part of your network if at least one of the 
following is true:
•	 The location contains one or more of 
your Industry tiles B ;
•	 The location is adjacent to one or more 
of your Link tiles C .
Iron is required to perform the Develop 
action, and to build certain Industry tiles.
To consume iron, an Industry tile does not 
need a connection to a source of iron.
Iron must be consumed from:
Any unflipped Iron Works H 
(owned by any player); it does not 
have to be the closest. If you need 
more than 1 iron, you can consume 
each iron from a different Iron 
Works. Consuming iron in this way 
is free.
If there are no unflipped Iron 
Works, you can purchase iron from 
the Iron Market I , starting at the 
cheapest price. If the Iron Market is 
empty, you can still purchase iron for 
£6 /
.
Consumed iron cubes are placed back into 
Historical Note: These industries generally 
required iron in low volumes, so it could also 
be transported via horse and wagon.
FLIPPING INDUSTRY TILES
INCREASING YOUR INCOME
CONNECTED LOCATIONS
BUILD ACTION
CONSUMING COAL
CONSUMING BEER
YOUR NETWORK
CONSUMING IRON
Note: Coal and iron cubes may only be sold 
to their Markets during the action when their 
Industry tile is built. They are never sold to 
their Markets in later turns.
Building If You Have No Tiles 
on the Board
If you have no Industry or 
Link tiles on the board, you 
may (as an action) discard:
•	 An Industry card to build 
the matching Industry 
tile in any location with 
an undeveloped space 
displaying that industry’s icon;
•	 Any card to build a Link tile 
on any undeveloped line on 
the board.
P
Q
O
Farm Breweries
There are 2 unnamed 
locations, each with 1 space 
displaying a Brewery icon; 
these are Farm Breweries.
•	 You may only build in 
these locations using a 
Brewery Industry card or a 
Wild Industry card.
•	 A Link tile is required to 
connect Cannock to the Farm Brewery 
to its left.
•	 A Link tile placed between 
Kidderminster and Worcester also 
connects both locations to the Farm 
Brewery to their left. A second Link 
tile is not required; nor may it be placed 
there.

Performing the Sell action allows you to flip 
built Cotton Mill, Manufacturer, and Pottery 
tiles. Selling requires:
•	 Connection to a Merchant tile.
•	 Beer (usually).
To perform the Sell action:
Discard any card from your Hand 
Choose 1 of your unflipped 
Cotton Mill, Manufacturer 
C , or Pottery tiles, that is 
connected to a Merchant tile 
featuring that industry’s icon D .
Consume the required 
amount of beer, shown 
in the top right corner 
of the Industry tile. If 
there is a beer barrel 
E on the space beside 
the Merchant tile you are selling to, 
you may consume this beer as part 
of the Sell action, and collect the 
Merchant beer bonus (see “Merchant 
Beer Bonuses”).
Flip the Industry tile 
and advance your 
Income Marker 
along the Progress Track by the 
number of spaces shown in the 
bottom right corner of the tile.
You may go back to step 2 and 
repeat the process for each of your 
unflipped Industry tiles (including 
those of a different industry).
Note: You cannot perform the 
Sell action if you cannot consume 
the required beer (see “Consuming 
Beer”).
Merchant Beer Bonuses
Merchant beer may only be consumed 
as part of a Sell action. If you consume a 
Merchant beer, you also receive the bonus 
displayed beside that Merchant tile’s location:
•	 Develop (Gloucester) 
Remove 1 of the lowest level 
tiles of any industry from your 
Player Mat. 
**Exception: You cannot remove a 
Pottery tile showing a [lightbulb_icon] 
(see “Potteries and the Lightbulb 
Icon”).**
•	 Income (Oxford) 
Advance your Income Marker 
2 spaces along the Progress 
Track.
•	 Victory Points 
(Nottingham and 
Shrewsbury) 
Advance your VP Marker 
along the Progress Track by the 
number of spaces indicated.
•	 Money (Warrington) 
Receive £5 from the Bank.
Performing the Loan action 
allows you to acquire more 
money. Loans are never repaid, 
but instead lower your income 
level.
To perform the Loan 
action:
Discard any card from 
your Hand, and place it 
face up onto your 
**Exception: Wild cards 
are placed back onto their 
Card Draw Area.**
Take £30 from the bank, 
and move your Income 
Marker 3 income levels 
(not spaces) backwards 
down the Progress Track 
F . Place your Income 
Marker on the highest 
space within the lower 
income level.
**Exception: You 
cannot take a loan 
if it will take your 
income level below 
-10.**
Performing the Scout action 
allows you to acquire Wild 
cards, which provide increased 
flexibility in where you may 
build. The Wild Industry card 
can be played as any Industry card. The 
Wild Location card can be played as any 
Location card. When discarded, a Wild 
card is placed back onto its Card Draw 
Area, not onto your Discard Pile.
To perform the Scout action:
Discard any 3 cards from your 
Hand, and place them face up onto 
your Discard Pile.
Take 1 Wild Location and 1 Wild 
Industry card.
Note: You may not perform this 
action if you already have a Wild 
card in your Hand.
Performing the 
Develop action allows 
you to remove Industry 
tiles from your Player 
Mat. This allows 
you to gain access to 
higher-level Industry tiles 
without having to build all of 
the lower-level tiles of that 
industry.
To perform the Develop action:
Discard any card from your Hand, 
Remove 1 or 2 Industry tiles from 
your Player Mat, and return them 
to the box. Each Industry tile is 
removed separately and does not 
need to be of the same industry, 
but must be the lowest level tile of 
the chosen industry (as it is 
removed) G .
Consume 1 iron for each tile 
removed (see “Consuming Iron”).
Potteries and the 
Lightbulb Icon
Pottery tiles that show a 
 
icon may not be developed. 
These tiles may only be 
removed from your Player Mat through 
use of the Build action. They must be 
removed before you can access the 
higher-level Pottery tiles.
Performing the Network 
action allows you to place 
Link tiles, which expand 
your network and gain 
you access to new locations.
To perform the Network 
action:
Discard any card from your Hand, 
Place a Link tile on an undeveloped 
line on the board H . The placed 
Link tile must be adjacent to a 
location that is a part of your 
network.
**Exception: If you have no 
Industry or Link tiles on the board, 
you may place a Link tile on any 
undeveloped line (you must still 
consume coal if building a rail 
Link).**
Network During Canal Era:
•	 You may not build rail Links.
•	 You may build canal Links on 
undeveloped canal lines I .
•	 You may build a maximum of 1 canal 
Link for £3.
Network During Rail Era:
•	 You may not build canal Links.
•	 You may build rail Links on 
undeveloped railroad lines J .
•	 You may build 1 rail Link for £5.
•	 You may build a maximum of 
2 rail Links for £15, if you also 
consume 1 beer. This beer must 
be consumed from a Brewery 
(not a Merchant beer). 
Remember: If consuming beer from 
another player’s Brewery, it must be 
connected to the second rail Link (after 
it is placed).
•	 You must consume 1 coal 
for each 
rail Link built (see “Consuming Coal” 
Remember: Each rail Link is placed 
separately and must be connected to a 
source of coal (after it is placed).
SELL ACTION
BUILD ACTION (CONTINUED)
LOAN ACTION
SCOUT ACTION
DEVELOP ACTION
NETWORK ACTION
Overbuilding
Sometimes you are allowed to replace an 
already placed Industry tile with a higher-
level tile of the same industry type (you 
must still pay the necessary build costs). 
This is known as Overbuilding. When 
Overbuilding: 
If the tile you are replacing is your own 
A :
•	 You may Overbuild any Industry tile.
•	 If there are any iron / coal cubes on the 
tile being replaced, place them back into 
If the tile you are replacing is owned by 
an opponent B :
•	 You may Overbuild only a Coal Mine or 
an Iron Works.
•	 There must be no resource cubes on the 
entire board, including in its Market, of 
the same type as the Industry tile being 
replaced.
Remove overbuilt Industry tiles from the 
game, and return them to the box (they will 
not score VPs). Players do not lose income 
or VPs if their Industry tiles are overbuilt.
Rail Era Building 
•	 You may build multiple Industry tiles in 
each location.
•	 Industry tiles with a 
 to the left of 
their slot on your Player Mat may not 
be built. To remove these tiles (and 
access the higher-level tiles) you must 
perform the Develop action.
Canal Era Building
•	 You may have a maximum of 1 Industry 
tile per location, but may have an 
Industry tile in the same location as 
other players.
•	 Industry tiles with a 
 to the left of 
their slot on your Player Mat may not 
be built.

•	 Do not be afraid of taking loans. Your 
income level at the end of the game is 
not worth VPs. It is not uncommon 
for experienced players to win the game 
despite having a low income level.
•	 Level 2 or greater Industry tiles are not 
removed at the end of the Canal Era, 
so could score twice if built early. A 
flipped level 3 Cotton Mill would score 
a whopping 18 VPs over both eras. The 
Develop action is your friend.
•	 Be careful when developing Breweries. 
Remember that beer is required to 
perform the Sell action, so having no 
access to beer that belongs to you can be 
devastating to your long-term strategy.
•	 Tiles with a 
 to the left of their 
slot on your Player Mat cannot be 
built during the Rail Era. Try to build 
or develop at least 1 Coal Mine and 1 
Iron Works during the Canal Era, so 
that you do not have to use a Develop 
action during the Rail Era to clear these 
industries from your Player Mat.
•	 Figuring out how best to expand your 
network at the beginning of the Rail Era 
can be difficult for beginners. Expand 
your network by building rail Links 
to sources of coal. If you don’t have 
access to any coal, build a Coal Mine.
Since Brass is such a deep game, some 
players may prefer to play a shorter 
introductory game for their first experience. 
The introductory game plays exactly like the 
full game, except you only play the Canal 
Era and there are additional scoring rules 
to make players’ scores more closely reflect 
their success in the Canal Era. 
To play the introductory game, first, play the 
entire Canal Era as normal, including the 
end of Canal Era scoring. 
Players then score additional points as 
follows:
Money 
Score 1 VP for 
every £4 in your 
player area (up to a 
maximum of 15 VPs).
Income level
Score VPs equal to 
your income level. If 
your income level is 
negative, you lose VPs.
Industry tiles
Score the points a second 
time for all your level 2 or 
greater Industry tiles.
INTRODUCTORY GAME
T I P S A N D V A R I A N T S
•	 Discard 1 card for every single action 
you perform, including passing.
•	 You can perform the same action twice 
in a turn. For instance, you may place 
only 1 canal Link with the Network 
action, but may use the Network action 
a second time to place another canal 
Link.
•	 During the Canal Era, each player may 
place a maximum of 1 of their Industry 
tiles in each location.
•	 You may Overbuild any of your 
Industry tiles at any time.
•	 You may also Overbuild opponents’ 
Coal Mines/Iron Works, but only when 
there are no coal/iron cubes left on any 
Industry tiles or in the Market.
•	 You must be connected to a 
 to 
sell cotton, manufactured goods, or 
pottery; and to consume coal (but not 
iron) from the Market.
•	 You do not need to be connected to 
consume your own Breweries’ beer, but 
must be connected to other players’ 
Breweries, or to Merchant beer (only 
available when selling).
•	 A location must be a part of your 
network for you to build there (unless 
you use that specific Location card or a 
Wild Location card).
•	 Unlike the other level 1 Industry tiles, 
the level 1 Pottery tile may be built 
during the Rail Era.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
BEGINNER TIPS
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