Stats:
No. of players: 2-5
Amount of time to play: 30-75 min (depending on the number players)
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: minimal

Broom Service is a pick-up and deliver game with a unique role selection mechanic that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres.

Broom Service Rules Description:

Broom Service lasts seven rounds. Each round you pick four of your ten role cards to play. When you play a role card you must state whether you are being brave or cowardly. Roles played as brave are more powerful but if another player has that role card they can steal the associated action. If you play a role as cowardly you get to do the action immediately, but it is not as good as a brave action.

The first player each turn is the last player to play a role as brave and the turn continues in clockwise order. If you have the role the first player plays you must play it too and decide if you are brave or cowardly. The last player to declare the brave action takes it but the players that declared brave before them get nothing.

The ten role cards are made up of three gatherers that get you potions to deliver and wands for your weather fairy. There are four witches that move your pawn and then deliver (if brave) to a specific type of land. Two druids that deliver to the area your pawns are in. And there is one weather fairy that uses wands to dispel clouds and gathers lightning bolts. Delivering potions gets you instant VPs and you tally the number of lightning bolts you have at the end of the game for extra VPs.

There are ten event cards that are shuffled and three are removed. These events shake things up every round and add variety from game to game.

If you are playing with less than five players an extra role deck is shuffled and each round you flip cards that become forbidden roles. Playing a forbidden role loses you 3 VPs. The roles are replaced between each round and the number of roles flipped depends on the number of players.

After seven rounds the game is over. You add your VPs for lightning bolts then get 4 VPs for each set of the four resources you have. You also get 2 VPs for having three of the four resources. The player with the most VPs wins.

Quick Review of Broom Service:

Broom Service is fun and accessible with strategic decisions and interesting player interactions. This game is easy to understand, play and teach.

The components are very nice. While the theme is pasted on the art and cute witch-shaped pawns add to the atmosphere of the game. The rules are easy to read and follow too.

The way the cowardly and brave roles interact is a lot of fun. You can sometimes figure out what role someone has by their position on the board. But even then if they planned to use a couple witches in one round, you might end up wrong. And you can do really well if you play off what other are playing. Having a few roles no one else chose can make for a very powerful round.

I also like the events and how the mix things up. Some just mildly change the way you approach a round, but others can have a big impact. My favorite lets players choose from one to five roles for the round. Those that choose less get up to 10 VPs and if you choose five roles you lose 3 VPs.

Broom Service is easy to teach and learn and very accessible. It might take a round for newcomers to understand the flow of playing roles, but they catch on quickly.

With ten roles to filter down to four and lots of things you want to do players with analysis paralysis can slow the game down some. But I did not find there was an extraneous amount of downtime.

Broom Service is fun and groups looking for a game that is easy to teach with some strategic depth should like it. It is even great for families with kids and though the box says 10+ my eight year old was able to pick this up easily.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 3 out of 6
Player Interaction 4 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6