Having played a whopping 2 games with snotlings, I am starting to think they may not be among the weaker teams. I think they could in fact be (deep breath) among the more powerful teams at low TV. For those interested in the ramblings of a rookie Snotling coach, here are my thoughts on why that could be the case.

As soon as they were released, I thought Snotlings were a more powerful version of the existing Ogre team. And after having played an Ogre team for Black Box Trophy 3 to a level of success that surprised me, I did not think of this as a backhanded compliment. So let’s take a look at Ogre strengths and weaknesses, and see how Snotlings compare.

About Ogres
Ogres, I decided when I started that BBT run, had a bunch of clear weaknesses:

1. Snotlings are removed easily
   
2. Bonehead rolls will provide opportunities to the opponent
   
3. Titchy means that dodging through your ranks is relatively easy making ball protection hard
   
4. Max M5 makes it a slow team (so mobile – but slow)
   
5. No basic skills means and Bonehead means rerolls are necessary, and expensive
   

But I thought they have one obvious strength: mobility. Snotlings dodge at 2+, unaffected by Tackle zones and have Dodge for those inevitable rerolls. Ogres can use Break Tackle at 6 SPP to also enable 2+ dodging.

So the plan was to maximize mobility by playing as many Snotlings as I could (2+ dodges gets you anywhere on the pitch) and to provide Break Tackle on all ogres asap (for maximum threat). This worked surprisingly well at low TV. Ogres develop poorly and expensively, and opponent teams with lots of basic skills such as Block and Tackle will easily counter your mobility and take away the one competitive advantage that you have. But at low TV teams are much less capable of dealing with the mobility and threat of BT Ogres, which often leads to them not caging the carrier properly. Especially as they underestimate the mobility of Snotlings, and the ease with which they can generate assists in bunches for a 1D or even 2D blitz.

At the same time, they’re very hard to stop on your own drive with consistent 2+ dodges. The occasional snake can be costly, but rare enough. Take no more than 4 ogres, (I think the ideal number is 3), avoid skilling up ogres beyond Break Tackle (unless they get Block), and skill a few Snotlings with Diving Tackle to help hinder dodges at important parts of the pitch and I believe you had a pretty competitive team. If you get really lucky a Snotling will have Sure Hands.

Ogres, but improved
Then Disposable was introduced. All of the sudden the effective TV of the team was lowered, which again at low TV was a considerable difference I think. Now we had a quite powerful team.

And then Snotlings were released as their own team. They are in all respects superior the Ogre teams as I see it. I have watched them for a while, and started playing them recently. My initial games seem to confirm what I thought would make the team even more competitive:

1. They can swarm, adding more players to the drive. That’s more chance for that assist, less risky to foul and of course more tackle zones!
   
2. They get a few positional Snotlings that do not have Titchy, so can make dodging for the opponent harder. I thought the loss of mobility would not make them worth it, but with extra snots added through Swarming that is less of a loss than I thought. Malmir was right (who’d have thunk?).
   
3. They get two bombers for 30K each. Is it a worse bomber than the Goblin version at 10K less? No, it isn’t. It’s better in fact due to easy Passing Skills access. Hail Mary Pass for the win! The gobo will need a double and will then cost 70K. The Snotling will need 2 MVPs and will then cost 50K. Twice.
   
4. Two of the Big Guys have Juggernaut at the start, making their blitzes a lot more safe.
   
5. As long as they get some Inducements they can profit from the Riotous Rookies and cheap Bribes. I would even forego the Wizard for that. Disposable becomes even more valuable in this case.
   

They have disadvantages as well, all in their Big Guys:

1. They have 4 Big Guys instead of a possible 6 ogres, but I wouldn’t want more than 4 ogres anyway in a competitive league.
   
2. The Bigs have Really Stupid, which is worse than Bonehead, but with so many snots it might be less of a problem than I initially thought.
   
3. Two of the Bigs have Secret Weapon, which could well be tricky without at least one bribe.
   
4. The other two have Loner, which means they need to be used much more conservatively (i.e. I have to refrain from that ever so attractive gfi. Or even from activating them at all.)
   
5. And I don’t know what the value is of the leapers. I believe that using the stilt runners and 4 bigs will impair dodging sufficient not to give up even more mobility in choosing them.
   

How I think the team's strengths can be leveraged
All in all, I get the sense this is actually a pretty powerful team! I’m not sure at what TV that would cease to be the case. But at lower TV no carrier will be safe from a 1D blitz made possible by unstoppable dodgers assisting, The snotlings should win the attrition war using fouls, Mighty Blow and extra players. Removing just one or two players makes protecting that carrier even harder, even if you lose a handful snots yourself.

Whenever no opportunity presents itself, try to position your team so that you force as many decisions on the opponent in his / her next turn. Don’t activate the Big guys of they are already in position to make your opponent think about them.Every decision is a chance for a mistake that your insane number of slippery eels, sorry, snotlings can pounce on!

I doubt Break Tackle will be powerful on the Trolls due to loner, but the Pump Wagons will surely benefit from having it, replicating the threat a Break Tackle Ogre provides.

The biggest challenge might be that, like Ogre teams, they take a lot of focus to play well. My Norse, Orcs, Khemri and Lizards might be better suited for a relaxing game after a workday and with a beer on the side. But I am getting more enthusiastic after some early successes, so let’s see if all this holds up in future games.

Also, I haven’t faced them yet myself. I’m very curious how I should deal with these challenges as an opponent and hope to meet them soon.

Any thoughts or comments? Am I sharing old news? Please share below!