Robot Wars Magazine

During the course of the show's run, a Robot Wars Magazine was published to follow the series and give behind-the-scenes information about the show and the future series. There were two separate magazines, each published on a monthly basis. The first edition covered Series 4 and also had previews of Series 5 and Extreme Series 1. It ran for 20 editions before it was cancelled. The second edition covered Series 6 and was due to cover Extreme 2, but it was cancelled after only 7 editions, despite having notably more information than its predecessor.

First Edition


The first version of the Robot Wars Magazine was primarily dedicated to covering the Fourth Series of Robot Wars. The editions would provide detailed profiles of the House Robots and some of the most notable contestant robots, and would later feature brief reports for the various heats, including trivia about some of the robots. After Series 4 had ended, it began with posting previews of Series 5, with a look at some of the newest competitor robots, as well as providing a wallchart with the line-up for that year. Each magazine also had a "puzzle zone".

Robot Wars Club
Members of the official Robot Wars Club would receive a free subscription to the Robot Wars Magazine. In the magazine, there was always a page featuring various updates, including notable contestant websites and news about new Robot Wars pullbacks and minibots.

Comics
The first magazine contained several comic strips, as was common in many magazines. The first few comics were "back stories" for the House Robots, showing their "origins". The comics often had a very sci-fi feel to them, portraying the House Robots as having very exaggerated beginnings, such as a weapon for world war, for example. The depiction of them in this light is somewhat simular to their "origins" mentioned in the Robot Wars Technical Manual.

Later editions featured "Fantasy Fights" between two or three robots from Series 4. The battles usually had a theme (for example, one fight features Firestorm 2, Bolt from the Blue and Tornado fighting each other in a "weather" themed battle and, like the House Robot origin comics, tended to be rather exaggerated in terms of damage, with panels often flying off with little more than a ram. The fights also frequently featured several errors to the robots designs or weapons.

"Thank goodness it's fantasy, I doubt a fight against Firestorm would be too easy for us. Especially with a pneumatic spike that appears to be jammed in the out position! But that's not the worst of it - Firestorm appear to be sporting their front edge cover and carrying cradle in the arena!"

- Team Tornado on the aforementioned Fantasy Fight

The Red Baron
In the 8th edition, a fictional House Robot called The Red Baron was created. The robot, named after the nickname for the World War I flying ace Manfred Von Richthoffen, was designed to incorporate all of the "best bits" of the original five House Robots into a single machine. Some of its features included Dead Metal's saw, Shunt's bulldozer, Matilda's chainsaw, Sgt Bash's flamethrower and Sir Killalot's claw and lance. It ran on Sir Killalot's tracks, whilst its body was the same design as Sgt Bash's, except it was red instead of green.

The Red Baron also made an appearance in the last edition of the magazine, where it fought Chaos 2, Pussycat and Razer in one of the Fantasy Fights. However, even after at one point pinning Chaos 2's flipper down due to its massive weight, it lost after its armour was damaged by Chaos 2 and Razer, before having its hydraulic cables severed by Pussycat's blade, whereupon it literally exploded.

Notable Moments
During the run, the magazine generated several notable moments that were carried over to the show and its various merchandise, and even a minor incident that was the basis for a Vengeance battle in the first series of Extreme.


 * A competition was held in one edition of the magazine to join the Panic Attack team in Series 4. The competition was ultimately won by Christian Bridge, who joined the team not only in Series 4, but also during Extreme 1.
 * 3 Stegs to Heaven received its name from a competition held by the Steg team, who "didn't just want to call it Steg 3".
 * Another contest held was to design a robot for the then-upcoming Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction. The winning design, Thor, was included in the game as part of the prize.
 * A notable incident occured in the magazine, where Diotoir team member Dr Zulu made a rude comment about the Firestorm team in response to a question asked by a reader. A Vengeance battle was staged between Diotoir and Firestorm during Extreme Series 1, whereby Dr Zulu would be forced to write an apology if Firestorm won the battle. Unfortunately, although Firestorm did win, the magazine was cancelled before the apology could be written.

Second Edition


The second edition of the Robot Wars Magazine was published after Heat A of Series 6. In direct contrast to the previous magazine, it was designed to be much more informative, with more focus being put on the battle reports and the behind-the-scenes interviews. As a result, the comics from the previous edition were dropped completely. This magazine featured news and updates from the Robot Wars world, detailed battle write-ups from the Sixth Wars, complete with robot stats, as well as various interviews with the most well known Robot Wars teams, the presenters and the judges. There were also various articles from behind the scenes, with the first magazine covering the concept of then-new house robots Mr Psycho and Growler. Team 101 captain Mike Franklin also had his own section where he gave advice about robot building. He was also due to provide instructions for readers to build their very own robot, but the magazine was cancelled before this could happen.

Members of the Robot Wars Club, as with the last one, would get a free subscription to the magazine, an advertisement which was shown during the ending disclaimer of every Series 6/Extreme 2 episode.

Conflict
Although notably more informative than its predecessor, the second edition of Robot Wars Magazine did not last as long, with only seven issues published. During its run, it had a notable clash with the BBC line-up. The first issue was published not long after Heat A, however, it featured write-ups of Heat A and B, thus providing spoilers for the heat. Notably, one reader wrote in to the publishers and informed them, whereby a written apology was made.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the conflict. The seventh issue, the last issue to be made, covered the first three shows of the second series of Extreme (the All-Stars and the Annihilator). However, the BBC had been postponing Robot Wars for a few weeks to provide coverage of several other shows, including sports. By the time the magazine was actually issued, only the first heat of the All-Stars had actually been aired. The eighth issue had been due to cover the Minor Meltdown, Tag Team Terror and the first two heats of the New Blood, but by the time the magazine would have come out, the BBC had aired none of these episodes.

The eighth issue was never released, and the magazine was promptly cancelled, with a few people believing that this continual conflict with the BBC's airing being the main reason for its cancellation.