User blog:NJGW/Top 105 Heat wins in UK Robot Wars

Hello once again, my friends! When one, mega, collaborative blog completes its journey into the distance, another one arrives at the Gas Station. A mega one at that, too.

And for this rankdown I'm joined by another partner in crime. Off goes Toast for some Cactus Juice, and in comes Mr. Toon Ganondorf. A man of many opinions, a man of many thoughts - the man who is daft enough to go through this trek with me.

Both of us have history on this type of blog, with TG's previous notable version of the list kicking things off. I also started my own rundown, but unfortunately things were ended at #8. My iPod stopped working, I lost my note on the subject, and all of the content was lost.

But not all hope is lost, because me and TG are going to be going through every single Heat win in UK Championship history. Ten series, 105 Heats - what could possibly go wrong! Probably a lot... but, hey: that's exactly the fun of it!

In this version of the blog, I won't be providing any criteria at the bottom of each entry for now. It's something I may add if deemed necessary, but I feel like things will work fine. I will still give reasoning for why one Heat eclipses another if needed.

Also, just to clarify: this is a slightly different take to my halfway-completed old blog. That was my favourite Heat wins. This is trying to rank every Heat win as a general performance.

TG's version of the blog can be found here

Anyhow, here we go, for another blockbuster blog!

105. Napalm - Series 2, Heat A
It's almost a shame to have to start with the worst Heat first. Of course it only makes sense, but in a blog like this, I'd almost find things more cathartic if we hyped the tension up for the bottom of the list rather than the top. Nevertheless, we do kick off from the bottom of the barrel - with Napalm's woeful Heat win that opened up Series 2.

The year is 1998. A new-found show comes to town on BBC2. Everybody loves it. A fun few Heats, a lovely winner, and plans for Series 2 are on the way. How does the show return after the success of Series 1? Like this...

It's bad enough that the general cast of robots in the season curtain raiser are of such a low standard, and it's bad enough that Sir Killalot couldn't cleanly break through a steel bar without Craig dislocating his hand in the process, but somehow, the winning robot of this Heat eclipses that.

Now, Napalm's combat struggles are well highlighted in the modern day, and it's no surprise that it doesn't score any points in this category. Surely it could at least make up for it in the Gauntlet and Trials?

No. No it couldn't.

So, Napalm kicks off the series. An on-the-eye improvement from Detonator - which, admittedly, says a lot - and looking to follow in the footstops of Roadblock's open-the-series-and-win-the-series approach. Napalm does exactly... the opposite. It rears up immediately, gets beached on bricks, allows JP to go berserk over Killalot moving at 1mph, and loses its chainsaw. When you're only saved by Piece de Resistance being Piece de Resistance, and Caliban being moved back to the start, you know you haven't got off to the best start.

How is the Trial for Napalm? Hardly any better.

"But, Nick: it came 2nd", says the uneducated child in the back row.

Yes, it did come second, young Jimmy. You also know what it did? It knocked down only 9 barrels. That's FOURTEEN less than BOTTOM place for the Skittles in Heat G. FOUR TEEN.

And yeah: then Napalm barely functions against Panda Monium before Matilda decides that a fencepost winning a fight wouldn't be a ringing endorsement for the show. In the Heat Final, it's Demoliton Demon in the way of progress. What follows is complete domination for the latter. For some Judges' decisions I try to understand. For this, I can't. Demolition Demon controlled proceedings. It was aggressive, and caused the only damage. Napalm only scored points when the 'mandibles' fell onto Demolition Demon one time. Heck, it probably didn't even score points for that.

So, yeah: an awful Gauntlet, a weak Trial, no show of combat potential, and they didn't even put the bloody chainsaw back on when it only slightly fell off. What a mess, Napalm. What a mess.

104. Wheely Big Cheese - Series 4, Heat H
Coming in second bottom is Roger Plant's third machine with its first Heat victory. A lot was promised of the cheese that was now really big. Instead, we got the equivalent of an out-of-date cheese sandwich which has been put in your Dad's smelliest socks, pooed on by the dog, chucked into the sewage pipe, and then been taken to the rubbish tip. It really is that bad.

And it should've been fondue success - yes, thanks for that recurring cheese joke, JP. Big, chunky wheels, a massive flipper - it just looked like a faster, evolved version of The Big Cheese. It should've been, anyway.

Wheely Big Cheese's life starts off by losing a melee that featured Wheelosaurus in it. I don't need to expand here. Roger Plant: you gave Peter Gibson a KO victory, you mad man.

With Wheely Big Cheese getting wheely lucky considering it was the first robot pitted in Round 1, Roger Plant gets a reprieve in Round 2 by facing Killertron. After being outwedged by Killertron for the first 0.2 seconds, Wheely Big Cheese gets into position and lifts Killertron up and over a couple of times. These shots are nice to look at, but in reality, Wheely Big Cheese really isn't doing anything of note. Killertron isn't been flipped - it's simply falling off of Wheely Big Cheese once the latter's weapon reaches peak height. There's just no kick to Wheely Big Cheese's attacks - and that's pretty disappointing in what is meant to be a free win where a producer's favourite goes on the rampage.

And then in the Heat Final Wheely Big Cheese gets completely outclassed by Suicidal Tendencies, as it's bullied around the arena, and fails at even getting close to flipping Suicidal Tendencies. Fortunately for Wheely Big Cheese, its opponent then loses drive on one side. An easy pitting surely follows, no?

Of course it doesn't. This is Series 4 Wheely Big Cheese. So instead of nudging a basically-static object into the Pit, Roger Plant mucks about for 10 minutes and then darts in himself. It's like when you're playing a computer game: you complete a level or mission, and so in celebration, you kill yourself - or in Arenas of Destruction' case Pit yourself after victory. In Wheely Big Cheese's lexicon clearly isn't the same, however, because it didn't get the victory bit out of the way with first before the 'celebration'. Thus, two terrible shows of incompetency against a level of robots it should've moped up with put Wheely Big Cheese's first UK run second bottom of this list.

103. Raging Knightmare - Series 7, Heat N
Rounding off the first drizzle of this blog is Raging Knightmare's journey to Semi-Final 'stardom' in the Seventh Wars. After failed Heat Finals with Knightmare and Raging Reality, Raging Knightmare finally achieves glory at the third time of asking. Great stuff, right? Well, I wish it was.

Raging Kightmare's first battle is against Arr Oh See Ess, Topbot, and The Executioner. A mild-to-okay batch of robots that a competent machine should deal with smoothly.

Unfortunately for Raging Nightmare, its flipper doesn't work. Okay, not ideal, but at least you have a wedged front, hey, lads? Maybe you can show some pushing power... hey, lads...? No. Raging Knightmare's fight goes as follows: stay out of the action for a period, and then come in with a drive. Maybe it could push other robots around? No. It literally stops still whenever it bumps into another robot. No pushing power, no control - no nothing.

Still, it's through to Round 2. A chance for redemption - a chance for that weapon to show us what its about, maybe.

Again, it's a no. Raging Knightmare gets beaten in a flipping fight with a machine that can't self-right for a good period, all whilst wasting numerous flips of its own. It takes an absolute age before Raging Knightmare can get a clean flip on a slow-moving circle. It's embarrassing. Firestorm 2 picks up flack for not finishing off The Morgue in its Series 4 Heat Final and rightly so - but at least the Welsh machine was barrel shaped! Raging Knightmare just has no excuses for such a limp performance here.

And then the Heat Final is a write off. The OotA is nice to see, but Spawn Again is done. Raging Knightmare can't exactly be penalised for winning a fight where the opposition has a freak moment, but at the same time, Raging Knightmare gets through a Heat without one good moment against an active machine. Its limp breakdown in the Semi-Final then sums things up for good. Heat N was a great Heat in its own right. If only the Heat winner itself was iconic too, hey...