User:Datovidny/Lists

I had various lists before, but I thought I'd have them deleted and have another crack at it once I'd sparked a bit of wisdom.

Robot Wars Awards
After reading a lot of the lists from other users, they seem to focus a lot on the negative aspects of Robot Wars history, but I don't think that's right, whilst it's considerably easier to list all the things we wished would happen on Robot Wars that didn't happen, I want to thank the best TV show of my childhood by celebrating its greatest bits. I begin with the Robot Wars awards, where I'll go through the awards individually, listing those robots that were deserving of each award throughout their career.

Most Original Entry
"Our first award is for the most original entry, plenty of imagination and creativity"

The Most Original Entry Award was for those robots that may not have had designs and performances that set the warzone on fire, but they did do one thing that something on a TV Entertainment show always should, they captured our imaginations. We wouldn't forget the moments when we first saw these robots, making them all legends in their own right. There are 12 robots in the shortlist for this one, some near misses for this category include Nemesis and Wizard.

12. Milly-Ann Bug While I'm sure the design was based on an insect, or "bug", it still reminds me of a train, especially since it was originally going to have three domes instead of just two. Whilst Milly-Ann Bug may have been overshadowed by Razer in its first appearance, it was still quite a wacky design for Series 2, with its flammable hair and unique method of hauling around its arse, compare it with the generic designs that dominated the Series 2 line-up. Milly-Ann Bug was rightly awarded with the Most Original Entry trophy in Series 2, and the team managed to make the robot even more distinguishable by giving it the funky green, yellow and brown paint scheme, these days, you look at the colours of camouflage, and then just brighten the texture, you can't help but see Milly-Ann Bug. It could be seen as quite odd to place an actual winner of the award so low on the list, but Series 3-7 would yet see even more original designs...

11. Wowot Even the name of this one was original. Wowot, based on a crane, built looking like a part of an assembly line at a Car Plant, was original in the fact that the weapon pretty much was the robot, it stood out so much, and was an original weapon in itself. When Wowot first entered the arena, the thoughts going through most viewers were probably along the lines of "great design, but I bet it doesn't work". However, we couldn't have been more wrong, Wowot, in its only UK appearance, proved to actually have quite a bit of potential in-battle, even though it was faced with Lambsy, a foe that was just the right shape. Wowot probably wasn't the most aggressive, but I can't help thinking it was better suited to an event in Techno Games, I can't think what though, but there were so many events where the bot used was basically only doing one action, I'm sure Wowot fit into one of those. Back to Robot Wars, it was such a shame to see it go out in Round 1, Wowot is a fairly difficult robot to remember amongst the rest of Adam Clark's machines, but only because it wasn't given anywhere near the amount of time on screen it deserved, this the main reason it's given a low ranking on the list. Nonetheless, a great design, a good attempt to have an all-rounder for Robot Wars and various Techno Games events.

10. The Kraken Jayne Middlemiss said that it was "one of" the most scary-looking robots that she had seen "today", I would like to argue that it was "the" most scary-looking robot that I'd seen "throughout" Robot Wars. I'll be honest, after beginning watching Robot Wars in Series 3, and watching pretty much every episode that followed, The Kraken was the only robot that when it entered the arena, I actually gulped and felt nervous. Everything about its design made it look frightening, its svelt sculpted body, finished off in "Dark Forest" black, with a large "Walk of Terror" wedge, at the end of which stood a large claw that came down so quickly, underneath which was a very sharp and heavy-looking claw, that looked like it would take no prisoners. However, the ironic thing was that the robot never actually looked that potent on screen, so we were expecting a Thermidor 2 victory in the second round anyway. In fairness, the hydraulic claw did cause a scrape on Cobra's tough titanium shell. A rightful place on the list then, the robot that for probably the first time since Razer stepped into the ring, immediately looked as scary as the show tried to be.

9. Crushtacean Now, it's quite obvious why Crushtacean's on the list, I could talk for ages about every aspect of the robot, but the main reason is: "its claws were clever". Joking aside though, the weaponry was designed very intelligently, and from memory I can't think of any other robot that had its weapons controlled in such a manner. The design itself was also fairly original, I think the closest other robot we had to a crab was the lobster Thermidor 2, the other tiny details, like the curved top and bottom, the circular base, and the hugely exposed wheels also helped in making the robot look quite original and quite distinctive. However, the reason it hasn't been placed any higher on the list is that the main thing that stood out for us about the whole robot was the weapon setup, which overshadows every other aspect of the robot, and while that may look good for us, it wouldn't have come clear to the audience in the studio, and everything aside, it's a technical thing, which kind of defeats the object of the award. Full marks for the design of the robot though, potent weaponry and perfect distance between the claws made it a good robot as well as original.

8. 13 Black After watching Hypno-Disc in the arena, causing tremendous damage to everyone, it didn't take many Robot Wars fans long to wonder what it would be like to shove two spinning discs on the same robot, we were first introduced to this "crazy" concept in Series 5, with the appearances of 13 Black and Shredder, Shredder didn't appear that potent, and was off the screen very quickly by driving into the pit, which leaves us with 13 Black, a funky and colourful design, discs aside, and it was unfortunate against Corkscrew, and because of its early departure in this series, it's very easy to forget that 13 Black was even in Series 5. However, Series 6 came around, and 13 Black returned, looking hugely more dangerous with its enormous discs, even though it had pretty much no pedigree at all, and it was going in up against big favourites Thermidor 2 and Stinger, 13 Black was still seen as one to watch, and didn't disappoint, as it sailed through Rounds 1 and 2 without breaking sweat, and then swinging it against Stinger in the Heat Final. It was the large discs that made 13 Black very distinctive, full stop. They may not have done quite as much damage in their battles as we would've thought by looking at it, but it was always one to fear from Series 6 onwards, and in Series 7 made a name for itself as "THE" spinner to watch out for, making it truly an Original Entry.

7. Twn Trwn Perhaps a wee bit fortunate to be this high on the list, Twn Trwn was a terrific design, it was far from the Best Design, because the main priorities of the robot were that it had artwork coming out of every orifice, and was as big as its cost in pennies, though at only £200 it was probably bigger.......never mind. Thank goodness that the team chose the artwork over the snowplough, I doubt it would've looked anywhere near as good, and I bet it still would've died after one blow from Tridents' axe. For me, every square inch of Twn Trwn was more aesthetically pleasing and more original than the whole of most robots that ever competed, though it may have just looked better next to a robot with only one shade of colour. Such a shame to see the artwork trashed at the end, but how great it was to see such a mad looking robot, in what probably was quite a dull heat otherwise in terms of robots competing.

6. Fat Boy Tin A robot that really stole the scene for a while, Fat Boy Tin certainly came in at a time in the series where we were seeing a few too many generic designs from the middle heats. Fat Boy Tin definitely classes as an Original Entry for the fact that it technically wasn't original at all, it had taken its design from robots that had been fighting decades prior, just not in Robot Wars. Looks aside, it was also quite a size, also making it quite original, it was the tallest competitor that had ever competed at the time, so it certainly stood out, even when it was next to Sir Killalot, and it would go on to be the tallest competitor ever, for a whole.....1 episode. Despite our lack of faith in it, Fat Boy Tin was actually a fairly competent robot, a powerful and fairly quick robot with a wedge, but it looked bad getting outfoxed by Plunderbird 4 in a matter of moments. Despite not staying the tallest ever, we will always remember the not at all original Fat Boy Tin.

5. Wheely Big Cheese Any user on the wiki familiar with me will not be surprised to see me try and sneak Wheely Big Cheese into the list. My all-time favourite, bar none. From the very moment I first saw it in the arena, I knew it would take something very very very special to switch my preferences from this, it never happened. I loved Wheely Big Cheese for its sheer design lunacy, the robot was basically one big weapon, with two huge red wheels bolted onto the side. The wheels themselves were original, bright red, and using sharpened golf shoe studs for grip instead of tyres. However, the weapon was the main attraction, after seeing Chaos 2 monster Series 3 with its flipper, anyone would look at Wheely Big Cheese, with its gigantic flipper, that was technically double-sided, and expect unprecedented anarchy. In fairness, we got a fair spectical in its Series 4 heat, but we were yet to see it at its peak in Series 5. I'm saddened to think that on several occasions, such as the Series 5 Semi-Finals and the All-Star Quarter Finals, when it could've performed really well and maybe caused an upset or two, it suffered one way or another and didn't deliver. Its reliability issues proved that it was far from the perfect robot, and its exposed wheels proved that it was far from the Best Design, but it was a design that definitely made it distinctive and impressive, a shame then that it was a design only ever "kind of" replicated by St. Agro.

4. Razer Three numbers up, I labelled Twn Trwn as being controversially high, but here I find myself looking at the great Razer being controversially low at number 4. First things first, it's certainly deserving of a top 4 slot, the weapon was the robot basically, with some tiny wheels and mediocre armour finishing it all off. There isn't really much to say about the rest of the robot, the sole reason that we even remember Razer was its weapon. As the robot stepped into the arena in Series 2, the claw just looked like a bodybuilder's arm, with strength to match, an original weapon in itself which proved particularly against Inquisitor that it could render anything scrap metal. So for Series 3, we knew what to expect, and it never really lost its damage potential, from Series 2 right to Extreme 2 it just seemed to be able to pierce through absolutely everything. The design really made its mark in Series 3, whilst in Series 2 it was just a wedge with a large "curved bit of metal raised high" (because the claw hadn't been invented yet), in Series 3, when it had those wings, it really did look like part bird, reptile. Razer was clearly an original design, as it would inspire many crushers to enter the later series, but all of them would be dubbed "Razer-clones" or "Razer-esque", Ming 3 and Tiberius 3 in particular facing most of the criticism. This harsh dubbing proved that Razer in fact "WAS" the vertical crusher, meaning it was truly an original robot. However, I can't find it in myself to put Razer any higher up on the list, this may sound a bit odd, but I just don't think it ever really got put in front of me that it was an original robot. I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3, so I was told before its battle with Backstabber that it was a really good robot by Philippa and Jonathan, so I never really got the chance to be amazed by a new robot that electrified the arena with its capabilities. Sorry lads, if I'd just been watching a year earlier, I would've been impressed by Razer even more and it may have even reached number 1.

3. Hypno-Disc Hypno-Disc in many respects is on the list for the same sort of reasons as Razer, it was a design that was defined truly by the weapon, and as it went into its second series, we all knew what to expect, especially after the addition of a srimech, since it lost previously for not having one. However, there are a few things that put Hypno-Disc higher up than Razer. Firstly, something that I stated for Razer, I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3, so I first saw Hypno-Disc when nobody really knew what this robot was, and what the weapon would do, but as I watched it tear Robogeddon limb from limb, I was gob-smacked, and I was almost equally impressed when it tore apart Stealth, disabling the pneumatic rams completely. Another reason that Hypno-Disc goes higher, it did cause a lot more damage, Razer would create fairly big holes, holes about the size of two axe hits from Shunt, which could be seen almost every battle after a robot died, but Hypno-Disc ripped its first two opponents apart nut from bolt, much more theatrical, much more original to see. Hypno-Disc was one of a kind for a very long time, spinners may have come in Series 4 and 5, but until 13 Black in Series 6 it looked like Hypno-Disc was the only one capable to doing any damage to all, destroying many a foe from Series 4-5, including The Predator, V-Max, Raizer Blade twice, Splinter, Ming 3, and not forgetting Atomic, whilst also causing a fair amount of damage to others besides. As a result of its prowess, whilst every spinner that followed wasn't dubbed a "Hypno-clone", it was always the benchmark for new spinners to look up to, and I remember Jonathan Pearce mistakenly calling Disc-O-Inferno "Hypno-Disc" at one point during the Extreme 1 Annihilator. In short, Hypno-Disc: to quote Philippa Forrester; "One of the most original, if not THE most original".....Well, number 3 at least.

2. Stinger Most of the robots in this list have been listed because of their weapon making up the robot, with Stinger, its the wheels making up the robot. As it made its mark in Series 3, Stinger certainly set the series off to a good start by performing as maniacally as possible. Stinger was original for so many reasons, that it required just the wheels and the body to go, the fact that it had everything mechanical hidden in its wheels, that its wheels were extremely huge, and that despite not being powered by anything but torque-reaction, it had one of the most punishing axes in the warzone. Even the small details, like the axe head being an odd and intriguing shape, and the tyres appeared different from the norm, they made Stinger even more different from the rest. Of course Stinger was going to be a revolution, even in Series 4 Jonathan Pearce made a meal of how insane the robot was, and it wasn't even its debut series. Admittedly, quite a few robots with a similar design entered Series 3, but Stinger was the most interesting, and would be the only one to continue afterwards, to adopt the basic concept as its own. There were many robots that had a particular type of weapon making them original, but it's difficult to find a robot more original than Stinger, which will always be remembered by Robot Wars fans.

So...the winner is...

1. Psychosprout You may argue, or you may just plain disagree, but for me, you can't get more original than the only robot that looked at the wheel as a concept and thought: "........No". Psychosprout had no weapons, it was made with layers upon layers of paper mache, it was the only robot to literally read the child's guide to robot-building by having a shell on top of an un-tampered RC car, and it had no wheels touching the arena floor. Psychosprout was fantastic, and a great concept to see, though whilst most robots were designed for Robot Wars, Psychosprout was designed really for something in Techno Games, can't think what though. It was certainly original next to pretty much everything else in Series 1, like Uglybot, Full Metal Anorak, Shogun, Scrapper and Leighbot...the list could go on. For that alone, Psychosprout is probably deserving of the number 1 slot, that it REALLY stood out amongst the generic stuff from the time. However, Psychosprout didn't really inspire any other roboteers to copy the basic concept, which is unsurprising, I doubt it was at all competent in the Arena, but it did inspire one person....me. I'm in the process of creating a robot with a paper mache sphere for a body, with a wire mesh and basic controls inside, which shall be named Rollerbot, named as such as when finished it will resemble this guy from the Guildhall Leisure game. There isn't really much more to say about this one, it hardly defined Robot Wars' history like Hypno-Disc and Razer, but I feel it came from the best ingenuity.

Best Design
"Next up, an award for Best Design, fiercely fought..."

Robots entered the arena in all shapes and sizes, some colourful, some scary, some enormous, some comical, but some gave off the impression that they were going to perform well just by entering the arena, because their design appeared to have been very well thought out and very complete, without real obvious weaknesses, until you watch the drivers do something daft with them! Some of these robots came from previous series, with an improved design developed after past mistakes and mishaps, others entered the arena for the first time, already looking measured, suggesting that the team were really tight on making the best robot in every mathematical sense. Again, there are 12 in the shortlist, among the near misses were Hodaf The Bad, Shredder Evolution and Hypno-Disc.

12. Ming Dienasty While it didn't exactly have the best of luck in Robot Wars, many of the regular users here will know that I insist that Ming Dienasty was a good robot, its speed and agility were good, but mostly I feel this is down to its design. A completely different robot from Ming 3, which while it was a good robot itself, it had several shortcomings that Ming Dienasty didn't have, chief among which being the exposed wheels, whilst Ming 3 had huge wheels which were very susceptible to spinners and ramming blades, Ming Dienasty had very tiny wheels, that not only were protected by the main body, but they were also protected by large girders designed to absorb shocks, this meant all spinners, even the best of the bunch: Hypno-Disc, Typhoon 2, Disc-O-Inferno, they'd all struggle to cause damage. Also on the defence side of things, Ming Dienasty had its drill weapon mounted on its standard lifting arm mechanism, to create a unique weapon-come-srimech device, which I thought was a nifty idea.

However, whilst Ming Dienasty was pretty solid on the defence side of fighting, there wasn't much in its favour in terms of offense. Even though the drill was quite powerful at 3000rpm, and was capable of doing damage, it was still just a drill in the Seventh Wars, which meant damage potential was fairly low, as was its attack zone. Another problem was the self-righting, whilst the arm could right it, the robot would have to be perfectly on its back for it to work, as the mechanism stood above the body, so it may flop to one side and be unable to self-right, this was evident in its melee. In short, it would survive to the end of a fight, but not really rack up many points against the competent robots of the period, but I feel, still worthy of a place on the list.

11. Beast of Bodmin Roadblock was a very good robot, not just for Series 1, I bet it would've done half-decent in the later series, depending on its line-up. Roadblock had the low ground clearance coupled with its simplicity, it was a simple (but large) wedge shape with a low scoop at the front and a circular saw at the back, so it could rack up points in all criteria fairly comfortably if it needed to. But why isn't Roadblock on the list, because the Bodmin Community College were able to improve the design even more with the Beast of Bodmin. The biggest and best change was the addition of the tusk weapon, whilst only a small lifter, it was sufficient to lift and even topple other robots, to save fitting an enormous flipper which in later years would just be a liability against spinners when raised. The saw was also improved from Series 2 as well, as it was sticking out quite a bit on Roadblock in Series 2, but only exposed enough on the Beast of Bodmin to carry out the needed damage without the possiblity of it getting buckled.

Then again, whilst the machines from the Bodmin Community College were truly something in the early series, they were still simple wedges. Whilst drawbacks in the design never really hit them in the show, they did have flaws, such as vulnerable sides and tops, the ineffectiveness of the circular saw weapon etc. But there was one design fault that did catch out Roadblock that would've caught them both out quite regularly in later series: inability to self-right. The simple answer would be to do what Aggrobot did and have wheels on the top of the robot as well so that it would be invertible, or just make the robot lower. An inability to self-right certainly makes it a flawed design, but as this wasn't really a huge factor back in those days, it'll only go as far down as number 11.

10. Plunderbird This placing really goes to all of the Plunderbirds. Again, like Roadblock and Beast of Bodmin, the Plunderbird robots were simple wedges, though these were box-wedges. I'm a fan of the Plunderbird robots because they took a bland design and made it quite interesting. In the first series, enabling Plunderbird 1 to have multiple weapons was a genius idea, for it to suit different opponents. Plunderbird 1 would've been really good in the arena, but the reason we didn't see it there was because it was side-swiped by a house robot, and its ground clearance was too low for it to get away from the grille, so it was beaten by its own good design. Plunderbird 2 was even better, a simple wedge with a huge bulldozer blade that went to the floor, ensuring no robot would get underneath, AND IT WORKED!! From then on, the front base plate idea remained, with the Plunderbird series being improved year after year with better and better weaponry.

Reliability problems aside, the Plunderbirds did still have a few design problems, most of which similar to those shared by the Bodmin Community College robots, in particular the inability to self-right. However it does rank above Beast of Bodmin for its base plate, as this did stop several robots with flippers from being able to flip it over, even after fighting robots like Sir Chromalot, Mega Morg and even Firestorm 2, Plunderbird was only ever KO'd by flipping once. Another design fault with the early Plunderbirds was its tracks, I know they could give good grip, but they did make it more susceptible to flipping. Fortunately, this was rectified on the 5th model.

9. St. Agro Whilst Wheely Big Cheese is a good favourite of mine, there are two reasons why I've chosen St. Agro for this list instead of Wheely Big Cheese: 1) I wanted another Cornish robot in a list, 2) I felt that St. Agro had basically perfected the design (a bit more). There isn't much to say why the basic design is a good one, as it forms the basis of a potentially very powerful flipper, both St. Agro and Wheely Big Cheese scored OotA's, and were able to KO many others besides. St. Agro however picked up on a couple of Wheely Big Cheese's design faults. St. Agro was more compact and shorter than Wheely Big Cheese, so it was probably a little bit less of an easy target against things like spinners, and this also made it more maneouvrable. The large wheels of Wheely Big Cheese meant they could buckle easily, or be torn easier, but St. Agro's were smaller and didn't have an exposed axle, so they were less susceptible to buckling and ripping. Another innovative idea was the "double-sided double flipper", as it technically meant St. Agro's design had the potential so send a robot even higher than Axe Awe, which would've been impressive and fun to watch. Whilst that didn't happen, new and improved pneumatics in St. Agro today (Maelstrom) certainly show that the double flipper idea can make for a much better spectacle than the average flipper.

Whilst these points had been picked up on, there was still one big drawback for St. Agro, and that was that the wheels were still exposed, and that in Series 7 the wheels just seemed quite weak. This meant that St. Agro would still be quite vulnerable against spinners, need I mention X-Terminator, and spinners were quite common by the time it started competing, so for that reason St. Agro still ranks fairly low here.

8. Gemini I'm not sure I was all for letting Gemini win just about every other award in Series 4, but it was a very good idea to have a design where one end of the robot wasn't even connected by anything to the other end. The clusterbot never really took off as a trend, the odd babyweight clusterbot here and there, and then Black and Blue getting finished off early on, but Gemini certainly made a good case for such a trend, as it really livened up its Series 4 heat, apart from Tornado giving Berserk 2 a pummelling, the main attraction was Gemini, performing maniacally in its opening battle, and then proving it was an extremely good design by working very well together in ripping the shell off The Creature, and then becoming the first robot other than Chaos 2 to get an OotA. Gemini's design may not have won it a domestic title, but it was almost as if it was designed for Pinball, making the most of only needing half the points each, and topping the board without too much sweat, probably a bit unfair to put it in that tournament though. Everytime Gemini entered a head to head, it was always two against one, meaning it had an advantage (in that respect) all the time, which is the whole point of a good design.

Gemini would've been ranked higher on the list, before it shot itself in the foot in Series 5/Extreme 1. The anti-wheelie bars in theory was a good idea, but that was without considering that the flippers were still so powerful they could still flip themselves over. The anti-wheelie bars meant that Gemini would often flip itself backwards still, but then be unable to find the momentum to get back onto its wheels. This would've been fine, because its a clusterbot it could've just called upon the other twin to come and right it, but the other twin would just beach itself in the process of trying to right the other, so you're left with both twins unable to self-right. This meant that Gemini would suffer losses to Reactor 2 and Napalm 2, good robots, but robots that Gemini really should've humiliated in battle. The other main drawback of the clusterbot is that they are in essence middleweights, so the innards and armour would never be up to scratch, Razer proved the armour could be broken through, the motors didn't exactly make them lightning speed, and the weight meant they would be easy to flip and shunt, Tornado proving the latter. Clusterbots may have been good design ideas for the lower weight classes, where the opposing robots could be much weaker anyway, but against the heavyweights, no chance.

7. King B Powerworks Well, we're getting into the real mist of the list, so probably about time for the first controversial choice (probably). King B was frequently regarded as a bit of a problem child throughout its Robot Wars career, even by its team, but it was still also seen as a competent veteran capable of doing alright whenever it fought. Part of this goes down to its design, designed to be a low but fast runner that would just run about and ram opponents, hoping to push them if it could. Motor power was a priority, as then it would be able to dart around the arena quickly, and when it would ram other opponents, it would have the power to push them, the pushing aspect was helped by the front forks, as they would pierce/grapple the other robot, so King B would have a basis on which to push. This simple battle plan was effective on a fair few occasions, notably against Kronic 2. The forks could also lift, meaning if it wanted it could always apply the patented Panic Attack maneouvre, or just try and flip something over. The disc was a nice touch too, not that it did much, from memory, I think the sum total of damage caused by it was on the Ninja Sheep. The wheels may have given the robot a large ground clearance, but this did mean if it was scooped up by a wedge-shaped robot it could easily escape, something not readily considered by later entrants.

The wheels may have benefitted it in that sense, but at the end of the day they did mean King B Powerworks had a high ground clearance, so it could be easily flipped about and pushed from the side. The exposed wheels were also a problem, and while it wasn't caught out in this sense by IG-88, a hit just a few inches to the side would've done. Aside from these factors though, King B had a fairly decent design that did well by the robot, so I feel a fair ranking is right.

6. X-Terminator On the whole, X-Terminator was underrated I feel, until Series 7, but its design meant that it was always a force to be reckoned with, a force that even managed to reach the Semi-Finals after passing the mighty Behemoth. X-Terminator's low, wide scoop underneath the axe would make for a good arsenal, scoop 'em up and then slam down with the axe, a technique that actually managed to take out Robochicken in Series 6, which by then was becoming a seriously good contender itself. The axe itself was designed carefully, with it being specially tipped and sharpened, and still causing damage in an era when armour was really getting strong. The main feature that made X-Terminator such a good design was the side srimech arms, I don't know what it was about them, but it was certainly the first time where a robot had...an unconventional srimech, it was notable, and created the idea that a robot didn't need a huge apparatus to self-right. By Series 6, these arms were redesigned to make it almost effortless for the robot to self-right from its side, which would help and against fast flippers. By Series 4, the biggest problem with the design was that the broad back meant X-Terminator could've been beached on its back, but this was a fault fixed in Series 5 as the rear was slanted.

Looking for drawbacks, it's probably a tad harsh to only rank X-Terminator 6th, but there was one problem with it: the axe. Despite being a long improvement from its Series 3 axe, the axe still lacked much power and weight, the fact that there was little weight in the tip of the axe, it struggled to puncture through most armours in later series, and the fact that there was little power in the pneumatics, the axe was never strong enough to self-right it when upside down, which cost it a fair number of battles. The axe was always the biggest failing of the robot, so it was replaced with a spinning disc in Series 7. The disc does mean we rarely picture the axe weapon when we think of X-Terminator, but it did deal with the damage problem that the axe had. However, X-Terminator still suffered from not self-righting, which very nearly made it go out in yet another Heat Final, and if it went out there, it may have been able to fight in the All-Stars, and go on and win, but would we respect it as much now?

5. 259 The last robot to receive the award, 259 raised a lot of eyebrows as it first entered the arena, and made a lot of knees shake as it came out. After its very first battle, 259 was immediately dubbed the favourite for the heat and a hot contender for the title, even though the ever consistent Semi-Final-finisher Wild Thing was still yet to flex its muscles. The difference between this and the rest of Adam Clark's robots was that it focused on damage potential only, it wasn't designed for defence, agility, speed or power behind the drive, just to cause as much damage as possible by simply moving towards any robot. 259's devastative ability came from a large vertical flywheel mounted on a large support with a huge motor to power it, simple, but as it proved, very effective. The robot wasn't completely defenceless, 259 was quite low and the wheels were protected by side skirts that helped prevent flippers getting underneath around the sides, so it wasn't a complete glass cannon.

That said, it was. As the top priority for the robot was weapon power, it was never going to be well-equipped in other areas. The chief problem being that there was no srimech, the side skirts may have been there to prevent that, but all it would take would be just one flipper that was just a little bit lower, and there were plenty, there was also the possibility of another weapon sending it over from the front, like a horizontal flywheel or a flipper, Typhoon proved this against the middleweight, and Judge Shred nearly managed it in the UK vs Germany Special. The other big problem, which actually probably cost it the heat, was the exposed belt to the flywheel, so easy to disable the flywheel to stop it doing damage, and Wild Thing found that weakness, Wild Thing itself armed with only a small saw. 259 then is a true glass cannon, so it can't really go any higher up than this in the list, though originally it was ahead of my next nomination...

4. Firestorm Throughout Series 3 it was described as a "complete robot" by Jonathan Pearce, and rightly so. Firestorm is arguably the most successful robot to ever fight in UK Robot Wars, a lot of this came down to Graham Bone's driving, but could he could done as well driving a lesser robot? I think not. Firestorm's design was complete in its own right, it was sleek and low, the wheels were neatly hidden and the flipper was the same height as the wedge, so robots would effortlessly glide onto the wedge to be flipped clean over. The wedge made Firestorm very resistant to some of the harshest weaponry, like vertical spinners and such, and the fact that it was so low meant it could easily get under just about anyone. Firestorm adapted just a little bit every time it returned, and for the better, the best change was after its loss to Tornado, the idea of the steel strip meant it definitely wouldn't let Tornado under it again. I imagine this really helped it in Series 7, when ground clearance began to matter. I have to say ditching the rear spike after Series 3 was a good call, to focus solely on the flipper's potential. Despite being a front-hinged flipper, Firestorm's was one of the best in the business, getting 7 OotA's, as the robot was designed to lift up its front without its wheels leaving the floor, and as it was front-hinged, it didn't have the vulnerability the rear-hinged flippers had when open. Another good design feature on Firestorm was its way of making one motor cover forwards/backwards, the other left/right, this made the robot more maneouvrable, and certainly enabled it to secure third place in Series 6.

As Robot Wars evolved, teams would build their robots with greater push, bigger motors at a higher voltage and critically more of them. Firestorm relied on its wedge being lower than everything, but was always helpless when faced with a robot it couldn't get under, countless fights with Razer without a win proved this. Firestorm never really had a back-up plan in terms of pushing power, in Series 7, it had 3 HP, not bad, but only in 2 wheels, so it was never going to be an effective pusher. Aside from that, the flipper may have been "positioned the wrong way", but that isn't the problem, because there was another time when Firestorm was vulnerable, and that was when it was self-righting, it was slow to self-right, its flipper had the power, but the fact that it was quite small meant it was like pushing a door open by the hinge, it's just more difficult.

3. Pussycat Without a doubt, this is one of the most ingenious names to befall a robot on Robot Wars. Pussycat was designed so that it would always land on its wheels, and it did. But what about the shape that was produced? Ground clearance aside, that's an awkward thing to try and flip about. The ground clearance did actually mean that it could wriggle out of a lot of things...it would wriggle away from them on its side, but no matter. The design did have a couple of faults in Series 3, the biggest being just the shear size of the thing, but by Series 7, the design had been pretty much perfected, it was compact so it could very quickly turn and attack, and the twin-blades were powerful, punishing enough to just about make "the circular saw" a fierce weapon still. The fact that it had four wheels instead of two meant that there was a slightly bigger margin for error in terms of reliability, not that reliability was ever an issue anyway.

Of course, Pussycat's design wasn't perfect, if it was, at the hands of one of the best drivers in Robot Wars and probably the best reliability record, it would've won the UK title, though it did win a lot. There were a few problems, and Jonathan Pearce got both the main ones reading the stats in Series 7. The first of them was the exposed wheels; Pussycat didn't suffer too much with this, until it met Tornado, and then it was knocke out of the All-Stars in the Quarters, lower than expectations, and it was defeated in quite humilating style, truly highlighting the big problem, a problem that was never rectified, and could of been costly in Series 7, with all of those spinners around. The other big problem was then highlighted in the next series of Extreme, the high ground clearance, Bulldog Breed made Pussycat look the fool in the Tag Team Terror, Chompalot was able to grab it with ease to dump it in the pit in the Iron Maidens, and M2 proved too much and sent it out in just the second round, low for a seed, very low for Pussycat. Pussycat was truly built for the earlier series, but was only much good by Robot Wars' end against select competition, and I regret to say I doubt it could've gone much further in Series 7, even with a different line-up, but then, it proved it was still a good performer, winning the All-Stars and coming second in the Iron Maidens, proving it was still an alright robot with a good design.

2. Behemoth Behemoth, not exactly a big favourite among many Robot Wars fans, which is a surprise to me, mind you, I'd probably be a bit biased, it appeared in my first episode of Robot Wars, and I was routing for it. Behemoth was always seen as a big favourite to either win its heat or at least be second best, and I feel this is partly down to its design as well as its pedigree. In fairness, Behemoth's pedigree wasn't exactly that of Chaos 2 or Razer, one Semi-Final always came up as the highlight that people remember, so really its presence in the arena must have done a lot to make people fear the robot. What makes the design good for me was that it was nothing special, but slightly developed year after year, until in Series 7 it was a very tidy robot that was only let down by reliability and bad luck. "Tidy" is probably the right word to describe its design, there was a lot going on, but it was all neatly packaged in/on a big box-shaped robot. Behemoth Evo V encompassed all necessary design features for a good robot; offensive weaponry for flipping, offensive weaponry for causing damage, and a srimech and roll bars for self-righting, but the final appearance had been a long line of evolution, always improving after a particular loss. In Series 2, it was a good design, being a simple robot with a lifter at the front, it was beaen by Killertron for being too small and weak, how was it improved for Series 3? It was made huge with a bigger and more powerful bucket scoop, but it was beaten by the arena spike by being flipped, how was it improved? It was fitted with side srimechs, but was beaten by X-Terminator by the judges because it wasn't causing proper damage, how was it improved? It was fitted with an axe at the front, that fitted neatly above the bucket and it was low enough so that the roll-bars still worked, the axe and scoop working well in Series 5 and Extreme, but Behemoth still suffered in Extreme and Series 5 for being quite cumbersome, how was it improved? It was given six-wheel drive that made it a respectable 12mph, aside from its unfortunate loss to Bigger Brother, it lost in Extreme due to faulty wiring, but was it improved for Series 7? Yes, with a new link and reinforced fittings. Now that's what I call "Evolution by Design".

I originally put Behemoth at number 1 in the list, as its clearly a strong contender for this one, I mean just look at how much I've typed for it! But, there was one small problem in the design in my opinion, its nothing that was ever really picked up on much, but I feel it would've made a difference someday, it certainly would've won it a few more Roaming Robots battles and it also would've won it a few more Arena tournament matches on this Wiki. Although Behemoth was fitted with side-srimechs in Series 4, they never once worked smoothly, always making the robot judder quite a bit, before being able to self-right, that's if it even managed to self-right in the end. The problem was the way they were fitted, they were fixed on a pivot forcing them upwards, so they would only ever self-right the robot if it was perfectly still and not being touched by anything else. However, if they were fitted with the pivot at the bottom, like that on the Series 6 X-Terminator, then it would've been able to self-right much easier and much quicker. Would that have won it any more battles, well, probably not, knowing its luck.

So...the winner is...

1. Stinger Well, it's looking quite good so far in terms of awards for Stinger at the moment, will it keep this up?...well you're going to have to read the other lists to find out. After reconsidering, it was obvious that Stinger could be the only winner of the Best Design, throughout Series 4, it was regarded as invincible, despite the potential things that could've possibly gone wrong with Stinger, such as driver error or reliability issues, so its invincibility had to come from its design. There was nothing to grab, so unless you were Sir Killalot you wouldn't be able to trap it to even get a good try and grabbing it. There was nothing to get in the way of the maneouvrability factor, so it would effortlessly spin around at top whack, pummelling any foolhardy robot approaching. There was no weapon motor to disable, so the axe would keep swinging for the full length of the battle, and there would be no damage points for the opponent for disabling it. There wasn't a body to use to flip it, a flipping robot would be forced to merely flip one of the wheels, which would only make it flail away and come back again, only the very elite flippers of the time were able to get anything like a controlled flip on it. If you ask me, Chaos 2 was extremely lucky in the Grand Final. There was no vulnerable area to Stinger's design at all, as there was little to the robot and the axe could swing any which way. There were no conventional tyres to shred, this is why so many big spinners like S3, Fluffy and 13 Black weren't able to cause proper damage, because the stitching was so tight it would take a much smaller weapon to be able to nag away at it. In short, the fact that there was little to Stinger at all, it meant that there was little to nothing to even go wrong, hence, strong design.

Yet even Stinger had drawbacks to its design, as no design can be truly perfect, well, Behemoth's probably could've been. As with most of the designs on this list, Stinger had two problems with its design, the first being the fact that when the axe was facing the other way, the space between the wheels was ideal for a ramming blade like that of The Steel Avenger, conveniently which the latter took advantage of in Stinger's final appearance, shoving it down the pit almost effortlessly. The other problem again was the tyres, whilst big spinners couldn't break through, Pussycat still had no problem at all with its little saw blade, which could finely nag away at the individual stitches. But despite these things, Stinger still ranks number 1 for a very good reason, it was vulnerable to weaponry that after a little while became obsolete, there wasn't another ramming blade like The Steel Avenger or a saw like that on Pussycat, so after getting through Series 1-3, Stinger could only really be defeated (in terms of design) by these two, and that must make it a better design over the other designs in this list that were vulnerable to flippers and spinners which were hardly niche or select. Stinger may have very quickly lost its touch after Series 4, but I'd put that down to other things, reliability never seemed perfect on Stinger, going near the arena wall didn't help against Thermidor 2, and it did always seem like it wasn't under much control, I definitely won't say Kevin Scott was a bad driver, but I bet someone like a heavy gamer with twitchy fingers and having a lot of practice could control Stinger and look good. So again, when it comes down to design, was there any robot more tidy than the messiest robot in the field?

Best Engineered
"Our third award is for the Best Engineered robot..."

The earlier series saw several quite flamboyent designs, but these were the robots that often didn't move, or moved a foot before conking out. We subsequently got quite excited as we would finally see a well drawn-out fight between two robots that would keep bashing the hell out of each other, even if the designs were fairly restrained, so it was these, the Best Engineered robots, that often provided the greatest spectacle. This award celebrates those that could often perform the greatest stunts, but mainly those that just wouldn't die, and kept coming back for more! Only 10 shortlisted here, among the near misses are Roadblock, Panic Attack and 101.

10. The Mule It's only right that a winner of the award makes the list, and a deserved placing it is too. Whilst the bucking legs was a good design idea, they actually proved very effective, and the power behind the drive of the locomotion was very good too, powerful enough to stop two house robots from pushing it anywhere, at the same time too. The forklift was able to lift quite a bit too, not that it really came into play. There isn't really much to say about this one, as The Mule pretty much makes the list for basically "doing a good job" of everything it needed to do, and this rubbed off in it reaching the Heat Final. The ground clearance let it down a bit I suppose, but then it was against Plunderbird 2, and it's not technically an engineering fault is it?

9. Wheely Big Cheese The next placing goes to another robot from Team Big Cheese. It might be a bit bias of me to put Wheely Big Cheese in the list, especially as it broke down enough times to be deemed "unreliable". However, to argue its case, I'll say that it never actually broke down in Series 4, the first model was a very reliable robot. Also, the axles buckling caused a lot of problems for it, and that's really a design issue. The main reason of course that Wheely Big Cheese is in this list, is that flipper, which had such power behind it, particularly in its Series 5 heat, where it flipped out 2 robots at great height, and created flips so powerful that its third opponent konked out. The Series 4 model didn't have quite the propulsion of the Series 5 model, but it still provided great enough flips against Killertron and Tornado in particular to show the engineering behind the flipper was leaps and bounds above the norm from flippers in that series. So yes, this placing goes to a robot, purely for its very powerful weapon system, but lets face it, with the line-up of nominations for this award in Series 5, I bet most of you had that thought in the back of your heads saying "Where's Wheely Big Cheese?"

8. Gravity To be honest, I'm giving the 8th spot to Gravity for the same reason, I thought it would be a bit more acceptable to put it above Wheely Big Cheese. Gravity was also all-flipper, I could ramble on about the higher levels of agility than the cheese etc. but the rams were very carefully mapped out to ensure that when fitted they would deliver the quickest and most effective response, and that is exactly what it did. I'm undecided as to whether or not Gravity's flipper was more powerful than Wheely Big Cheese's, but it was certainly quicker to respond to the receiver crystal and its flips were more consistent in terms of how far the robots flew. Admittedly, the robot suffered from punctured tyres and Mr. Psycho's hammer, but it proved it was the king of the flippers in the series that was already dominated by flippers. If the Robot Wars awards were held in Series 7, I'm certain that Gravity would've been a hot contender for this award.

7. The Big Cheese Barely into the list, and I've already covered all of the robots from Team Big Cheese, but I would argue that Roger Plant was good at putting his robots together. This placing really goes to The Big Cheese because of how well engineered it was compared to other robots in Series 3. The lifting arm had power, but The Big Cheese showed it was well put together first by hoisting another robot right on the end of its little arm, carrying it across the arena and then pitting it, and then by not only surviving a brutal encounter from 4 house robots (which most didn't), but then still having enough strength to get right underneath Sergeant Bash and lift it up in the air and then over, pretty much destroying it. Let's be honest, Sergeant Bash was hardly the lightest of the house robots, and let's not forget that this was Series 3, a series where most of the Round 1 drop-outs barely moved, and a fair few Semi-Final battles were still one-sided. The Big Cheese proved it was well put together and I will always wonder how far it could've gone if it was in another heat, I suppose our Series 3 Audited was a good indicator. The Big Cheese was rightfully nominated for this award in Series 3, but I guess rightfully beaten by Chaos 2.

6. Robot The Bruce Robot The Bruce has been listed for much the same reason. It was very well built, the armour was strong and absorbed all knocks, the motors did their job brilliantly, showing that you really can push around a few dozen kilos with ease without watching your speed drop. George Francis admired the robot for making a very good seat, so we know that it could support an adult with ease, and that it required very little work in between fights. This is a robot from the very first series, a series where half the robots were just RC cars with a small aluminium shell on it, and the other half kept breaking down and needed a lot of work being done to them after every fight. The more and more I think about it, the more and more I feel it was wrong that Robot The Bruce wasn't given this award for Series 1. A lot of components for Robot The Bruce were transferred into Chaos, and much of Chaos was put into Chaos 2, showing how well the setup could hold up.

5. Chaos 2 Which brings me onto Chaos 2. When you think of Chaos 2, the first thing that springs to mind isn't "Well-Engineered", but it really was. Chaos 2 was hardly changed from when it first stepped into the arena in Series 3, to when it got flipped right back out again in Series 6, ignore how it left Extreme 2. The "improvements" included a bigger base plate for the flipper, some new panels in the front and back, a tiny fiddle here and there, and that's about it, showing there was little to improve the already very sound and beautifully constructed machine. Like Chaos and Robot The Bruce before it, Chaos 2 rarely needed a lot of repairing and maintenance, and rarely broke down during a bout, this was clear by a lot of Francis' quite relaxed pre and post-battle interviews. Chaos 2 did suffer in battle a few times, but it survived a lot of flipping about itself, and still still survived Razer burying its claw right into the back. Little more to say really, but with the agility and flipper power as it was, you hardly need to argue its case.

4. The Steel Avenger It wouldn't be the Best Engineered Award without hearing from the one robot we never stopped hearing about in this category: The Steel Avenger. Mind you, there was a good reason for that: it was extremely well engineered. It did suffer quite a few KO's in its time, but that was mainly down to a small Co2 bottle, and a high ground clearance. The robot was well engineered as it was very quick across the arena floor, and fairly agile if you consider the wheel base, and that it had one of the best axes in the business, in fact, I'd argue THE best axe in the Seventh Wars. The solid construction and strong armour meant that it really was Tough as Old Boots, and always survived being flipped about by Behemoth and Chaos 2, and being bashed about by Storm 2, it was still working after that. The Steel Avenger defines the robot that just keeps coming back for more, everytime it's flipped, it dusts itself off and charges in again, only to get flipped again. You could carry on listing the good points for The Steel Avenger all day, but it was let down by one thing: those side srimechs. The srimechs sometimes didn't even have the strength to flip itself back onto its wheels, which not only cost it a couple of times back then, but even today as it fights on, it leaves itself side-stranded. "Who did that?" says the underside. Well, in a way, you did.

3. Wild Thing We're nearing the end, and the bronze goes to a robot that went through 24 battles, 50% of which ended in judges' decisions, is that a record? Maybe. Wild Thing showed it was resiliant by this statistic alone, also that it's number 2 for robots that had the most wins without OFFICIALLY suffering a defeat via break down, this honour merely emphasising the fact that Wild Thing was a very reliable, and therefore, very well engineered machine. The amount of times it was flipped about but kept coming back for more, during its Series 5 campaign especially, and let's not forget its encounter with the deadly 259. It did break down against Razer in Series 6, but given where the claw went, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for that one. Wild Thing was also pretty solid when it came to maneouvrability, you only have to watch Series 4 to get the idea that whilst the arm didn't KO anyone, no other design of robot was going to get round the back. However, Wild Thing's ability to hang on was let down by the effectiveness of its arsenal, the disc didn't really have much wack behind it, and the arm's slow delivery made the self-righting process make them a little vulnerable. Nevertheless, a well deserved podium finish for Wild Thing.

2. Diotoir This list seemed to be lacking a lot of controversy, so I've balanced that out now by giving the Silver medal to the one and only Diotoir, a robot with car springs for a weapon that couldn't self-right it, and a top speed of 6mph. Well, if you ask me, the build quality of Diotoir progressed and progressed so much that it actually became a very battle-hardened machine. Underneath the fur, the armour was so strong that not robot properly got to tear it open, only the odd slice or small hole from the house robots. The robot wasn't fast, but it made for it with plentiful maneouvrability and a lot of pushing power, enough to cause an upset and ultimately win a pushing battle against the dreaded Tornado. But the main reason I put Diotoir in 2nd place is that it was very, very reliable. Think of how many times Diotoir caught fire, pretty much every battle it was in, but it never once electronically overcooked from the heat or the flames, which is certainly respectable. Diotoir also managed to survive a lot of being bashed about in its time, especially from Tornado and Gemini from memory, and even after it had been flipped in a lot of its battles, it would still carry on moving when it was eventually righted after the house robots had tried mullering it. Say what you want about this one, Diotoir showed a greatly high level of engineering, high enough to almost cause an ultimate upset.

So...the winner is...

1. Pussycat If you ask me, there could be only one winner, before drawing up nominations for this list, I knew who the winner was going to be, and it has to be the robot that always lands on its feet, the robot that beats Wild Thing as being the robot that has the most wins without suffering defeat via a break down. Pussycat is easily the most reliable robot in Robot Wars history, it just never died, not once, even though it has been faced with robots like Tornado, Chaos 2, Razer, Stinger, Hypno-Disc, Dantomkia, all robots that would eat every other bot alive. Even after Robot Wars, Pussycat didn't even suffer a break down in other FRA events, despite the sudden rapid improvements in robots. Maybe it really did enter each battle with 9 lives. Aside from the "Never Say Die" attitude of the innards, the body was strong, very strong, only Razer could break through. The crafting of the body was incredible as well, it takes good craftmanship to create a chassis and body like that, that will always land on its wheels. The saw packed a mean punch too, causing a slice in many a robot, George Francis even said that he had never had to repair as much damage as what Pussycat had caused to Chaos 2, though that was before Extreme 2 he said that. Even in Series 7, when circular saws seemed so obsolete and old-fashioned, Pussycat was still able to cause enough carnage to ensure it did alright in the war, and the All-Stars. Today, Pussycat is retired, resting in John Findlay's garage, knowing that it needn't even prove that it is the Best Engineered Robot that the sport ever saw, and ever will see.

Sportsmanship
"...an award for those teams who go that little bit extra to make Robot Wars the fun and the huge spectacle it's become..."

As I said, this list of awards were to celebrate the great moments of Robot Wars. However, I feel it would be unfair to compile a proper list for the Sportsmanship award, as I'd have at least a few dozens nominees anyway, and a lot of things happened off-screen. We heard several times about the exploits of the Diotoir, Sir Chromalot and Plunderbird teams in particular, both comical for the camera and helpful behind the scenes, but there were other teams that fulfilled these roles too. Those such as the Mega Morg and Shredder teams also played a good part in livening up the pre and post match interviews, several defeated foes of Hypno-Disc sportingly gave the "Spin-to-Win" boys trophies for their victories, and the pits were littered with generally good characters, such as Kim Davies of Panic Attack, Alan Gribble of Pussycat, George Francis of Chaos 2, and many many more, who would not only help out other teams but maintain a very friendly and calm atmosphere to an otherwise quite stressful scene. In particular, one quite understated team, the Ultor team, very kindly granting their place in the Semi-Finals to their defeated Big Brother opponents, this act was barely recognised, but is Sportsmanship knowing no bounds.

In short, there's no point conducting a list, I'd be constantly changing it, and I'd be argued by users for a long time to come, so instead, just Well Done to a lot of teams.

Most Promising Newcomer
"...the Best Newcomer Award, for those Robot Wars fans who watch previously, learn and then enter themselves..."

A lot of new teams entered year on year into the sport, and while most would merely show just how impressive the veterans were, there were a select few that would show great promise, even if they did fall quite early on, but then again, they may have gone far, very far in fact. It would be these robots that would then be hot contenders for the following series, improving on their perhaps quite obvious weaknesses, returning again and maybe winning a grudge match or two. I'll be honest, I never really liked seeing a complete newcomer come in and take out a lot of veterans, but you still have to admire their performances nonetheless. A shortlist of 10 for this one, among the Near Misses are Big Nipper, Crushtacean, Atilla the Drum and Tiberius.

10. Hellbent The Seventh Wars probably saw the greatest leap in standard for newcomers, but to be honest, most still went out in the first round, in quite embarrassing style to boot. However, Heat G saw one battle where the only veteran had fought once before with another robot (which lost in Round 1), so it was a chance for the newcomers to really show what they could do. One robot did just that: Hellbent. Hellbent was easily the most dominant robot in the field, showing its axe was very punishing towards a fair amount of armour, and the lifter was at leat capable of lifting. Jonathan Pearce sent a lot of praise down its way during the fight, and rightly so. As every other robot in the field was either limping or immobilised, Hellbent still looked fresh to fight again, showing great promise. Unfortunately, within 30 seconds Atomic flipped it clean out of the arena in Round 2. Nevertheless, Hellbent was a very promising newcomer, showing that it probably could've gone further, given any other line-up.

9. Typhoon 2 The Extreme 1 Middleweight Melee was fairly disappointing, as one robot just swept the table: the very destructive Typhoon. In fairness, it was very impressive, and it was intriguing to say the least that Gary Cairns said they planned to build a heavyweight. If the middleweight was anything to go by, we would be in for one hell of a treat. The long wait was finally over as we saw it in the Extreme 2 Annihilator, and we expected much, if the confidence of Gary Cairns was anything to go by. Mind you, it did start well, causing a couple of gashes in Major Tom, and we only found out after the battle that it managed to completely bend Kan Opener's chassis out of shape, almost rendering it out. However, Typhoon 2 rather disappointingly got flipped limply over by Raging Reality, not long into the battle. Despite this rather pathetic exit, and quite vulnerable weakness, Typhoon 2 still held a lot of promise for the next series, as long as it wasn't flipped, and as we saw it was very lucky for more reasons than one in this respect.

8. Robochicken By Series 4, Razer already seen as one of the best robots, if not THE best robot in the wars, and s it stepped into the arena to begin Series 4, it looked like it was going to completely annihilate its two opponents, Velocirippa and Robochicken, in quick and stylish fashion, after all, they (Robochicken in particular) just looked like joke robots that were only lookers that would burn out straight away. However, Razer spent much of the battle breaking into Robochicken, from the wheels, by the flipper, behind the axe, lifting it up into the air, and after all of it Robochicken ran just as smoothly as it did at the start, whereas Velocirippa fell before Razer and died after one grab, showing the durability of Robochicken. This heat was also when we first started seeing the damage potential of Pussycat, as it effortlessly tore into all of its foe, but even after spending the whole battle being sliced to pieces, Robochicken kept running, even if it was limping. This is where we saw that under the skin Robochicken had the durability to survive the best of the best, all it needed now was a bit more experience, and maybe some more effective weaponry, and then it could really be a serious contender.

7. Razer I originally had Panic Attack at this spot, but since Panic Attack won its first series, there wasn't really much point in even putting it in the list, as it would be showing promise to...do what it's already done. So instead, another robot that debuted in Series 2, Razer. Series 1 had generic designs, but Series 2 didn't exactly bring a huge leap in robot design, apart from the odd few, i.e. Razer, quite a scary looking thing with that huge claw with sharp grooves and holes and eyes. At first, nobody really batted an eyelid, because so few robots from Series 2 could really do anything spectacular. But then we saw Razer take on Shunt and shove it several feet into the wall, yet the best was yet to come. After an easy trial run, Razer made it to the Arena, and really showed off its destructive capabilities against the mediocre competition in Inquisitor. If the bookies were anything to go by, Razer was at that stage set to win the heat, but it was then let down by reliability, a common problem, that potentially could've been improved by the next war. Razer showed a lot of promise, going into Series 3 as a hot favourite, so really was a Promising Newcomer, but I rank it low on the list as it first entered Series 2, so most of the robots competing were new anyway, and the veterans had hardly got up to steam yet.

6. Corkscrew The Fifth Wars was a bad series for newcomers, none of them reached the Semi-Finals, very few even passed the first round and even fewer made it to the heat final. This meant that those select few that did make it must have really been something above the rest. One newcomer that really showed promise was Corkscrew, as it was able to cause enough damage to get through a judges' decision against the rather deadly-looking two-spinner-wielding 13 Black. Corkscrew then caused quite an upset by taking out the 14th seeds X-Terminator, a very impressive robot that was very highly thought of that reached the Semi-Finals in the previous series, it may not have been sporting its scoop, but ah well, it still counts. Corkscrew had done really well by reaching the heat final, but then came up against stiff opposition in Dominator 2, and came unstuck and immobilised. However, the robot did show promise for future wars, and more experience may make the 20mph speed more managable, uprated fittings from more professional techniques could make it spin even faster, and reliability may also improve as well. Crushtacean could probably be here in its place on the list, but while Crushtacean looked like they had pretty much perfected the design, Corkscrew in Series 5 was just the start of a long run of improvement.

5. Hydra Probably a bit controversial to put a Round 1-drop out at number 5, but I think it's right. Hydra came into Series 5 faced straight away with the 13th seeds Spawn Again, a robot that reached the Semi-Finals in Series 4, and had been extensively improved since. As soon as the battle started, Hydra looked gone, Spawn Again flipped it over in an instant, but just as quickly, Hydra self-righted, and came back for more. This repeated itself, quite a few times, even Jonathan Pearce seemed fairly impressed, and the battle lasted longer than quite a few first round battles from the Fifth Wars. Sadly though, it was eventually one flip too many, and Hydra was flipped once more, self-righted, and then stopped. Hydra was out in Round 1, but showed promise for future wars, the skill in the driving was quite clear, the weaponry had power, and the robot already looked quite tough, as it stood up to the house robots afterwards. Hydra was a very promising newcomer, and it didn't disappoint in Series 6.

4. Fluffy If you're anything like me, then you probably didn't even remember that Fluffy was in Extreme 1 until you saw the episode again on Youtube or Dave, so I'm omitting this from the summary to help justify its placing. Fluffy entered Series 5, being shown against 101, a robot that had huge pedigree behind it, expecting to have another series of good performing, yet Philippa Forrester did mark to the camera that Fluffy was a dark horse, and I doubt many people really took notice. But then it entered the arena, with its fierce looking hammer/spinner, then we saw it tear off 101's track, then we saw it ease through to Round 2, then we saw it cause another upset by ripping veterans Terrorhurtz to bits, but surely that was the end of the road, as it was going in with the number 2 seeds Pussycat next. Who backed Fluffy against Pussycat? Certainly not me, yet Fluffy almost immediately looked set to go through as it ripped Pussycat's saw and castor wheel off in one hit, this was a robot that dominated last series, and performed fantastically well in Extreme, and it was about to be beaten by a robot that very few had even heard of. But then....well, something happened, and Fluffy stopped. A huge let down (from a neutral point of view), as reliability issues of that calibur weren't common by then, especially when on the verge of victory. The sad thing is, this reliability problem never really got rectified, and Fluffy's track record suffered a lot more than it needed to because of it, but at the time, we still saw the potential in Fluffy, the potential to go on and prosper from then on.

3. Dantomkia Given how many events Mike Lambert entered before Series 6 of Robot Wars, including the Series 4 qualifiers, Dantomkia wasn't really a newcomer by the time it finally entered the Robot Wars arena, but it was a newcomer nonetheless, not that it performed like one. The weakness was said to be "Driver's nerves", but it hardly showed as they ran into just about every robot at full whack and just about took out all of them in a blink of an eye. The design had clearly been well sought out, probably unfair of me to leave it out of the Best Design Award, but it was clear that we weren't looking at any old newcomer, but where was our first clue?...when it rounded up every opponent in Round 1 (including previous Heat Finalist Crushtacean)?...when it flipped Mighty Mouse out in a very short amount of time?...or when it flipped number 5 seeds and twice UK champion Chaos 2 of the arena? Dantomkia performed extremely well in Series 6, despite falling foul to S3, it got through the Losers' Melee, and only reigning champions Razer stopped it reaching the Grand Final. Dantomkia deservedly won the Most Promising Newcomer award for Series 6, but the reason I've only ranked it at number 3, is that it was difficult to see how much more could be done to Dantomkia to improve it, clearly the team were in the same boat, as the main improvement in Series 7 was upgraded armour.

2. Tornado Tornado looked nothing special in Series 4, quite literally just a box on wheels, and yet, even at the start of the heat, we didn't completely believe it was going to be a poor performer, it mopped up Kater Killer pretty much on its own, but after Kater Killer's Series 3 run, Tornado was going to have to do more against previous Heat Finalist Berserk 2 to show it was above average, and it did just that, well, more than that, it completely obliterated it, this a seeded robot that gave Hypno-Disc a real scare just last series. Yet the best was yet to come, as Tornado proceeded to the Heat Final and effortlessly took care of the seeded and much fancied Gemini, just by pummelling it into the wall like it was on a regular cycle. Despite this though, it still took Tornado to defeat the favoured Wheely Big Cheese in the Semi-Finals before people really started to twig that they were faced with a good robot here. Only the UK Champion Chaos 2 could stop Tornado, and it took a few attempts just to put a battle together. Naturally, Tornado showed signs of potential improvement, such as lower ground clearance and more potent weaponry, both of which were improved for the next series, not that they saw Diotoir coming...

So...the winner is...

1. Hypno-Disc Series 3 was a huge leap from Series 2 in terms of robot design and robot capabilities, but we were still lacking any robot that really caused a real shake, except from maybe Chaos 2...until Heat H, which saw much of the same with simple wedges in Ally Gator, the odd lifting robot in Stealth and Robogeddon, and another robot called Hypno-Disc, a low robot with a very unusual spinning thing at the front. As soon as Hypno-Disc started, it got its disc up to speed, making one hell of a racket and causing quite a blur with the spiral effect, which at least caught the attention of Jonathan Pearce. Then it pounced, hitting Robogeddon lightly, once, already crumpling the whole front of the robot, a few more fierce hits later, and Robogeddon was already in pieces with Co2 gushing out, the tyres and wheels buckled and the armour completely ripped away, looking like something off Robot Wars Extreme Destruction that had been bombed in Mad Bomber. This one battle set the scene, and Hypno-Disc finished off Stealth in similar fashion. Hypno-Disc's remaining opponents for the series never really suffered the same treatment, with the odd slice and tear (and immobilisation) for Evil Weevil and Steg-O-Saw-Us, yet Hypno-Disc was just as feared by the end of the series as if they had, showing that we all had faith that Hypno-Disc could deliver, even though they were still new to the sport. Hypno-Disc was finally defeated by Chaos 2 after being flipped over in the Grand Final, but when Hypno-Disc returned for the Fourth Wars with a srimech, a lot of smart money went on Hypno-Disc winning. Tornado and Dantomkia probably argue equally as good cases for being number 1 in this list, but if you ask me, Hypno-Disc caused a much greater stir as a newcomer than these two put together, and as it returned for Series 4 more powerful than last time, with a way to stop Chaos 2 defeating it again, Hypno-Disc showed more promise to win Series 4 than Tornado for Series 5 and Dantomkia for Series 7. After everything, Hypno-Disc showed more promise than any other, enough said.

Most Improved Robot
"...and finally..."

When I was watching Robot Wars for the first time, and even now when I watch the new events on Youtube and live, I would always back the veterans, or just the ones I've known for the longest time. Which is why I was always pleased to see a robot that had pathetically exited Series 3 or 4, reach the Semis or Grand Final of a later series. These were the truly noble bots that deserved to be where they were by Robot Wars' end, and more, after years of being underrated they would come back time and time again, finally rising to be what they wanted to be, a feared contender. My last award goes to the Most Improved Robots throughout Robot Wars' history, again there are just 10 in the shortlist, among the Near Misses are Terrorhurtz, Scorpion and Aggrobot.

10. Sir Chromalot Considering the fact that it never actually progressed further in the competition than it did in its first appearance, this might be a bit controversial. However, I will still maintain that Sir Chromalot is worthy of a placing. This is mostly due to just how poor it was in Series 3, as it only progressed to Round 2 in quite controversial fashion after pitting itself, and then being effortlessly tipped over by Big Brother. I assume mostly down to the amount Steve Merill raised the bar for his own robot, Sir Chromalot was never taken seriously, as it never really looked impressive at all throughout the bulk of its career, it won battles in Series 4 through Reactor's work and Disc-O-Inferno's breakdown, it beat Rohog and Plunderbird without really doing anything, and was hopelessly defeated in every other battle it was in. In Series 6, it came back again, looking even smaller and weaker than before, looking set to flop in Round 1 against impressive opposition in The Alien and previous Semi-Finalists G.B.H. 2, but it looked really impressive, it flipped The Alien over very quickly, and after being flipped itself, Sir Chromalot self-righted, a first for it. Suddenly, we all started to believe that the ultimate mino of the All-Stars was actually becoming competent. Before we knew it, Sir Chromalot flipped G.B.H. 2 over and then flipped ICU right over, sending it out, and then we all really believed Sir Chromalot would do the business. Unfortunately, from then on, it was on the defensive, and just about hung on to a judges' decision in the end. Perhaps it should've gone out, but I feel that would've been difficult for a lot of fans to admit, as this new and improved Sir Chromalot was finally competent, but maybe deserved to fall in Round 1, I was certainly one of them. No matter, Sir Chromalot was in Round 2, and we expected it to lose to S3, but it did stand up longer than expected. In short, as Jonathan Pearce said, "their best Robot Wars ever".

9. Ming Another one difficult to argue, given Ming Dienasty fell in Round 1 in Series 7. A biased view to many, and admittedly, it probably is, but I am convinced that Ming improved a heck of a lot from its Series 3 appearance. In Series 3, it barely moved, got flipped over and its weapon fell off, hardly congratulatory. To be honest, the biggest leap of improvement was from Series 3 to 4, as Ming 2 immediately looked much better than last year before fighting, and didn't disappoint by immediately flipping over Diotoir and then dominating its fight against The Morgue, and also winning an international battle against The Mangulator. The reliability issues which cost Ming 2 its two losses looked pretty much rectified when it came to Ming 3, it’s just the wheels that kept making it fall to pieces. But under the vulnerable guise Ming 3 did superb, winning the Nickelodeon Tag Team with Rick, giving Terrorhurtz a good scare, and then looking very impressive in Series 6. Certainly by the Sixth Wars, Ming was no longer seen as a poor performer, and was expected to walk its opening battle, which it did. Craig Charles made a point of saying to the Supernova team that they'd knocked out a very impressive robot in Ming 3. The exposed wheels problem was fixed with Ming Dienasty for Series 7, and Ming was clearly seen as a good robot, given that it was seeded over robots like Disc-O-Inferno and King B in particular. Say what you want, but I still think Ming Dienasty should've gone through in Series 7, and could've easily done so given any other line-up that didn't have all lifters and flippers that ganged up on it. Also, I doubt Ming 3 would've done much better in Heat H, with its slow srimech and shape making it quite cumbersome in turning.

8. Thermidor 2 This is another awkward one to argue, whilst it did reach the Semi-Finals in its last appearance, it had already reached this 3 series prior. Thermador entered Series 3 as just another newcomer that looked fairly interesting, so in a way, not that interesting. It got lucky as Plunderstorm never got going, and then got effortlessly outclassed by the heavy Scutter's Revenge in Round 2. Thermidor 2 was back for Series 4, looking better than last time but still in the shadow of the seeded Gravedigger. But from there, Thermidor 2 controlled the heat, with everything else in the heat looking mediocre and ponderous. It predictably met its end against Pussycat in the Semi-Finals, but not without a fight. In hindsight after the Fourth Wars, due to the robots it was against, maybe Thermidor 2 wasn't quite as fantastic as it appeared in its heat, even at the start of Extreme, we didn't expect Thermidor 2 to defeat Stinger or Behemoth, let alone flip them both out of the arena in the same fight. From that very battle, because of that very battle, we expected everything of Thermidor, as if it would do that every time it entered the arena. But the robot needed heavy refining that hadn't been done, that cost it fights that we believed it should've won, that made it fall in Round 1 of Series 5, Series 6, and the Annihilator. By Extreme 2, after doing so badly in recent years, we’d forgotten how good it was and thought nothing of it in the Annihilator, but after the first couple of round, we remembered, and once again backed it to win. Thermidor came second to Kan-Opener, still good, but going into Series 7, we once again had faith in Thermidor, and it was granted a seeding, and ended its career reaching the Semi-Finals once again, just gloss over the fact that it didn’t exactly have taxing opposition and it died after one hit from Typhoon 2.

7. S.M.I.D.S.Y. Finally a listing that doesn't need a lot of justifying. S.M.I.D.S.Y. first appeared in the final heat of Series 3, against fellow newcomers Rattus Rattus. In short, it performed badly, it barely moved and got shoved around a bit before breaking down and being pitted. By the time S.M.I.D.S.Y. returned to the screen in the penultimate Series 4 heat, I'm sure many fans might've even forgotten about S.M.I.D.S.Y. altogether. Given its first round draw, it was going to be it or Overkill joining Panic Attack in Round 2, it happened to be S.M.I.D.S.Y. given the damage caused to Overkill. But then, as it sneaked through to the heat final after the seeded and much fancied Aggrobot 2 broke down, it finally looked alright, certainly for me it was interesting to say the least to see S.M.I.D.S.Y. this far into the episode. It inevitably lost to Panic Attack in Round 3, but entered Series 5 surprisingly seeded (it was the lowest seeding, but no matter). S.M.I.D.S.Y. predictably defeated its first two opponents and then predictably lost to Chaos 2 in the heat final, albeit with a rematch. But as it entered Series 6, this time unseeded, it did twig with some that this was a robot that had reached the heat final in the last two series, and went on to dominate its first round fight, but we seemed to forget that it was so poor in Series 3. Due to its good success, S.M.I.D.S.Y.'s continual progress was shown as it was granted the more than respectable 13th seed placing, and managed to reach yet another heat final, hanging on for a fair while against the mighty Atomic. The results didn't show much improvement, but the battles did. However, even in the later series, despite the growing pedigree, if you thought S.M.I.D.S.Y. was going to lose a fight, chances are, it did.

6. Robochicken I will always maintain that Robochicken was always a fairly serious and good robot, even when it started out. I’ve already explained above how it did so well in Series 4, surviving Razer etc. but fundamentally its survival was all it had in its favour, the weaponry didn’t have much power behind it and the drive was slow, how fitting that the chicken wasn’t aggressive enough. But Robochicken returned for Series 5 looking much sturdier and much more powerful, and it was, but it still wasn’t quite good enough to win a head-to-head against a good competitor, but it was close, a close judges’ decision against a good newcomer Crushtacean. Series 6 came around but the chicken looked no more potent, but it certainly held on well against the mighty X-Terminator, and the improvements were immediately obvious, but it still lacked the srimech, the only thing that cost it. Robochicken didn’t really do anything in Extreme 2, but winning a trophy alongside Bulldog Breed at least pointed out to people that it was a half decent robot these days. In Series 7, we saw that the srimech problem still hadn’t been rectified yet, but it did appear a lot more deadly than before, maybe it was the massive neck for the head that did it. It hardly had easy opposition in Round 1, but got lucky as the two main competitors faced each other. As Disc-O-Inferno was pitted, Robochicken showed its strength by flipping over and taking out B.O.D. before bravely attacking the scary-looking Tough As Nails. Robochicken did show promise even as it was dragged towards the pit, showing it at least had more traction and pushing ability than Disc-O-Inferno, and rightfully went into Round 2. Mega Morg hardly looked the scariest opposition ever, but would be a good chance for Robochicken to show everyone how much it had improved since Series 4, going against another robot that debuted in Series 4. Robochicken won fairly convincingly, but went into the final as underdogs against Tough As Nails again. But amazingly, knowing what it was up against, Robochicken went on full attack straight away, and had Tough As Nails looking almost frightened. The trouble was, Robochicken had a gas leak going into the arena, so only had a few good flips anyway before it would run out. Had it not have suffered the gas leak, I’m very confident Robochicken would’ve won, as it had Tough As Nails in an OotA position quite a few times, and at least would’ve had more flips to offer the judges. Basically, a robot that couldn’t really attack in Series 4, put on a performance worthy of a Semi-Finalist by Series 7, Robochicken a long run of improvement.

5. Iron-Awe A robot often dubbed the unluckiest robot in the history of Robot Wars, I disagree, but nevertheless Iron-Awe’s continual improvement was so evident it would be wrong to omit it from the list. Iron-Awe first appeared in Series 4, and I feel, should’ve fallen in Round 1, whilst Mazakari still had its wheels spinning and Mortis was busy hauling it around, Iron-Awe looked like it had been immobilised for a long time beforehand. No matter, as it would surely go out at the hands of Steg 2, and it did, but it did put up a good fight, even becoming the first robot to self-right with an axe. Mind you, this was balanced out by its performance in the Celebrity Special, where it became immobilised early on against Pussycat. When the Iron-Awe name returned in Series 6, mistakes had been learned from Axe-Awe’s demise(s) and Iron-Awe 2 looked quite menacing, and could’ve given Chaos 2 a bit of a hard time, more so than the other two. It did indeed cause damage to Destructosaur, creating a huge hole, but was then swiftly flipped out by the seeds, all because it got too close to the edge. We saw more of it in Extreme 2, seeing how resilient it was as it stood up well to three very destructive robots, and how powerful it was in taking out Barber-Ous. Sadly though, it got flipped out in the following round against Dantomkia. In Series 7, Gilbert Grimm seemed eager to emphasise how powerful the axe and flipper were, showing just how much more powerful than before they were. Given the line-up, Iron-Awe unsurprisingly made it through to Round 2, dominating the battle, but looked set to go out there as Bigger Brother were next, the most hyperactive flipper-bot in the competition. But shock, as Iron-Awe flipped out Bigger Brother instead, finally showing that it itself wasn’t going to continue to be pushed around by the flippers. This victory made Iron-Awe dark horses to win the heat and defeat Typhoon 2, but it wasn’t meant to be, and Iron-Awe still showed it needed to be stronger against THE very best of the spinners, but it rounded its series off well, reaching its first heat final, and defeating two very highly thought of robots, Hydra and Kat 3 in the Axe Attack. Iron-Awe ended Robot Wars looking leaps and bounds ahead of its first guise, and would use all of its experience to go on to be very prosperous in all future live events. I’d argue that Iron-Awe is now THE most feared robot still fighting on the live circuit, or at least it was a couple of years ago, so if this was more than Robot Wars, I’d give this number 1.

4. Diotoir There was no great change in top speed, acceleration, agility or armour, and they never got the hang of fitting a srimech that worked, nonetheless Diotoir improved over the years a lot more than most. It had pushing ability in Series 3, but not a great deal. It had power in the weapon, but not a great deal. It could take a few knocks, but took a while to recover from them and carry on moving. Diotoir was alright in Series 3, this was clear as it reached the heat final, came runners-up in the International League and reached the Semi-Finals of the World Championship, but we still thought of it as a bit of a joke in Series 4, whilst a handicapped Diotoir bombed in the main event, it did quite well in the side competitions, apart from the Sumo, yet we still believed Diotoir was nothing much. Series 5 came around and Diotoir had a new weapon that looked a little bit better, but after losing pretty quickly against Wheely Big Cheese we thought it would be business as usual again. Diotoir miraculously defeated King B and 101 alongside Mega Morg in the Tag-Team, but from there looked surprisingly impressive for the remainder of the tournament alongside Pussycat, as it showed its improved weapon strength against robots like Comengetorix and The Steel Avenger, hardly robot flops. Despite its Tag-Team success, its Series 5 heat looked too tough for it to go too far, and after easily dispatching Dome in Round 1, it looked to be next in line to be pummelled by Tornado, most people’s guesses I’m sure would’ve been seeing it slammed into the wall a few times before dying and being pitted. Anyone who says they genuinely thought Diotoir was going to win is a liar. Amazingly, Diotoir held on incredibly well, despite Tornado constantly thumping into it, Diotoir kept slowly charging towards it, you got the impression that if Tornado had a heart it would be puffing and panting. Eventually, Diotoir took advantage of its superior durability, pressing the pit release and shoving down the pit the best pusher there had ever been in Robot Wars history. All of a sudden, Diotoir was in the heat final and for the first time, people may well have backed Diotoir to beat Spawn Again if it could defeat Tornado. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and Diotoir was beaten by its lack of srimech again. Many were hoping that Diotoir would return for Series 6, as we would finally look at it as a dark horse to win the heat, but that didn’t happen, by the time we saw it in Extreme 2 all we could remember Diotoir for was its losses and it catching fire. However, Diotoir did show one last sign of improvement here, as it showed up with a srimech that would’ve worked, had it not been flipped right onto its shovel...

3. Bulldog Breed ...flipped onto its shovel, that is, by this one, Bulldog Breed, a robot that entered Series 3, going out in Round 1 as just another robot that barely moved off the mark. There is very little to speak of Bulldog Breed’s Series 3 display, so onto Series 4, where it returned supposedly very powerful and tough, according to Tony Somerfield anyway. Bulldog Breed 2 performed so much better, using its flipper well etc. but as Jonathan Pearce said after they got through Round 2, “they haven’t been great, but they’re through”. Indeed, Bulldog Breed 2 may have reached the heat final, but still didn’t appear anything special, it performed a few good flips, but ultimately made it through to Round 3 after Spikasaurus struggled to keep control of itself, and Bigger Brother suffered a gas leak meaning one flip would kill it off. Bulldog Breed 2 looked very little match for the punishing Stinger, and lost, but this success at least improved its name from last year. Bulldog Breed 3 returned, much faster, with a stronger flipper. However, these improvements were difficult to see, as it wasn’t really given a good challenge, its Mayhem opponents and Rounds 1 & 2 opponents hardly posed much of a threat given their level of aggression, and when finally faced with fierce opposition in Hypno-Disc, it was too much. Bulldog Breed did at least provide a scare with a good flip side-on, but in the end suffered at the hands of the disc. In Series 6, Bulldog Breed was back once again, and looked even quicker and more powerful than last time, taking care of slightly more impressive opponents, in even more impressive style. All three of them, even Kat 3, effortlessly flipped over. But in Round 2, it was once again faced with Hypno-Disc, and despite another good initial flip, it was knocked out again, but at least sustained less visual damage and didn’t lose the link. Extreme 2, and Bulldog Breed didn’t have to face Hypno-Disc, so it was a clean run to show just how much it had improved since Series 4, it did that and more, flipping the infamous Pussycat out of the arena in particular, and then effortlessly taking care of every other robot in the competition, with time even to fight house robot Growler and team-mate Robochicken. Series 7 saw the much improved Bulldog Breed seeded 12, and didn’t disappoint, given there were no spinners in the heat capable of spoiling its run. Bulldog Breed’s run to the Semi-Finals was controlled but almost easy. In its first Semi-Final, Bulldog Breed was faced with Tough As Nails, a robot that had rounded up many a competent foe in its heat, and it looked like the seed would fall, but Bulldog Breed did the seeds proud and used its impressive traction and flipping power to keep the jaws at bay to win a judges’ decision. The Grand Final was in grabbing distance, for a robot that was so disappointing in Series 3, but it was the end of the road as it faced yet another spinner...

2. X-Terminator ...a spinner that originally entered Series 3 with an axe, and at the time a fairly good axe. I nearly put X-Terminator at number 1, but given that it was already quite good in its early series, it wouldn’t be right. X-Terminator looked very strong as a newcomer as it put pay to fellow new-boys Hefty and Judge Shred without breaking sweat. But as we saw it against the reigning champions Panic Attack, its weaknesses were all nicely emphasised for us to point out; its axe wasn’t really punishing, it wasn’t amazingly quick, it didn’t have a lot of grunt behind it, the armour wasn’t fantastic, it could be toppled quite easily, and the exposed underside made it very vulnerable. X-Terminator was rightfully seeded for Series 4 after a respectable Series 3 run, but upon returning, it looked like a lot of its flaws had been fixed, it was much faster, it was lower at the front and more powerful for pushing, and it was a little less top-heavy. The new and improved X-Terminator again effortlessly reached the heat final, defeating the rank outsiders, but showed its improvements particularly in its speed to put a few attacks in on the sluggish but still highly thought of Behemoth. Mind you, the decision was still quite controversial, and despite reaching the Semi-Finals, a good achievement, Wild Thing still got underneath it quite simply, and the axe still lacked a fair grunt. These two problems; axe power and ground clearance, were usually the main things that cost it fights in later series, X-Terminator (for reaching the Semis) was always highly thought of from Series 4 on, but never really dealt out as much carnage as it should’ve done and still got flipped around a lot. By Series 7, when it was once again seeded, it looked like these problems may well have been dealt with, as the spinner at least looked very tough and the scoop at the front was incredibly low. These main changes in particular enabled it to walk through the opening rounds, and even achieve two OotA’s with just a spinning weapon. X-Terminator subsequently reached the Semi-Finals, and used its Combo of low scoop and spinner just above to negate two flippers from getting underneath, and then slice them up o they couldn’t get under anywhere. X-Terminator’s victory against St. Agro may well have been expected, but Bulldog Breed looked like it may have been able to cause an upset. X-Terminator had now reached the Grand Final, the furthest it had ever reached, but couldn’t withstand Typhoon 2, and couldn’t then recover to make the podium, a shame given how far the robot had come.

So...the winner is...

1. Atomic The winner is the fourth robot in this list to have lost to Typhoon 2 in the Seventh Wars. I originally had Matilda at the top of the list, but I decided that wouldn’t be fair. When you think about it, Atomic only entered three wars, and reached the heat final in its first appearance, and only reached the Semi-Finals in its last appearance, so probably not the ideal robot to put at the top of the list on paper, but I’d argue, still the Most Improved robot of the lot. It entered Series 4 and appeared in the very first battle alongside Chaos 2, so all eyes were on the champs and not Atomic, so it was difficult to really identify how Atomic performed. In truth, I’d say that Atomic should’ve gone out in Round 1, it was flipped almost straight away by Chaos 2 onto its side, and then slowly self-righted, but as it bounced down, it stopped moving, even the flipper was stuck in the air, and this was all before Indefatigable was flipped over. Never mind, as Atomic looked as if it would fall to the seeds King B3. On paper, very impressive that Atomic sent King B3 out, but in truth, it took advantage of its high ground clearance, slowly pushed it over to the side wall before the wall spike caught King B3 and it burnt out, and in the process, Atomic’s flipper broke off by itself. So Atomic had somehow found its way to the final, but was swiftly defeated by Chaos 2, it was immobilised very quickly, and Sir Killalot showed just how flimsy its frame armour was. Atomic was back for the Fifth Wars, seeded 23, and looked much tougher as it flipped over and Ko’d quite a few robots, including previous Semi-Finalists Mousetrap. Atomic was unfortunate to find itself against Hypno-Disc, especially given the whole seed thing, and even its improved armour wasn’t tough enough, even though it managed to flip Hypno-Disc right over. So Atomic still needed work to be done, it still lacked a lot of push, flipper power, and strong armour. After a long time away, Atomic returned for the Seventh Wars, but looked over-shadowed against the seeded S.M.I.D.S.Y. machine. But then, Atomic lined up an attack and flipped Cygnus X-1 right over, and then flipped Terror Turtle out of the arena. Atomic finished the battle treating the seeds like a chew toy, and very nearly sending them out on several occasions. From that battle, Atomic was seen as favourites to win the heat, flipping out Hellbent, after they looked very impressive for newcomers, and then eventually did the same to S.M.I.D.S.Y. in the final. Atomic was through to the Semi-Finals, and then used its superior experience and ground clearance to give M2 the same treatment, albeit with a lot more effort. Atomic then looked like in was in with a chance to flip out Typhoon 2 to then go through to the Grand Final, but was unlucky as its pneumatic rams jammed almost straight away, whilst it was upside down. Mind you, at least its armour stood up to Typhoon 2’s spinning. Such a shame then to see it fall, in such fashion, but it at least showed just how much a few battles, with a few losses against some top bots, can do to really improve the performance and reputation of a robot, which all of these ten did, which is why they all make the list.

UK Competitor Encyclopedia
With the awards all dished out, I decided to do something a little different. Instead of construct a list of favourites and least favourites, etc. or choose robots that should've done this or that etc. I'm simply going to attempt write-ups of robots at random, and literally just write about them, and my views on them. After watching Robot Wars from Series 3, and basically idolising the show since, I could probably talk for ages about any robot from the UK wars, so I thought why not? I'll welcome any suggestions for write-ups on this page's talk section.

Blade
I begin with a robot that never gets much discussion anyway. Blade, I suppose it didn't look anything special, it didn't have anything that special about it like a high top speed or whatever. Despite this, it will always be a robot that sticks in my mind, most of this will be down to the fact that it appeared in my second ever episode. If I'm honest, I didn't really like Blade at the time, it defeated Agent Orange, which I liked for both its name and look, and it beat Aggrobot which I also thought looked good, and liked for beating Razer. It had then amazingly made it to the Semi-Finals. But now that I can reflect, it was just a good robot, it did what it did well, and took advantage of Agent Orange and Aggrobot being a bit "par". Perhaps the heat should've belonged to Razer, but this meant we can remember Blade a bit better than any of the other robots in its heat, like Max Damage and Spike, and I don't really hold anything against Blade anymore.

Blade, very similar to Trident, in that they both looked like little fish in the big pond of the Semi-Finals. They predictably lost their fights, though Blade managed to put much more of a fight up against Beast of Bodmin. Series 3 may not have set an incredibly high standard, but reaching the Semi-Finals was still very impressive. Blade's Big Bruva might've done alright in Series 4, though it's hard to tell considering I haven't seen it, but the robot withdrew. I don't know why they withdrew, did they have issues with the robot? were other commitments in the way? Whatever it may be, did they have any more to offer? Would it have been embarrassed like Gravedigger and Evil Weevil? Regardless, along with Trident, this was the final confirmation that very few would remember either of them from this point. Even me. It took me a while to realise back then that both of them were absent from the seeds. I missed Beast of Bodmin and Pitbull though.

Mousetrap
Now on to another one-time Semi-Finalist: Mousetrap. To be honest, I liked Mousetrap, it's one of those 10-20 robots that wouldn't get into my top 10/15 favourites, but it was close and I appreciated it all the same. The simple name derived from a very clever idea, it wasn't that amazing to look at, but it was well-rounded in terms of design. Having said that, I wouldn't have put it as Semi-Final quality, even in Series 4. In fairness, it didn't really have to do anything in Round 1, and looked second best to Tiberius, it got lucky in Round 2, just about alive as Sumpthing did itself in, and then getting through the heat final, winning a judges' decision against a robot that was quite slow and had a high ground clearance to get under with the wedge. It had gone far, but Stinger put pay to it in the end.

I don't know if I would've seeded Mousetrap so low for Series 5, of all the Semi-Finalists, perhaps it should've been the lowest, but number 20 was just too low, especially considering Mini Morg was seeded higher. Mousetrap 2 looked stronger in Series 5, and was rated highly given its Series 4 performance, but it didn't exactly do much against Shredder, actually sustaining a fair bit of damage before the latter pitted itself. Mousetrap 2 did well against S3, when you think about Plunderbird 5, but it wasn't expected to win, and the biggest shock was it surviving to the end.

It was nice to see Mousetrap 2 in Extreme 1, but it was a fleeting visit after its trap mechanism broke before "Activate". I know it technically went out first, but I would've preferred to have seen Mousetrap in the Annihilator instead of Hippobotamus, and in the Forces Special instead of Oblark, but if it was just too badly damaged against S3, I guess I'll understand.

After Mutant Mousetrap flopped, I would've wanted to have seen a Mousetrap 4 in Series 7 or Extreme, a robot with a bit more pace and a powerful trap mechanism to help it right itself. It might've done better than Black and Blue, but I suppose a clusterbot appearing in Series 7 was good to see.

Prince of Darkness
I originally put this next choice to a randomiser and it came out with Psychosprout, but I thought it would be better to focus on robots that hadn't made any of the Award nominations, so instead I've gone with another robot from Series 1 that began with a "P".

The Prince of Darkness was built in just a few hours, that's not very surprising to hear, it wasn't very damaging, it wasn't very fast, it wasn't very aggressive, and it wasn't that great to look at, but honestly, I quite liked it. The general consensus was that it looked a lot of a seven year-old's go-kart, with the gaps in the bodywork, the slab panels and the big rear wheels, I agree with this, but I guess that was why I quite liked its look. It looked amateur, but that was part of the appeal, and it stood out amongst its opponents in the heat like Skarab and The Blob. The thing is, despite the quick build, and coming from a time of poor reliability, Prince of Darkness was very reliable, it took a bashing from Matilda and still pulled away to finish the Gauntlet, and when all four of its opponents in the Snooker stopped, Prince of Darkness was busy racking up all of the balls and immediately became a heat favourite. It was so nice to see a robot in Series 1 that just kept going, whilst everything else was suffering either in the pits or after a nudge or two in-battle.

However, when they came away from the Trial, the team tried to restyle the body, I didn't see the need, as it still looked amateurish afterwards, but it now looked like they'd actually made an effort on it, which I think spoiled it. As a result, when T.R.A.C.I.E. took advantage of the exposed tyres and knocked Prince of Darkness out, I didn't really care anymore, the robot I first liked at the start of the heat had already gone. The robot didn't return for Series 2, but then I suppose it wasn't the sort of robot that would've been entered again, considering it was a last-minute build anyway.

Dreadnaut
I first saw Dreadnaut in Series 3, it was the final heat, so it sticks out a bit more than most. I never thought it looked anything special, it was fairly aggressive, but not very punishing, and was fortunate to have unreliable opposition. Looking back, it probably was heat final quality, but only in heats like the one it had. Trident saw it out in the heat final, and Dreadnaut returned for Series 4, with a fancy XP-1 model name added to the end. Expectations may have been high, but it just about surpassed the insane Warhog in Round 1, and was then humiliated by Thermidor 2 in Round 2.

Dreadnaut back then was for me just another robot that was in Series 3 and 4, nothing more, probably a little distain for defeating Rattus Rattus. However, when I first came to watch the first series, I realised that Dreadnaut had been competing back then, and it looked quite good, it was a heavy 92kg machine that stood out as a Goliath amongst the Wedgehogs, Cruellas and W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.s of the heat. I mean sure, it wasn't reliable, and pushed its luck with how far it progressed, but it came back improved for Series 2, bigger forks, faster and a little bit sturdier. Again, it fell in the Heat Semi-Final, but I did like the look and thought to myself "I wish that shell hadn't been torn up by the house robots in Series 2", because then it might've been used in later wars instead of what I thought was a ghastly shell by comparison.

Given its performance in Series 4, I'm not surprised Dreadnaut was retired, I'm quite sure it would've been heat fodder in Series 5 and 6, and the robot that was there would've needed a lot of improvements and changes to make it competent for the later wars, particularly in terms of reliability, weapon power, ground clearance, armour, well, the lot really.

Sumpthing
I will admit that when I came to the Robot Wars Awards and the Most Original Entry, I forgot about Sumpthing, and in hindsight it should've been placed around the middle of the listings, but instead of changing it, I'll give Sumpthing a write-up here. Sumpthing is a very special robot for me, my first ever battle was Sumpthing vs Pitbull, there wasn't really a battle at all, but it was amazing. Sumpthing lost of course, but after only one strike of the axe, so Pitbull didn't even do anything, this meant that the only way was up if it was to return. Series 4 came, and Sumpthing looked relatively unchanged, but about 20 seconds into the battle, Jonathan Pearce made a point that Sumpthing had already improved from the previous series, but the thing was, it actually look quite damaging and aggressive. It was from this battle, and the next really, that in Series 5 and Extreme, Sumpthing was regarded as a tough robot, and its loss in Series 5 was apparently a huge shock. I will say that Sumpthing could've done better than that in Series 5, but what can you do?

By Series 6 and Extreme 2, we all knew what to expect, and going in against Dominator 2, we would be left in no doubt, having said that, look how long it lasted, look how aggressive it was, against Dominator 2 and Hydra, and it only went out after losing one drive. Perhaps given a kinder line-up, Sumpthing could've scraped through Round 1 that series, but that's the way with most robots though isn't it?

Sumpthing was a fair favourite of mine, it wouldn't make the top 10, but it would make the top 15. I also quite liked Xenomorph and The Master, given that they looked similar, not quite sure why though, it was probably the big bowling ball wheels that did it, or the simplicity of the design. I never really noticed how poor Sumpthing's Win/Loss record was until I saw it on the wiki, it's that record that makes it particularly sad that it could've been so much more. As I've said above, Mousetrap wasn't really Semi-Final quality, and it wouldn't have reached that stage anyway had Sumpthing not somehow KO'd itself, I mean how unlucky was that? and considering Mousetrap was already immobilised on one side, and then stopped completely shortly afterwards, they could've given it the benefit of the doubt couldn't they? Apparently not, but imagine, it would've been against Little Fly, which didn't look to bother it in the melee, so it may well have won that too. In the Semi-Finals, it would've fought Stinger, a similar robot in terms of offense and look, it would've been a great fight to watch, and Sumpthing would've lost, but it would've reached the Semi-Finals, it would've been seeded for the next series, which may have helped it get a gentler first round bout, though it couldn't get much easier.

I may never know why Sumpthing didn't appear in Series 7, did the team give up? was the robot deemed unfit? did it fail to qualify anyway? was it refused entry with its weaponry? I don't know. All I know is Series 7 would've been a lot more entertaining with more teams like Team Tetanus, even if Sumpthing would've flopped again. Most of the robots in the list, like Prince of Darkness and Blade, it's a safe bet that they've been long since dismantled and scrapped, but I'm glad Sumpthing's still in one piece. It would be nice to see it fight again, it would be looked upon exactly the same as it was in Robot Wars, a joke in the arena.

Armadrillo
Every hardcore Robot Wars fan will likely have in their mind around 10-15 strong favourites, then around 20-30 others that they quite like too but not enough to make the shortlist, then maybe 10-15 robots that they would probably call their least favourites, and then the other few hundred that competed will be regarded as "So-so" or "meh". For me, Armadrillo falls into the latter category, I didn't particularly like it or hate it, I don't have a problem with it, but like many others it just passes me by as another one-time competitor that fell in Round 1 never to be seen or mentioned again. As a result, when Audited Series 6 comes around, if it manages to prevent itself being binned, and then inevitably falls in Round 1 to a better machine, I won't be surprised and part of me won't even care.

Having said that, the pun for the name was good, and the weaponry and design was a bit different and alright to be honest, but there's one thing I don't really get about Armadrillo. The team were intent on having a very low ground clearance on the robot, to prevent being flipped so easily, this unbelievably low ground clearance, similar to Oblivion 2, was its Achilles heel as it failed to rack up enough points after getting stuck on the arena floor for a long while. But what I don't understand is, why when the team were trying so hard to prevent flippers coming in, did they then have the robot with curved sides? Ultimately that would make it easy anyway for a flipper to get enough of a purchase to flip it over, or even flick it up so it landed properly on the wedge to execute a bigger flip or OotA.

I guess it doesn't really matter since it wasn't faced with a flipper in its only battle, apart from Roobarb which was KO'd very quickly. I would say though that if they were worried about flippers getting underneath, instead of having the robot so low to the ground it would get stuck on anything, just take a tip from Panic Attack and fit skirts, that would've been fine.

Ruf Ruf Dougal
As requested by Jimlaad43, Ruf Ruf Dougal, not everybody's cup of tea I suppose, I'm not exactly a massive fan, but I'll say that it's a very difficult robot to hate. That innocent little face combined with the fact that despite being one of the signature joke robots, it was actually alright in the arena. Of course, its track record on the show doesn't do it any favours, but consider its performance each year, in Series 5 it survived a fair amount of time against the much fancied Gemini, and then in Series 6, it surpassed the much more experienced Weld-Dor 3, and despite being cooked it survived Tetanus 2 and Cyrax to go to the judges' decision. Certainly, Ruf Ruf Dougal must have been quite good, it defeated Pendragon in a qualifier, no mean feat to beat a Cornish build, so I like to tell myself. True, Dougal may've won just by Pendragon breaking down on its own, but that's not the point!

I'm very sure that if we ever go ahead with my old idea of a Wiki tournament exclusively for joke robots, Dougal would finally win something.

I appreciate Dougal's contribution to Robot Wars, it was a returning team, unlike many Round 1 drop-outs, and even though the robot wasn't really changed that much between Series 5 and 6, it did what a joke robot should, and that was to really liven up the heat, except Dougal was able to survive long enough to prolong the enjoyment, as opposed to the Grannies and Fat Boys of the wars that just fell very early on. I also appreciate that it wasn't made from traditional armour, most go with metal, the joke robots may go with fur or wood, but not Dougal! I wouldn't say I was sad that it wasn't in Series 7, two series of it being broiled and trimmed in Round 1 was probably enough, but who did we have to laugh at/with instead? Scarey-Go-Round? Brutus Maximus? Tartarus? None of whom really leave us with fond memories.

Gravedigger
When I was watching Series 3, I remember Gravedigger being one of my favourite robots at the time. I remember watching its heat being amazed by how strong and composed it looked in all of its battles, no matter who it faced, Manic Mutant or the dreaded Mortis, it was this large Goliath of a robot that calmly and comfortably went about its business in flipping and pushing. Nobody in the heat really had a good answer for it, though Mortis should've. I imagine that heat was set up for Mortis to get through, but nobody really considered Gravedigger's potential. I believe Gravedigger would've been able to self-right itself, not that we'll ever know. The robot was harshly dubbed a Cassius clone in particular by Jonathan Pearce, he probably used that as a good way to describe the robot all the time, but it was too good to be dubbed a clone of another, surely.

The Semi-Finals or Series 3 came around again, and I was excited when I saw Gravedigger again, I can still remember watching it for the first time, sitting at the table with my family, all of us wanting Gravedigger to win and believing it had won the judges' decision, but it wasn't meant to be. I assume the battle was edited leaving just the exciting bits, maybe Steg-O-Saw-Us pushed Gravedigger back for longer than it seemed, but still, those flips should've counted for more. It may've been out, but Gravedigger definitely deserved a Semi-Final place, it was a shame to see it fall so early on in the Series 3 Audited Wiki tournament, but against Firestorm I suppose it didn't really have a hope.

Naturally, I was thrilled to see a new and improved Gravedigger back for the Fourth Wars, much like I was thrilled to see Evil Weevil return, but because of some technical difficulties with that flipping arm, it was a disappointing end, and after it was thrown into the deep-end against Tornado the following series and fell at the first hurdle again, I guess that was just enough for the team. Mind you, it was nice that they gave it one last go to regain some dignity in Series 5, unlike the Evil Weevil team. While I preferred the Series 3 model, it would've been nice to have seen Gravedigger perform properly in Series 4, it might've lasted longer. It would also have been nice to have seen Gravedigger for longer in Series 5, which we could've done given the right line-up, and also for it to have appeared in Series 6 maybe.

Thinking about it, I've found it difficult to sum up Gravedigger, it proved that a decent flipping arm that didn't break was all it took to do really well in Series 3, but most of all it proved how a run of circumstances can make it one of the biggest One-hit Wonders of the entire show.

Kat 3
As requested by CrashBash, Kat 3. Kater Killer hardly meant it was going into Series 5 with high expectations, but I do remember when its first appearance was televised, Kat 3 was named as being in the heat, which I found peculiar, especially since Panic Attack was in the heat as well. I think I expected Mini Morg to defeat it, but it amazingly won via a pitting, and then I was just as surprised, or should I say gutted, when it defeated Major Tom, not that it did anything to contribute. Against Panic Attack, it was defeated as expected, but this certainly raised the bar for the team. Kat 3 returned looking rather a lot like Dominator 2 in Series 6, not that I even noticed it had looked different in Series 5. Kat 3 did alright as it continued to the show's end, but it didn't enjoy brilliant success from this point, I'd mostly like to put this down to its opponents, I don't think anybody expected Barber-Ous to pull that off, and losing to Pussycat and Bulldog Breed offers no disgrace.

The Kat 3 team were offered the Sportsmanship Award for Series 6, I would say giving the award to the most helpful team would be the most righteous, but I suppose it had to go to the greatest team for a laugh on the show, and without the Plunderbird, Diotoir or Mega Morg teams around, I think Team KaterKiller were the right choice.

I don't think that similarity with Dominator 2 was ever really picked up upon, but I would say the treatment by Jonathan Pearce was very similar. Dominator 2, despite the pedigree and success, was still criticised by Pearce in later series for having an ineffective axe, likewise Kat 3 was always underrated by Pearce, notably saying in the Series 7 All-Stars that it "had never really caused any me-Owws! in the past", this was after two heat finals and some good robots defeated. Kat 3 was not a bad robot, it was a very good robot in fact, arguably the best axe in Series 7, arguably equally as powerful/effective as Dominator 2 was at its peak. However, it was never really seen as a high-flyer in the wars, Jamie McGarry of the Series 7 Panic Attack team regarded the All-Stars event as a "show with lots of famous and successful robots of the past (and Kat 3)", that isn't really fair, especially considering Kat 3 (ignoring Dantomkia) was the second best performer in the series in the line-up. Even now in Wiki tournaments Kat 3 suffers relatively early on, probably un-justifying, but going out in the Ragnabot Qualifiers doesn't at all do it justice.

Kat 3, despite being eligible for the Series 7 All Stars, the final reunion of Robot Wars greats left, will never be seen as one of the greats, two heat finals just wasn't enough, but it was always there.

M2
The first request of ToastUltimatum, one of his favourites, M2. Well, like Sumpthing, I'm sorry, perhaps this should've made it into the awards above, in the Most Promising Newcomer, but I just wasn't thinking of it, and now that we have the poll on the main page, I would've given M2 the Most Promising Newcomer Award had they held the awards in Series 7, whilst Gravity and Storm 2 technically did better in the wars, both had technically fought before as well, and seeing as Storm 2 was given a seeding, it was hardly being treated as a newcomer, and M2 in a much more subtle manner showed a lot of promise. M2 was one of many newcomers in the Seventh Wars, but as I explained with Dantomkia above, the team had a lot of experience already, and the robot already looked very measured and well sought out, so naturally it stood out much more than most. M2 kicked the series off with a bang, two OotAs in quick succession, in particular making previous heat finalists Vader look very lightweight. M2 then proceeded to defeat the seeded Pussycat and the experienced Tiberius 3, both of which very solid and controlled performances against very strong opponents. M2 eventually fell at the hands of the much improved and potential champions Atomic, but not without putting up one of the biggest fights of the Semi-Finals. There's no question that M2 had earned its place in the Semi-Finals, and Series 7 showed such a high standard, but M2 still looked slightly better than the rest.

Mind you, I've never been a fan of M2, the team seemed very nice and the robot did very well in the Seventh Wars, but there are just little things that made me a little agitated, and it's not even its fault. For one thing, it defeated Pussycat, quite early on in the competition, without Wheely Big Cheese, Pussycat was my favourite robot left, so it was sad to see it go, but as I say, that wasn't its fault, that was the draw. Also, despite watching performances of its old guise on Youtube, it was still very highly rated and performed (I think) too well in the Audited Series 5 on the wiki, but again, not M2's fault.

If I'm being fair, I suppose the main reason I'm not a fan is that, even though it performed well, there was nothing about the robot that was distinctive, it was a curved wedge with a flipper, very efficient, but very generic. It was very difficult to warm to it, and it wasn't from the era when I started watching, so I'd all but set my favourites. M2 was a good robot, and it's not a "Least Favourite", but I just don't like it.

Infinity
Another request from ToastUltimatum, Infinity. I never actually saw the University Challenge until Robot Wars was repeated on Dave in 2010, so all I'd seen of Infinity was it making a fool of itself by sustaining damage to its claws from 259 and then driving itself down the pit. There's little to say about Infinity's first appearance, other than at least it was still going. When watching the University Challenge, I got the same sort of weird feeling of "Infinity's still here, but I barely saw it last time", the same sort of feeling I felt when watching robots like S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Eric in Series 4. Infinity performed really well in the competition, Behemoth going out meant that it was anybody's competition to win all of a sudden, and Infinity looked aggressive and nippy in the opening round, and it looked very strong and durable against the cumbersome Infernal Contraption, sadly the number was up against Tiberius 3, but it proved it was made of tough stuff as it withstood that claw, the next best claw to Razer if you ask me.

Infinity wasn't on the show for very long then, a fleeting visit in Series 6, and one minor event in Extreme, and they didn't return for Series 7. I think that's a shame, whilst the design was very standard and basic, the basis for the robot was very good, it had tough armour, a strong push and claws which were adequate for grabbing, even if they were a bit flimsy. Infinity I think could've done well with some more improvements and more experience, probably not Semi-Final quality, maybe not even heat final quality, but given some of the Series 6 debutants that returned to flop again, Colossus, Spin Doctor, Araknia, Brutus Maximus, it would've been I think better to have a robot that showed more promise to get through the first round, cannon fodder is all well and good, but more often it's the close and long drawn out fights, like that of Infinity vs. Infernal Contraption, that make for a more exciting show, not just throwing in robots you know won't likely make it, and are swiftly immobilised and attacked by the house robots.

Infinity certainly isn't a favourite of mine, but I think it was a miss that it didn't enter Series 7. I'd really like to know why as well, because it's not like the robot was damaged beyond repair at the end of filming, and I doubt the team just very quickly built the robot for one laugh for one series. Whatever the reason, if only it had competed for longer, I think the name Infinity would really mean something amongst the rest of the show's history.

Shredder
Shredder, I know this is another favourite of ToastUltimtum, and I grew to like it as well towards the show's end. I remembered Manic Mutant because it looked so unusual, but I didn't realise that it came from the same team as Shredder, not that anyone would've really cared. Shredder's discs did look quite destructive, and the crucial word in that phrase was "look". Whilst they caused a few slices in Mousetrap, I mean, that was hardly coachwork, and in Series 6, they looked so flimsy next to S3, and proved to have little to no effect after they broke in the first round. Having said all of that, Shredder Evolution came into Series 7 looking much bulkier than before, before it looked slim and basic, now it looked heavy and heavy-hitting with much more fierce discs. Shredder certainly does encompass evolution by improvement, and from Series 5 to Series 7, the robot looked much more impressive and worthy. I also quite like the idea to go to an Evolution model name instead of the generic 2 or 3, or even cop out at Evo.

Even though I wasn't 100% impressed with Shredder back in Series 5, it certainly had potential to go further than it did, it looked strong early on against Mousetrap and maybe could've beaten it without the pit. As for Series 6, I think it was fortunate to get as far as it did, the heat was basically similar to most of the others of the series in that S3 was the strongest, and the other seven by comparison were at best lower-bound Round 2 standard. Shredder was just better on the day than the rest, and despite Noel Sharkey's best efforts to talk up Shredder prior to the heat final, it was always going to be S3's heat, but Shredder did stand up well for most of it.

I was close to saying that it was too bad that Shredder wasn't in either series of Extreme, but it's probably safe to say its first two incarnations showed us what they had in the main competition, so we didn't really miss anything much. Series 7 came around, and Shredder Evolution was among the small group of robots that made Heat I dubbed the "Heat of Doom". Whilst Storm 2 and Supernova battled each other, it didn't look like Shredder's opponents would give it too much hassle, but The Steel Avenger was really on it, and took advantage of probably its only weakness. Despite being cooked for a very long period of time and the clock was ticking for it to rack up some points, Shredder survived the fire, and continued to cause serious damage to Sub-Version and The Steel Avenger, but it wasn't quite enough to give it the nod. As a result of this, I'd argue Shredder Evolution was the best robot in Series 7, or even in Robot Wars history, to fall in Round 1, and I haven't forgotten Supernova or Hydra. Shredder was invited back for the Spin City, and after surviving the maniacal Barber-Ous and basically pummelling Infernal Contraption as much as it could, it had finally won something. This victory really mattered, because despite losing out so early on in the main competition, Shredder had proved it was up there with the best of the spinners, even though it wasn't up against the rest of them.

Shredder may not have been one of the biggest names in Robot Wars history, but like Scorpion, its disc was just too powerful for other event organisers to cope, it must've been half decent then.

Infernal Contraption
Requested by Jimlaad43, and begrudgingly taken on, Infernal Contraption is far from a favourite of mine. I don't know what to say about the Series 3 Stinger team member going away and building a robot very, very similar to it, but it was different and kind of original, and without Stinger it was Series 7's only axlebot, so I'll go along with it. The robot itself, not the best in battle, it was turned away from Series 5 under the name Gahra after the weight issue, but to be honest after finally appearing in Series 6, it was ripped apart by 259 completely. Credit where it's due, I'd like to believe we were all impressed that after all of it, Infernal Contraption were still showing signs of life after all of that punishment, though it was only from one wheel.

The robot was repaired after that, but it just wasn't good enough in battle, it proved too fragile at the best of times, and only won one battle out of five after Behemoth knocked itself out. Aside from that, the robot wasn't as well thought out as Stinger, as the radio reception kept going due to the axlebot rocking about, this explaining why most of the time it was only moving one wheel at a time, one wheel would work while another didn't, and that it would need to be countered on the other side. As a result, Infernal Contraption never proved very aggressive in battle, and to top it off, the weapon was very prone to breaking down, breaking down against many a foe very early on for whatever reason. I hate to bring this up again, but I'm still in shock, and probably will always be in shock, that Infernal Contraption was deemed good enough by users on the wiki to defeat Robochicken in Audited Series 7, especially after watching its performances over and over again, and concluding in its fragility and impassivity.

Perhaps that's the main reason I don't really like it now, and I know again that it isn't Infernal Contraption's fault, but for a better argument it was disappointing and boring to see this robot perform exactly the same every time it entered the arena, dish out a lack of damage, lose power to the weapon, approach its opponents one wheel at a time, maybe lose a drive in one wheel and lose the fight, if not, survive to a judges' decision and lose the fight.

This probably wasn't the opinion most people would be happy to see, but I'm being honest, and I don't like to discuss my hatred for certain robots, but it's probably better to do that than do a million more write-ups of neutral regard on robots like Armadrillo that never left much of an impact on me to begin with.

Anarchy
Jimlaad43 regarded Anarchy as the greatest walker in the sport, well, the opposition for that title was hardly fierce. Anarchy wasn't fast at all by normal standards, only 5mph, but compare that with Clawed Hopper or Eleven, and it actually sounds incredibly fast. By contrast, the weapon was very good by normal standards, a very powerful and sharp axe, coupled with tough and strong lifters, all cushioned by a rock-hard frame. When you have the blueprints to an easily developable walking system, why waste the potential for weapons and armour, like so many other walkers like Clawed Hopper did?

Being a walker wasn't a hindrance to it at all, it was like any other well thought out bot that just happened to be a little bit slower than the rest, and oh yeah, it was almost twice as heavy so you couldn't push it around or flip it very easily. Anarchy put in a solid performance in the first round, using its axe and lifters to great effect against poor Judge Shred, who appeared to be banged up on by the others predominantly. After it was badly injured in Round 1, Inshredable was never going to give it many problems, and it didn't, another controlled performance by the walker saw Anarchy through to the heat final, the furthest a walker had ever come in the competition. The was a real hope that it may defeat Tornado, a robot that really did split opinions of people, but it wasn't meant to be, and as such the greatest walker the show had ever seen didn't even make a Semi-Final, but given that robots like Spawn Again had limped its way there and Wild Thing just managed to ward off 259 after its own error, Anarchy certainly could've been Semi-Final quality on the whole.

Aside from that though, whilst I agree that it was better than Clawed Hopper on most fronts, it didn't excite me as much as Clawed Hopper. The one main charm of a walker was that most of them looked ridiculous as the team were able to make them more interesting to watch or look at. Anarchy looked very tidy in its design, which didn't really thrill me to be honest. I guess I was also a little sad to see that 101 had definitely been retired, but after its showdown with Fluffy, even Pearce couldn't deny that it was time to move on.

Terrorpin
A rather odd request from Jimlaad43, Terrorpin. I call Terrorpin and odd request because it's probably fair to say that it's just another of the forgotten lot that exclusively entered Series 3, didn't hang around for too long, and then disappeared into the history books. That said, for me, Terrorpin was another of those robots that Series 3 that managed to remain in my memory banks better than most others, I'll put that down to the pneumatic head. Philippa Forrester regarded the head as cute, I agree, but the whole robot as a package was quite cute with its little dome body. Terrorpin was far from the most demonic and aggressive, even when pushing around Vercingetorix it was slow to shove it. Terrorpin didn't do bad in Series 3, victorious against the experienced Vercingetorix before giving Invertabrat a reason to be annoyed in Round 2 before biting the dust. As I say, not brilliant, but a lot of robots from those days were far from as nippy and eager to pace across the arena. Terrorpin was quite fast, and it looked good in the arena, that was enough for it to earn my respect at least.

The whoopie cushion as well was a gentle comic touch, also giving it a bit of character, not that it needed anymore. It's design was rightly recognized by the Robot Wars staff and Terrorpin was nominated for Best Design, though the Most Original Entry might've been more suitable, it's just a shame it predictably lost to Razer.

A lot of robots from Robot Wars were one-time competitors, though particularly from Series 3, strange. As I started watching the show in Series 3, I grew an affinity with a lot more robots from then, and like most other "Series 3 Non-returners", for me, it would've been great to have seen Terrorpin in Series 4. But in fairness, if those that did return are anything to go by, the most likely scenario would've seen it crash out the round before it went out in Series 3 (Round 1), and without serious improvement, I doubt it had much more to give. Ah well, one more for the history books then.

ICU
A request from ToastUltimatum, ICU. The story began in Series 5 when a very generic design that looked like it came right out of the catalogue was entered into the qualifiers. Robofox wasn't exactly inspiring, and it failed to qualify, though there were plenty of similarly lackluster designs that slipped through the net and made it. I can't see where the team got the name from, it doesn't really fit at all. Robofox returned for Series 6, with the paintjob being the biggest change, and the robot was renamed ICU. With all due respect, the decorations were at least original, but again I have to put my thumbs down for originality for the actual robot's build design, though I suppose that was part of the charm, when it entered New Blood, it looked very retro and basic in terms of evolution. Even if the design was basic, everything was there, the front scoop, the axe, and the side srimechs.

ICU may have been placed in one of several mediocre Series 6 heats, but I have to say that its biggest contribution to the heat was making its opponents, in particular the historically border-line joke robot Sir Chromalot, look good. The Alien was able to cause harsh damage to that armour plating, G.B.H. 2 got a flick or two here and there, and Sir Chromalot managed a KO flip from which ICU couldn't self-right after the axe mechanism broke down. It's probably not fair to call that its only contribution, and all three opponents had clearly improved from previous series, and ICU was far from the worst Round 1 drop-out of the series.

Putting its Series 6 performance aside, ICU wasn't actually a bad robot. It entered New Blood as one of the few familiar faces, despite the eyes not being present, and as Jonathan Pearce said in Round 1, it was clearly the most impressive robot in its melee. ICU did well to get past Revolution 2, hardly a difficult robot to attack, and it had made it to the heat final, this was respectable and sufficient to prove that it was a fine newcomer despite Series 6. ICU predictably lost to Storm 2, but if I'm honest I was hoping for a bit more of a fight rather than an almost immediate breakdown, something must have gone wrong, and it was a such a disappointing end to a good stint on the show.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I'm not sure why we have the section of the Pritchard debate in the page's blurb, at best that's trivia, but around that area, Pritchard could be just as common a name as any other anywhere else, so I don't see why it's there.

As I've said with Infinity above, ICU's Extreme performance was enough to regain it some dignity if it was to enter Series 7. Clearly the decision was no to return, we probably won't know why, but the difference is that I fear with its lightweight armour and dated design and arsenal that it wouldn't have been potent or devastating enough to go far.

Gyrobot
I understand that Gyrobot is another favourite of ToastUltimatum's, and while I'm not quite there, I would definitely argue that it is very underrated. Why is it underrated though? Did it do that bad? Well, Gyrobot began its career in Robot Wars by failing to qualify for Series 6. After a tweek here and there, Gyrobot had made it to Series 7, and even though it very convincingly made it through to Round 2, it did appear to team up with fellow spinner Jackson Wallop to defeat Killerkat, a robot that had a limited chance to even hit its opponents with its spinner because of how and where it was positioned. On top of all of that, Terrorhurtz, the heat's seed, was unable to take part and no replacement was used, so only one robot had to fall. Gyrobot was then through to Round 2, but it was defeated by The Grim Reaper after it was unable to cause major damage. On the face of it at least then, you probably wouldn't be too impressed with a robot that had only accomplished that.

But let's look at each detail, starting with Series 6. Thanks to Youtube, we can now see how Gyrobot did in its qualifier. Now, it may've eventually been immobilised, but was it just me, or did it thrash the living daylights out of Scrap Dragon and Shell Shock, sending them out? The Stag did well to bide its time and swoop in when the impressive looking newcomer was tiring. Given some of the robots that were given the benefit of the doubt and including in the Series 6 line-up, I'm surprised that this spinner wasn't given the benefit of the doubt, it might've actually done quite well, all it would've taken was a Round 1 line-up with predictable fodder, and then one or two later clashes with robots that may've lacked a bit in reliability or armour.

Never mind, let's move on to Series 7, and while there were only three, depending on the reserve available, there may not have been much difference. Even though Gyrobot took out Killerkat alongside Jackson Wallop, it still had the power to KO it, and I would argue that Gyrobot had the more punishing hits. The Grim Reaper may've beaten Gyrobot, but the former had tough armour, armour that did in the end sustain severe damage, and Gyrobot did hang on to a judges' decision, evident that it at least had the strength to stay alive against a more than competent adversary, that eventually proved Semi-Final worthy. I think the whole story with Terrorhurtz swamps the discussion of this heat, with the general consensus being that compared to Terrorhurtz, all of these robots (The Grim Reaper, Big Nipper, Kan-Opener and Barbaric Response) were unfit to be the heat winner. As a result, most of the robots in this heat are quite underrated, but I'd argue that most of the robots in the heat made it more of a competent heat than most, the battles themselves just proved a little predictable. On a good day I bet most of the robots in that heat would've given Terrorhurtz a good go, including Gyrobot.

I feel it's too bad we didn't see more of Gyrobot in Series 7, after all, as Audited Series 7 has proved, given the right line-up, most robots could've reached at least a heat final, also, Gyrobot might've made a good choice for the annihilator at the end of the series, they needed a good spinner for a bit of balance.

Tetanus
Jimlaad43 requesting a robot with an interesting name, but an even more gruesome look, or at least when it started. Tetanus entered Series 5 looking very grungy and devilish, with its sharp spikes, dark and scary paint-scheme and almost gothic construction and style. I gave The Kraken a spot in the Most Original Entry for genuinely looking very frightening, again, Tetanus probably could've made the cut as well for the same reason. As well as just looking as such, it covered its first heat like an unfriendly guest as it knocked about and knocked out old favourites Onslaught, it was a close shave to get through but the actual battle didn't cause it too much bother. In fairness, against 3 Stegs to Heaven in Round 2, I seem to remember the seeds losing drive in one wheel before Tetanus was immobilised, so technically Tetanus should've gone through, and it was doing well in standing up to the circular saw of the Steg team. Mind you, if it was to go through to the heat final, the most likely scenario would've seen it knocked about just as readily as Steg, by Bigger Brother.

Tetanus 2 entered Series 6 looking just as unnerving as before, almost on a par with Razer on that front. Again, the weaponry proved potent and effective, as it damaged and pitted the experienced Weld-Dor. Once more however, it fell in Round 2, this time being flipped out by Raging Reality, after giving them a scare throughout. I wonder how Razer would've dealt with it, Tetanus 2 was hardly an easy thing for a crusher to handle. Could we have had a surprise? Probably not. I think the team made an area with their choice of arsenal in Extreme, it may've helped them self-right, but charging in with the crusher and trying to grab would negate that weakness to an extent anyway. Besides, the srimech only righted it when it was bumped into again.

I didn't even realise that Tetanus had come from the Flip Flop Fly team, a robot I quite liked, but it made it such a shame that, at this point, the much more dangerous and powerful-looking Tetanus hadn't gone any further than Flip Flop Fly had in Series 3.

This was due to change however as Tetanus returned for Series 7, sporting what was, to be fair, a much more direct but far less inspiring design, with the name Booster added to the end to make the robot seem a little more interesting than it really was. The disc looked good in Series 7, enough to cause damage on its way to the heat final, but it was still outdone in pace and push by several robots, Ewe 2 and Tornado getting the upper-hand on that front. I don't know what to say about Tetanus Booster's Round 2 judges' decision, it was very close, and definitely got it on damage, falling down on Control maybe, but regardless, Tetanus and the team had made their first heat final in four attempts, unfortunately it didn't give the reigning champions a real scare, the ground clearance and low pushing power leading to its downfall.

I look back now thinking Tetanus was a great asset for Robot Wars, but I regard it as a bit "meh" in terms of favourites. Admittedly, I got more interested in the robot when (Spoiler Alert) it featured in and won RA2's Resetti's Replicas PMRW competition, and now I'm saddened that it's far from as effective and successful now in RA2's tournaments.

Spawn of Scutter
I was in the middle of a long write-up, but then had to refresh the page, to find I couldn't copy over my progress. I'm not prepared to start again, so instead, I'm going to do a write-up on another Jimalaad43 request that doesn't require a lot of writing because it wasn't around for too long: Spawn of Scutter. When roboteering teams enter more than one or two robots, usually it's the robot that only competed once that gets forgotten in terms of thought and discussion. However, since both of Team Scutterbots' other robots are overshadowed by the later ever-present Spawn Again, and Spawn of Scutter was around later, it's a little easier to remember Spawn of Scutter over Scutter's Revenge. Spawn of Scutter came into the Fourth Wars looking a little bit different to Scutter's Revenge, it was still a gigantic box shape, and it still had a small but rugged-looking face on the front, but apart from that, it was coloured more like a scutter and it was armed with a moving weapon. Mind you, next to the flippers and axes that had already been shown off on-screen, a spear weapon on a box-shaped robot never looked too threatening, even if it was travelling at 120mph, with numbers that high, it's difficult to put that into perspective.

Nevertheless, Spawn of Scutter performed very strongly in Series 4, the spear proved to be the best of its kind (probably including every spear after it) as it dispatched Banshee in Round 1, played a big part in eliminating Vercingetorix in Round 2 and almost immediately silencing Knightmare in Round 3. Spawn of Scutter more than deserved its place in the Series Semi-Finals, doing more than enough to set its mark as one of the strongest robots in the whole line-up, and if it wasn't faced with a robot like Panic Attack, it might've gone further than the last 16, not much further, but more than plenty to get an even higher seeding, or even get into the Extreme 1 All-Stars.

Whilst Spawn of Scutter did extremely well in the main competition, I disagree with the allowance of it entering three side events, whilst other, more interesting robots, with more to give, were denied these places. True, it put in an outstanding Pinball run, and if the clusterbot Gemini was rightfully denied to participate, it would've won, but it was nothing special in the Sumo Basho and it didn't last too long in the Annihilator, not that it did that much prior to the breakdown, in either round. Spawn of Scutter was good, but it had nothing more to offer, it would've been better to have another Southern robot, like Kater Killer or Aggrobot 2 that perhaps under-performed in the wars, or maybe another strong Southern robot that wasn't in a side event, like Wheely Big Cheese or The Steel Avenger, or even a Sourthern robot that failed to qualify like Anorakaphobia or Terminal Ferocity. Any of those I would've enjoyed to have seen again, rather than Spawn of Scutter, which was rather uninspiring in terms of design, I'm sure it's the favourite of some, but it just seemed a little too much of a...."precision" robot for the early wars.

Spawn of Scutter would've been outclassed in later wars, so was replaced by Spawn Again after its first year, the correct decision, it has to be said, or else number 13 seeds really would've been unlucky for some.

Steg
Steg 2 was originally requested by Jimlaad43, but Steg-O-Saw-Us has been next on my list for a very long time. So I decided to collate all three robots from the team, including 3 Stegs To Heaven, and put them under one banner. Never mind The Morgue, we’ve never really had a generic series name for any of these robots, but I think Steg is probably the most suitable, we don’t even have a Team article for this, I think that’s a pretty big deal considering that the robots involved played a big part in the middle series’ of Robot Wars.

We’ll start with Steg-O-Saw-Us, the first of the lot to come from Dan King, Peter Rowe and Rob Heasman, three names that are always ringing very clearly in my head, as it flows so nicely. Steg-O-Saw-Us was originally a reserve for the series, I think I knew that before I even found this wiki, but I didn’t know two things: 1) who did it replace? 2) why above so many others did a really intriguing-looking robot with a bright green paint scheme, fun extras, an original weapon, good speed and unbelievable pushing power, get rejected from the original line-up? Of course, I now know T-Wrecks was the drop-out, probably for the best, no disrespect to T-Wrecks, but I doubt it would’ve done much in the heat, resulting in another shock Semi-Final place for Napalm, which just wouldn’t have been right. However, I still don’t have the answer to the second question...

In actual fact, I never liked Steg-O-Saw-Us back in the day, for much the same reason I didn’t like Tornado back then, it just bulldozed its way through the competition, almost humiliating its opponents in-battle, looking like absolute bullying, it wasn't the same as Hypno-Disc, that was actual “fight to the death”, this was just slamming it about. Take Orac’s Revenge, a robot I quite liked the look of, that axe and those spikes could’ve been good assets against most other competitors of the series, but along comes Steg-O-Saw-Us, just pushing it into the wall, and then effortlessly dumping it down the pit, so we hardly saw Orac's Revenge do anything, and it looked all too easy for Steg-O-Saw-Us.

The reserve went on to defeat others in similar fashion, going on to win the heat, and then pull out more pushing antics in the Semi-Finals, defeating two more of my favourites from the time, Gravedigger, which I do feel was a controversial decision, and Beast of Bodmin, from my home county. This made it all the more irritating, a robot that was winning utilising methods I found so wrong, and it had made it so far in the competition. Steg-O-Saw-Us was eventually defeated, one step before the final, by Hypno-Disc, this probably being part of the reason I then quite liked Hypno-Disc back then.

That was then, and after many, many years, I think I've grown to suppress my hate for the robot, unlike most rambots in Robot Wars at least it had weaponry and it had a cool design, and it was from my debut war. I might even go as far as to say that I like Steg-O-Saw-Us now, leading to me wanting it to do well in wiki tournaments, and I was disappointed to see it fall in the heats in Ragnabot. Still, it’ll always be “not bad for a reserve”.

Despite Steg-O-Saw-Us finishing Fourth in Series 3, it would need updating for Series 4, and from the ashes, Steg 2 was born. I only noticed a lot later that it does just look like a grey Steg-O-Saw-Us with a bigger tail, not that it matters, it made the design still look different from the norm. Steg 2 entered the Fourth Wars and immediately became a victim of the seeding process, due to an obsession with seeding ex-UK champions Panic Attack, World Champions Razer and World Championship runners-up Behemoth extremely high, Steg 2, despite being the reigning Fourth Place, was seeded a lowly 7th. The improvements to the robot were very clear in its opening two battles, it chucked Cronos about quite a bit, making it roll right over itself, I don't think even Chaos 2 had done that to a robot before. Yes, it suffers a bit at the hands of Crusader 2’s six-wheel drive, but against the limping Iron-Awe, a self-righting axe only made it perfect for Steg 2 to truly show off its flipper power, throwing the newcomers all around until the house robots had enough.

Oddly though, in the heat final, Steg 2 was faced with the number 23 seeds Mortis, and despite the very low seeding for its opponent, the battle was still seen as a bit 50/50, and after Steg 2 chucked Mortis around and dumped it down the pit, it was almost seen as a shock. I don’t know why? Steg 2 had proven far more consistent in the heat, and well and truly earned a spot in the Semi-Finals, and by that I mean at least the top 8.

Unfortunately, the draw for the last 16 had other ideas. I don’t know if it was a random draw or not, but having the 1st and 3rd highest seeds in the Semi fight each other, while the lower seeds fought unseeded competitors, that just wasn’t right. I’m sure Steg 2 would’ve put on a fantastic show against any robot in that Semi-Final, and could’ve beaten any of them, except Chaos 2. Steg 2 gave it everything in the opening battle for the Semi-Finals, and gave Chaos 2 more than a scare or two by flipping it over and having it on the run a couple of times, and self-righting well to the early attacks, but in the end, a slight flip and shove from the side meant Steg 2 couldn’t right itself, and Steg 2, whilst it should’ve gone further, fell in the last 16, good, but not good enough.

We can remember snippets of Steg 2’s run, but actually watching them again reminded me how much we underrate Steg 2 here, and reminded me how we should’ve had more robots like this in the side events.

Steg 2 is probably the forgotten triplet in this great triumvirate, it wasn’t the first/most successful in the range, and it doesn’t raise the eyebrows as much as this one, 3 Stegs to Heaven. The name was a great idea, not even the semi-generic GTIs and Evos can compete with that. Philippa Forrester did say at the start of its Series 5 heat “I didn't think there was anything wrong with the last one” or something to that effect. Well, if Rob Heasman didn’t leave the team, taking Steg 2 with him, then I think the team would’ve used Steg 2 as the basis for the third incarnation. However, if the Steg team wanted to compete with a robot again, they’d have to start from the ground up to build a competent robot that would match the pedigree that Steg-O-Saw-Us and Steg 2 had left before it. Clearly this was a struggle, in Extreme, the robot was very much underweight at only 72kg, and modifications were still being made to it for Series 5.

Personally, I think they did well with the robot, pressure may well have been on the team to adopt an extraordinary and unusual design, and the design still incorporated a green paint scheme with red spike extras reminiscent of their old machine. Unfortunately, the robot wasn’t exactly the best in the business. In fairness, it was mostly humiliated in Extreme, partly because it was underweight still, and partly because it was faced with a new and improved Tornado, nevertheless, Diotoir included, I can’t really think of any other robot in the All-Stars that it could’ve had a good go at.

Contrary to that, 3 Stegs to Heaven was more fortunate in Series 5. It was seeded quite high at number 8, thanks to its predecessors, and was drawn against the walkerbot Eleven in Round 1. This was lucky because most walkers, especially back then, were never that strong, aggressive, or well-protected, and 3 Stegs to Heaven managed to get through after causing a bit of damage to the hydraulics, but still had to go through a judges’ decision after getting caught in some of the cables. Round 2, and 3 Stegs was faced with Tetanus, an impressive new robot that had just taken out veterans Onslaught, but if Steg was on it, it was favoured to win. Although, it was clearly suffering in there, and after being slammed onto the angle grinder, it was clear that one wheel had given up. If Tetanus had taken much longer to miraculously break down, I doubt 3 Stegs would’ve been given the benefit of the doubt. After Tetanus was immobile, Steg took the opportunity to put its saw into use, it caused “some” damage, not a lot, but “some”. It was clear by this stage that 3 Stegs was not as strong in comparison with the rest of the competition as the Stegs before it, and it went into the heat final as underdogs against Bigger Brother. 3 Stegs was hopelessly beaten, but it lasted longer than expected, and stayed inside the arena, so there were some pluses.

I normally say that most robots could always do better given a better line-up, but realistically, 3 Stegs is one of few exceptions, and probably wouldn’t have made the heat final given another line-up or other circumstances. Perhaps this appearance was the final nail in the coffin, the team ending on a bit of a low, but if there were plans to rebuild 3 Stegs as Steg 3 for Series 6, Series 5 didn’t leave us with many thoughts of what might’ve been...

Broot
I like to think I'm a real hardcore Robot Wars fan, for example, I'm able to off-by-heart list the line-ups for every series (though Series 3 is more of a struggle) except Series 2, as for me, it's my forgotten war. Whilst it was very ground-breaking and important due to the first appearances of Craig Charles and so many future All-Stars, and being the first to witness self-righting, the pit, etc. I never saw it for the first time as a kid, and it wasn't the first series. The first of Series 2 that I properly saw was on Youtube just a couple of years ago when the episodes were being uploaded. As a result, only a select few robots from Series 2 truly stick in my mind, particularly those that performed the best.

Consequently, robots like this, Broot, that entered Series 2 looking like a box on wheels that did very little in the competition before being knocked out, aren't fondly remembered, and could've been easily interchanged with the robots that appeared in the Reserve Rumble for all I care. Broot's highlight is probably having its wheel sawn into by Matilda's chainsaw, a small clip often repeated on future shows as part of a compilation to show the power of her weaponry.

What makes Robot Wars really great was that we were able to pick out our favourites amongst the rest, robots that were maybe more interesting to look at or watch in-battle, or that they were ever-present in Robot Wars, or whatever, but these robots are surrounded by other robots like Broot, that were entered as what seemed like a one-off activity, not offering much in the way of robot power or design breakthrough.

I wish I could come across less scathing, I'm sure a lot of effort went into the design and build, but I think leaving to go home before they could have an interview after the Gauntlet kind of says it all.

Grunt
I suppose representing the three Series 1 Stock Robots, Grunt. The subject of the stock robots, Grunt in particular, is a complicated one. They came in and disrupted the course of the competition as they were technically robots entered by the Robot Wars staff, and were told to only reach a certain round. I for one think they were great and was happy to see them, not least because I'd seen snippets of Grunt and The Mouse in the UK 1995 Open, but also because they'd been built by already experienced roboteers, so alongside the rest of Series 1's line-up, half of which were very prone to reliability failure, these Stock robots looked very strong and dependable. I respect the fact that they were all just weaponless boxes too, so simplistic but still relatively pleasing designs.

Grunt in particular I feel was a good robot, I suppose a wooden box like W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G. forcing Plunderbird 1 out was annoying, and the idea of The Mouse being dressed up like a sort of Chris Eubank is a weird one, but Grunt comes in looking like a cross between a stealth bomber and a sleek aircraft carrier, and puts in a very impressive Gauntlet run, getting through all three house robots at light speed. I don't know if Sumo would've been Grunt's forte, but it didn't matter as Grunt was not allowed to go further, and driver Matthew Dickinson had no choice but to drive off the edge as a way of making sure it would go out. I suppose you can't blame the Barry team for feeling vehement on the move, and in fairness, after saying Grunt has a zero-turning circle, and we've just seen the Gauntlet run, it was a bit unconvincing, even without the knowledge of being forced to go out.

I don't see why, in the hands of other roboteers, the stock robots couldn't just be allowed to go all the way, that way, half the trials for Series 1 wouldn't have been rigged, teams wouldn't be left unhappy, and better robots would go further in the competition. Either that, or make sure they go out straight away, but I suppose it couldn't get much worse than Barry's run. The concern was that robots entered by the staff would win, but against Roadblock, Mortis and Recyclopse I'm confident they'd find the door soon enough.

Ah well, Grunt was a good veteran of the wars, one of the great pioneers for the sport in the UK. It may not be a firm favourite, but I hope it's still in one piece today.

Terminal Ferocity
Whilst watching Series 3, I did make sure the episodes were being recorded on video (Ahh, remember VHS?), but they were spread out across many tapes. One tape I kept referring back to back then, to watch my favourite show Robot Wars was one with the final two heats and the Semi-Finals. This is predominantly why the last two heats of Series 3 stick out for me more than the middle heats. As a result, I most definitely remember Terminal Ferocity, and how swiftly it was defeated by the experienced and very powerful Facet. The robot's design had clearly been well sort out, with the lifting ramp to flip, the chainsaw for the damage and the tracks lubricated with honey for the traction and pushing power. I wouldn’t have expected them to have prepared for a big flipping ramp like Facet to rush towards them and flip them straight over.

Thanks to the magic of the Robot Wars Wiki, I’ve now learned that Terminal Ferocity failed to qualify for three more series, and originally had intentions of attending the Series 7 qualifiers. This is saddening for me, I liked Terminal Ferocity for its design, looking like a toy tank/submarine, and I also liked the sound of the name, I wish that I was able to write up more about it, especially if there was an opportunity for it. If Series 3 is anything to by, it probably wouldn’t have proved too impressive, but it was able to immobilise Raizer Blade in the Series 4 qualifiers, so it must’ve been quite destructive, it just still lacked a srimech.

I'm glad to think that Terminal Ferocity is still going, and it's still sporting the tracks, this being the only part of the robot that seems to have stuck since Series 3. Having said that, even with Youtube I'm still yet to see it win a battle, I guess any victories it has against Kronic and Thor are few and far between.

Looking at the two guises of the robot since Robot Wars, I imagine the inability to self-right was never rectified, so Terminal Ferocity would most likely have been heat fodder if it came anywhere near a flipper. Having said that, a tracked robot, with that design, it would’ve been better to let Terminal Ferocity qualify at least once instead of another robot that couldn’t self-right, like Juggernot 2 or Spin Doctor or something. I don’t think letting it qualify for at least one of those three series would’ve been asking for too much. Apparently it was, like several teams such as those of TX-108, Knuckles and Chip, just attempting to qualify year after year wasn't enough to get the thumbs up. Thus, despite Terminal Ferocity actually being ever-present in the history of Robot Combat, even still fighting today, all that most of us will have to remember it by is it being tossed over by Facet in a matter of seconds.

Cataclysmic Variabot
As requested by ToastUltimatum, Cataclysmic Variabot. Often as a robot would be getting destroyed by the house robots, Jonathan Pearce would reiterate that a lot of effort, time and money must've gone into that robot, and it all seemingly going to waste. What was never really highlighted was the technical expertise required to build something like a heavyweight. Building a robot from the ground up, regardless of the weight category, takes a lot of expertise to get right, before you add in the time and money that has to be put aside. Thinking like this can contribute to not have high standards of the competitors, and even regard adequate and sub-par robots as "not bad" and be more tolerant of them. Robots like this, Cataclysmic Variabot, fall under this category, it wasn't particularly fast or strong or punishing as anything else in the ring, heck, even the axe couldn't right it in Extreme 2, demonstrating comparatively inferior weaponry. To top it off, the overall aesthetics were anything but inspiring, as generic as you could get with no frills at all really. Overall, without trying to sound too harsh, it was one of the weaker robots to enter either series of Extreme, probably the weakest in Extreme 2. But it did take skilled hands to put together a robot with good enough armour and speed, interchangeable weaponry, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too bad, achieving at least one win, which I suppose it didn't really earn.

The biggest thing that stood out about this one was the name, Cataclysmic Variabot, an absolute mouthful to get out the first time you say it, and a name that you probably couldn't say under the age of 8, so fate would never allow it to progress too far. Clearly at some point, somebody was told the name of their robot, and that person replied "...Really?", so the name was shortened to C.V. which was at least a step in the right direction.

Cataclysmic Variabot did win a qualifier battle against an experienced machine in Toe-Cutter 2, so it's probably a little unfair that it wasn't selected for the final line-up for the show, but if it had, I would definitely have regarded it as another robot that shouldn't have been in the wars. Throughout this encyclopedia I've suggested that some of these robots would've proved heat fodder in they entered another series, basically an appropriate term for those robots that even if they put up their best fight, even if they weren't absolutely hopeless, would likely fall in Round 1, Cataclysmic Variabot would've fallen in that category if it entered Series 5 or 6, and if they were even thinking about Series 7, forget it, enjoy the fact that you've appeared in both Extremes without looking too sub-standard.

Vader
Another ToastUltimatum request, a robot I regard as a bit of a One-hit Wonder, Vader. Vader's story first began in Series 5, when it first attempted to qualify. It was faced with Dome in a qualifier, and from what I've seen of that qualifier, clearly the disc was doing a bit of damage, it made a racket and looking frightening as it was spinning, so it definitely would've looked good in the arena, but it seems the producers were still unimpressed. This may have been down to the disc not being as destructive as first hoped, or it being too statuesque, whatever, bottom line is, they failed to qualify. Vader seemed unchanged from Series 5 as it had now successfully qualified for Series 6, and it performed alright, doing enough damage to its "below-average" foe and keeping the seeds Wild Thing occupied. Vader entered Round 2 with the odds being quite level as to who would win. As it happened, Vader got a fortunate hit on Aggrobot 3 which knocked them straight out, if that hit at that precise point was truly intended with the knowledge that Aggrobot would die from it...I don't buy it. Before you know it, newcomers Vader are in the heat final, and after the highly fancied 259 had been eliminated, even with the seeds present, the heat suddenly seemed very open. Vader eventually lost via judges' decision, but who doesn't against Wild Thing?

In Series 6, Vader did actually look quite menacing with the feature-less body and the large vertical disc which was able to KO a Robot Wars veteran, but the entire robot appeared very lightweight from then on. Vader entered Extreme, again seemingly unchanged, and was treated like any other respected robot for its recent top 24 finish, but was outclassed by three robots that proved even stronger. Jonathan Pearce seemed almost gob-smacked that Vader was being counted out, but against Terrorhurtz, it was hardly going in as the big fish. Series 7 came around, and a shift in the airing order for the heats meant Vader was in the very first battle, but once again didn't look like it had changed at all from its appearance in Series 6. I doubt many serious modifications were made to it, as it was effortlessly knocked around a bit by M2, not causing damage, before once again being immobilised by the side wall. To avoid the humiliation of being counted out, M2 made it all the more embarrassing and flipped the heat finalists of the previous war straight out of the arena, quickly joined by Shell Shock.

Teams weren't meant to be allowed to compete with two robots per series, and we are yet to confirm the reason that Vader was allowed to enter Series 7 alongside IG-88, but for me, why did they bother? IG-88 was the better machine purely for its weapon power, and Vader proved too weak for Series 7 against competent foe, having nothing more to offer than when it entered Extreme 2, so let someone else's robot have a go. As of when I'm typing this, we still only have one photo of Vader to cover its appearance from Series 5-7, illustrating that it didn't really change, and its performance in each state can only act as Exhibit B that it was effectively unchanged year on year. Key things needing change were the disc (which at 800RPM wasn't the quickest) and the inability to self-right, though it never actually got caught out from that. It may have struck a string of luck with how far it got in Series 6, but alongside its other appearances, this made Vader a true one-hit wonder.

Bolt from the Blue
Perhaps I could've said something about Terminal Ferocity for this, but it's always a bit odd when a completely obscure robot (due to its lack of success in real life) gets thrown into merchandise, like a video game or something. Bolt from the Blue is an ideal case in point, getting a figure in the Robot Wars Board Game. A great game, and whenever I played the game, I always wanted to be Bolt from the Blue because I liked the look of it, and apart from Razer it was the only one where I was 100% sure which one it was meant to be, the others always looked a lot more crude. But what an odd choice for merchandise, did they base it on their performance in the wars? Well, I doubt that's why they picked Destruct-A-Bubble, and I doubt they chose Bolt from the Blue for that reason either.

I know I've said for a lot of robots in this list that I've quite liked them and I liked the look of them, well, these aren't necessarily my favourites, but I'm not just a hippy fan that claims to like every robot. Despite liking the look of it (and the name), I was unimpressed by Bolt from the Blue. I did nothing in Round 1, getting through off the back of Ming 2's display, and I bet if it was up to Bolt from the Blue to take out Diotoir, it would've been a much larger struggle. Nevertheless, Bolt from the Blue was through to Round 2, and faced with the seeded Firestorm 2. This proved to be one of the most controversial battles in the Fourth Wars as the judges' decision really split Robot Wars fans nationwide. Though in truth, this was only because Firestorm 2 physically couldn't get underneath Bolt from the Blue. Personally, I agree with the decision, Firestorm 2 was considerably more active and adventurous, and only suffered one flip from Bolt from the Blue, which was quite limp in itself. Besides, the decision would've been even more controversial, if not more so, if Bolt from the Blue was put through, and the heat final would've been boring as hell, so yes, an unseeded newcomer would've made the Semi-Finals, but who cares if the resultant battles are so boring? Firestorm 2 made its final fights of Series 4 very exciting to watch.

The flipper power and maneouvrability in particular didn't impress me about Bolt from the Blue, I love how in the early few series of Robot Wars, a lot of teams would really talk up their robots by saying they could lift "up to a tonne" and "pull a Mondeo Estate". I guess some teams were encouraged to say things like this to emphasise to the viewers how powerful these machines really were, but sometimes it was a case of "Come On!", because Bolt from the Blue was said to have been able to lift "half a tonne" and "pull a Metro". So the robot could apparently lift 500kg, I doubt that given its one flip on Firestorm, just because of the figures of the pneumatic ram you've bought, doesn't mean it'll actually flip that. As for the Metro, maybe it did pull it, but Metro's aren't that heavy, and have wheels of their own, you'd be surprised how little power is actually needed to pull a car.

These parts of the robot annoyed me, but not as much as the amount of flips on tap, what was it? 4 or 5 flips? That might've sufficed in Series 1, maybe Series 2, but beyond that, you're robot's going to be laughed upon by other roboteers when Chaos 2, Steg 2 and Wheely Big Cheese have hit the arena. The worst part of the robot though was actually the team. James Procter, I understand that you've lost a controversial judges' decision, I'd be mad as anything, but whilst on camera at least, we have to show more sporting gestures than complaining because Firestorm are seeded, and saying to Craig Charles that you probably won't be back for the next war, these are the basics, and you made it difficult for the rest of us to feel sympathy.

Mortis
I was surprised to see that Mortis hadn't got a nomination in any of my awards, maybe Best Design or even scraping Best Engineered, but apparently not. Mortis is a weird one for me, one day I really like it, the next day I really hate it. What causes that? Well, its design has me hopping either side of the fence, whilst it's quite bland and boring, it also precision and very tidy-looking, which is why I like Behemoth's design in later wars. Most robots in the early wars looked like funny-shaped boxes with wheels and weapons sort of stick on, but Mortis looked almost military grade in terms of appearance, no nonsense, no fuss, just a box with a wedge and an axe. Apparently Mortis was meant to have the lifting arm in Series 2, not that it needed it, the lifter wouldn't have made Mortis any more feared or revered. By Series 4, it looked like Mortis' design was complete to take anything on.

The main thing that always has me on the fence with this robot is the team, say what you want, but they definitely entered Series 1 as one of the genuinely cockier teams. Mortis was a very good robot, but the team knew that all too well, the were so confident that if they just made sure the robot was fixed in time for its next fight, it would go incredibly far and even win, believing every other robot was sub-standard by comparison. However, after Mortis' axe broke before the heat final in Series 1, suddenly it looked very 50/50 for the Grand Final spot. Admittedly, after watching the final for the first time, I might've given the nod to Mortis, but now, I give it to Recyclopse for its initial attacks and Mortis' poor driving. The competitive spirit of the Mortis team was very clear, and even protested the ruling, though in fairness I may've done if that was me.

The producers clearly liked Mortis too, for the fact that it looked so much better built and armed then anything else, so they were eager to put in constantly in the spotlight and ensure it did very well. After awarding it with the Best Engineered Award in Series 1 (despite the axe breaking down), it was controversially seeded 2nd, despite only reaching the heat final, but they got away with this without too many complaints. Mortis predictably made it through the heats, but beyond this, a few issues kicked in, implying this was as far as Mortis would go. But not to see Mortis fall early, the producers forced Mortis through the Trial basically, at the expense of Napalm, the producers even feeling the need to put Mortis ahead of Behemoth on the leaderboard, but then there was no way around Panic Attack. To take blame away from the producers, they threw the Mortis team under the bus, I certainly believed that a competitive team like this lot would protest for another go, I believed the story, and despised Mortis for it.

From here, Mortis was shoved into the spotlight by the producers in several ways, like Razer, another producer favourite, Mortis was shoved into several competitions like the Pinball, World Championship and the International League Ashes, it was given a (on paper at least) seemingly below par heat, and it was nominated for awards in Series 3, and then it was entered in the War of Independence in Series 4, and put in a few video games to top it all off. You wonder why they didn't also opt for a pullback or minibot as well, maybe authentic tracks weren't applicable.

So on the whole, the team may not have been popular for several reasons, but I think the only things that they're guilty of is being very competitive and cocky, and cut a lot more slack by the producers than almost everybody else. As for the robot, the axe was devastating in the earlier wars, but began to level off in terms of effectiveness by Series 4. The lifter wasn't much of a second weapon, always struggling to lift robots up and flip them properly, even before the weight limit increase. The armour was strong, the tracks gave it grip, but the high ground clearance and poor reliability made it vulnerable. To summarise, an above-average robot at least, but pushed its luck with its success, and given how much it cost, you would've expected more. Clearly the results weren't enough as the robot was down to be retired, but not before it ended on a high, winning a tournament at last, just as the producers would've wanted. But after Series 4, what did we ever hear of Mortis? An alleged one-off comeback for Extreme that never happened, the odd whisper of who Ming lost to in Series 3, and that was it. Clearly without the producers pointing out it was there, Mortis didn't leave much of a mark with the sport.

Hamster
What is there to say about a robot that didn't ever appear on the show after failing to qualify once? We don't know how well it performed, how fast it was, how tough it was, we don't even have a proper profile photo of it. Regardless, I'll cover it seeing as I said "random". We will probably never know how it failed to qualify, did it have poor performance? did it simply lose to another in a qualifier? was it badly destroyed? was it unreliable or weak-armoured?...or was it simply too uninspiring for the staff to give it the thumbs up? I fear that with its bland grey exterior with lack of artwork and its generic weaponry, the latter may be correct. It probably wouldn't have looked as good as something like Bot Out Of Hell in the arena, even if it lasted longer. I would've agreed to be honest, the robot not really relating to its name. Be that as it may, while I am a particular fan of robots like Wheely Big Cheese for looking really cool and wacky, I do appreciate robots like this that are basically blank canvas', this being the main reason my favourite house robot is Shove, they're simple, and therefore almost pleasing.

It's difficult to make judgements on robots that only failed to qualify, for wiki tournaments and alike, as we don't really know a lot about them, but fortunately with Hamster we have their website archived, albeit only a few pages actually working. This can at least give a bit of an insight as to what the robot had for power, drive, even letting us know they had go-kart wheels. Also, this can always be a handy build diary template for a simple heavyweight, if anyone's feeling adventurous and rich enough... That said, we still don't really know how well it would've stood up to the average attacker, or how high its flipper would've thrown away its foe. I'm guessing it was around the "par" mark. Thus, if it had been had chosen for the final line-up instead of another bland-looking robot (e.g. Kliptonite) or a definite flop (e.g. Granny's Revenge), how well would it have done? Again, I predict around the "par" mark, first round drop-out, maybe reaching the second round, depending on the draw, and not really setting the arena alight or being that fondly remembered. If Hamster wasn't actually badly harmed in the qualifiers, trying for the Sixth Wars with an unchanged robot wouldn't have been a bad idea, I mean, after all the effort they've clearly put into building it, they might as well use it for longer, even if it was destroyed then by 259 or someone. Without trying, it means that Hamster is just another robot that only tried once, where it's sad for the team that they didn't qualify, but it's no real biggie for the rest of us.

Cobra
Jonathan Pearce regarded "the robot everyone loves to hate" as Mortis, now back then, in the Robot Wars community, that was probably true. These days however, particularly amongst the wiki community, the robot everyone loves to hate is probably Cobra. Why is this? Well, it was a two-wheel drive robot with a huge ground clearance, it was basically a box-shaped robot with grey as the only colour, and its weaponry was a small pneumatic spike that the team admitted only had around 4 or 5 hits in the bottle. We on the wiki find it annoying that several robots like this made it into the main series, whereas other really exciting-looking robots and old favourites didn't make the cut. The main ones like Mortis, Merlin, PulverizeR and Sir Chromalot had good reason for not being present, but others are still left unexplained like Pressure, Splinter and Slicer. We can't help but feel that several robots from the Seventh Wars shouldn't have been in the final line-up, robots like Tartarus and Araknia make that list, but at the top of the list and at the forefront of everybody's mind is Cobra, why is that?

The interview before its only battle was enough to confirm that Cobra wasn't going to set the warzone alight, so it probably wasn't built to win. But the reason we dislike this more than, say, Tartarus, is because it clearly wasn't a sacrificial robot. Cobra does have some good points, such as good grip on the wheels and a very tough titanium shell that The Kraken didn't have an answer for, but its weaknesses meant it still wasn't going to be the most competent, so in the end it still performed poorly, but it didn't go out by smashing into smithereens, it went out after one jab from Pinser and they got locked together, it was a dull battle, mainly because there was such a delay, and that wasn't really Cobra's fault. But the point is, if it had gone up in a blaze like Araknia, if it had been bulldozed right over by Behemoth like Tartarus, or it had been ripped apart and then torched like Scarey-Go-Round, I doubt it would get as much grief, because at least that would've been entertaining.

To be honest, for all we knew, Cobra may have been a substitute, that just happened to be around when it was needed for filming, like Mighty Mouse, but at this point we don't know.

Credit where it's due, Cobra was not a bad build, it had clearly been well thought out and it was quite well built with the tough shell and everything, I'm sure the time and effort put into Cobra was a lot. However, the weapon power and supply, and lack of creativity in the design made Cobra a dull robot to watch, and nobody really shed a tear when it lost. I don't hate Cobra, it didn't really have any qualities that made me hate it, but the easiest way to sum up Cobra is the fact that it was the only robot in the Audited Series 7 wiki tournament to be "binned" by all users.

Pain
Four robots in Robot Wars history were forced to withdraw from the competition and weren't replaced, meaning the robots around them benefitted. Probably the least memorable is Pain, as Terrorhurtz was the 3rd seed in Series 7, Thunderpants was from seasoned competitors, and The Parthian Shot was forced to withdraw twice in a row. Pain was a small robot with a spike and tracks. It didn't look that punishing or aggressive, and it didn't look like it was going to go too far, but the spike was at least seen as dangerous enough by the producers that they wanted it banned, they can at least walk away with that. Pain may not have looked like a bookie favourite, which was just as well as it looked like it wouldn't get going, after a long time of trying to get the thing to work, the team ran out of time, and everybody else progressed to the Trial, regardless of their Gauntlet runs.

I find this disappointing for three reasons, one that the team weren't able to get Pain going, two that it proved quite an anti-climax for the Gauntlet, making it almost look like a waste of time, and three and most importantly, why weren't there any reserves waiting in the wings? The reserve rumble showed that there were plenty of robots ready to battle during the time of filming, one of those five or six should have been lined up ready to swoop in if another robot that had qualified couldn't make it. Clearly reserves were needed for the wars, with Panda Monium, Wheelosaurus and Griffon were brought in, but this makes it all the more perplexing that nobody was available to make up for Pain or The Parthian Shot. If there weren't any more reserves, surely the producers should've had stock robots like Grunt still in the back room, or bring in Ramrombit, they would've been good to see again, especially robots like Grunt that were forced to cut their appearances short last time.

We may never know why these two weren't replaced in Series 2, when others were, but after Judge Mech failed to qualify for Series 3 and 4, looking a bit like a blue Pain, it was nice to know that the team had finally made it into the arena (and won a battle!) in Series 6 with Spam.

Schumey
A request from Jimlaad43, in honour of the Formula 1 legend, Schumey, named after the racing driver for its fantastic speed across the arena floor. Schumey was the fastest robot around in Series 2, and again one of the fastest in Series 3. I first saw Schumey in Series 3 as Schumey Too, what I found interesting was that the team had opted for a Too model name rather than Two or 2 or II, but also that it looked partly like a Formula 1 car, and partly like a vintage car with those forks. It was nice to see a completely new design, even if it was sporting conventional weaponry in the form of lifting forks. In-battle, the robot was quite nippy and active, and showed great pushing power, and I did liken to it a bit I suppose, but even so I was happy to see The Steel Avenger go through after Schumey just got too close to the pit and was gently bumped in.

This was a poor end for quite a promising robot, I mean, Schumey was far from Semi-Final quality, but I think was in the top half of the line-up that series. I can't help thinking up until that point, Schumey might have won that battle, and what would've happened from there? Diotoir wouldn't have managed to topple it as easy, maybe it could've beaten Diotoir, and then what would've happened against Firestorm? Well, that one probably had Loss written on it, but a Heat Final finish would've done.

I only saw a snippet of its Gauntlet run in the replay during Series 3, so it wasn't until many years later that I saw the original Schumey properly in action. It was a much more basic machine compared with its successor, not that it really concerned me, I was pleased to see a robot/team I recognised that I quite liked in Series 3. I was rooting for it in its heat, and relieved that it at least made it through to the Trial, but from there it went a little downhill. This isn't a big surprise, with that high ground clearance and lack of weaponry, it was clearly built purely for speed, and I doubt it would've done that well in the Arena stage.

Schumey didn't return after Series 3, I've always wondered what a Schumey Three would've looked like, or Schum3y or whatever they would've called it, and how it would've performed. Unfortunately, we'll never know, but it's unlikely that our expectations would've been high.

Kan-Opener
Jimlaad43 requesting one of the better performers of the list so far, Kan-Opener. I've got nothing wrong with Kan-Opener, it wasn't a favourite, it wasn't a least favourite, it was always good to see as a different design in terms of arsenal, especially in the Series 7 Annihilator, and it always under-achieved. I guess if I had to pick out one reason I didn't like it was its name, that always needs a cheeky hyphen, that can be annoying when having to write it all the time, so for the remainder of this, I'm just going to call it Kan. Another thing on the name was that I never got the whole Spec thing, at this stage it's just a farce to be able to keep up with which one is still going, and which was used for what event or series.

Much like Fluffy in the first series of Extreme, I think I can be forgiven for not really remembering Kan being in Series 5, it was only when I started watching Robot Wars again, a few years after it had finished. I don't know why though, maybe because it was in one of the first heats and was overshadowed by the seeded Hypno-Disc, or maybe it was because in Series 5 there were no pre or post battle interviews for the first round, for the loser anyway, so if a robot went out quite soon in the battle, like Kan, it was always going to be a fleeting visit. The design of the Series 5 model deserves merit, with the unusual shape of the body and the long side arm with the glove on it for a srimech. It was working well for a while, but later proved to be the downfall, after it broke against an improved Atomic machine.

Kan wasn't too bad for Series 5, but that srimech issue was rectified with the simple idea of making the robot invertible. It was still a unique design, and the eyes were all on those massive pincers. The pincers (sorry, horizontal crushers) really did do damage to Demolition Man, sending it out almost straight away, but after it couldn't get away, Kan was basically open to a pummeling from Fluffy and Double Trouble. After a while, Kan was released, but already immobile, so was out. Series 7 didn't see its luck improve, again, it caused damage to Barbaric Response, but because it couldn't get away, it couldn't really rack up any more points, so The Grim Reaper and Big Nipper were given the benefit of the doubt for being more active, despite the fact they didn't really affect each other or deal any damage.

Contrary to its main competition performances, Kan was almost invincible in the Annihilators, it held back somewhat in the early rounds of both annihilators, and then when only three remained, it teamed up with another robot to defeat the other, which meant in the final, there would be nobody behind them ready to launch an attack from behind, and there wasn't another robot benefitting from a tentative tug of war between Kan and another robot. As a result, Kan won both the final two annihilators of the show, and its Win/Loss record on the wiki is superb.

Looking at why that is, I would say Series 5 is exempt from the reasoning, because it had a slightly different design that was vulnerable to flipping, but in Series 6 and 7, I think Kan just got unlucky with having to go through melees, I think head-to-head, it would've performed so much better in both series, as little things occurred in both series that meant being in a melee would leave it in a sticky situation. For instance, against Barbaric Response, without another robot in that battle, Kan would've won that, it's only that it didn't really do anything when grabbing Barbaric Response that Big Nipper and The Grim Reaper got the nod.

These days, Kan is still going, one of the few grippers left, aside from ones like Tiberius which are sidelined, and Mantis which are in a bit of a state, so at least if offers something different to the new live events other than flippers and lifters, and it is actually quite successful, despite the obsession with melees in the live events. I had and still have a lot of respect for Kan, having said that, when in a battle with any of them now, I'd rather back robots like Behemoth, Terminal Ferocity and The Steel Avenger.

Dominator 2
Jimlaad43 requested I covered Dominator 2, a robot which I was rather hoping to avoid, this is because it's always been amongst my Least Favourites, never as far as Tornado, but I feared I'd struggle to come across as neutral. Well, with three consecutive finishes in the top 8 in just three main competition appearances, Dominator 2 is definitely one of the strongest robots in Robot Wars history, easily the strongest in this encyclopedia thus far. From a certain point of view it makes a great case for being in my Most Promising Newcomer nominees, but I still counted Dominator as the first entry, and I never actually saw it first time, or saw the massive potential. I mean yes, it scored an unbelievably high Pinball score, but it was a high score amongst several mediocre runs, and Six Pac would've more than trounced it, had it not cut out in front of the 75 point tyre, and then there's Razer's run.

The main reason I dislike Dominator 2 is, despite the team seeming like a nice bunch or people, the robot always came across as the smuggest robot in the warzone, it's tall stance with that axe standing so proudly like a spoilt boy's head, what made it worse was I really wanted to see it suffer, yet it performed so well without breaking sweat. In Series 4, it took out Henry 2 after the first hit, it took out Shadow of Napalm, and then took out 101 in the heat final, all three of these comparatively in the Robot Wars world looked like the nicest robots to come up against, none of which had meant any harm to anyone, and Dominator 2 just came in and dominated the lot. Dominator 2 then defeated Firestorm in the Semi-Finals, marking the latter's worst ever performance in the wars for the rest of its career, and I'm not sure if I even agree with the decision, never mind how close they say it was for the judges to decide. Eventually, Pussycat gave it too much to handle and they fell short of the Grand Final.

This "mentality" of Dominator 2 was kept up for the rest of its career, it humiliated its heat opponents in Series 5, and Series 6, and it made a fool of The Executioner in Extreme, though that was just driver error. It doesn’t need much reiterating that Wheely Big Cheese has always been my favourite, so when I saw it faced with Dominator 2 in the Semis of Series 5, I was so worried about the result, and what would you believe would happen, but Dominator 2 won, and what makes that even more irritating was that Dominator 2 didn’t really contribute to the cheese’s breakdown. In both Series 5 and 6, like Series 4, it just fell short of the Grand Final as it came up against superior competition, though it did itself in against Tornado.

The thing was, throughout Dominator 2’s run, much like Tornado’s run, I was always ready to enjoy the moment when Dominator 2 would be badly defeated in-battle, and then when it would be tortured by the house robots to prolong the pleasure. I got this with Tornado, in its Extreme mayhem and kind of in Series 5. However, I never had this sensation with Dominator 2, it only lost in Series 4 and Extreme 1 via the judges, Hypno-Disc and 13 Black both backed off in Series 5 and Extreme 2 to prevent Dominator 2 being properly immobile, and Tornado wasn’t the one to pit it in Series 6. The only time that this really happened was the Northern Annihilator, and I don’t actually remember watching that final, so I had to wait until many years later to finally satisfy that unlived childhood dream (so to speak).

That last point is an important one, why on two occasions was Dominator 2 not counted out after it had been immobilised on one side against the spinners? Ah well...

These days though, I’m older, I’m calmer, and I can learn to respect Dominator 2. I don’t like it, but it was a seasoned competitor like all the rest, and it just did what it did well because it was just a very well engineered robot, not Top 10 of my nominees good, but still good. If any fans of Dominator 2 or anybody associated with the team feels hard done by with the comments above, well, sorry, but I have to be honest with my childhood beliefs, and we all have our niggles from the show.

One thing I did also pick up on, was, in the later wars, Dominator 2, particularly by Jonathan Pearce, was criticised with all of its weaknesses being highlighted more than any other All-Star. Factors such as the uni-directional weaponry and the actual damage potential of the axe were almost deemed unimpressive, I don’t think any other high-performer of the age suffered that kind of criticism, even when Chaos 2 was struggling to flip robots too far and Hypno-Disc was struggling to break through armour. Nevertheless, Dominator 2 was struggling in Series 6, it didn’t really do a lot in its melee, and always looked on the back foot against S.M.I.D.S.Y. and Hydra until they began to wear down. In Extreme 2, it only was the incredibly tough shell that kept it in the running with Hypno-Disc, and it was still requiring many repairs after the battle.

Dominator 2 was meant to enter Series 7 as a high seed, but was forced to withdraw. I don’t know why the producers chose to stage a bit of drama with Terrorhurtz and not Dominator 2, or why Ming Dienasty was the replacement. But what I do know is that it’s probably a good thing that it didn’t compete. I fear it had little more to give, if its decline in Series 6 was anything to go by, it would likely have been another one of the seeds to be humiliated in the heats by a newbie. Since it wasn’t there, we’ll never know, and Dominator 2 could end its career with 3 Semi-Finals, no heat flops, a brilliant Win/Loss record and an Annihilator runners-up placing under its belt, forever a robot remembered as a feared contender.

Nemesis
As requested by Madlooney6, Nemesis, the forgotten predecessor of the infamous Diotoir, well, probably not forgotten, but no where near as popular, despite the fact that it was actually the first robot to appear as it did, but then Diotoir was on air for much longer and was much more successful. I had Nemesis flying the Team Diotoir flag when it came to the Most Original Entry Award above, since it was before Diotoir, it came close, but in the end I chose not to give it the cut and only listed it as a Near Miss/Honourable Mention. Perhaps that was a mistake, maybe it was more deserving than some of the robots in the list, but it just shows the standard for the robots in that category as so many great designs came throughout the show's run.

I never originally saw Nemesis fight, I'd seen the brief clip of it being pitted by Onslaught in Series 2, and it just looked a bit like Diotoir only slightly different. Of course, I also saw it in the International League Championship, but it had been painted yellow and featured a nasty-looking face and had a different name, so I don't know if that really counts.

So bottom line, I hadn't seen Nemesis properly fight at all, until I bought the video on Series 1's best bits, and I'd already heard of Nemesis' exploits. From what has been shown of Nemesis on-screen, it was basically the Diotoir for the first two wars, because it was, though to be fair, it completed the Gauntlet, it defeated Shunt in the Sumo, and gave Roadblock a good tussle as well. Nemesis was certainly stronger than it looked, and was above average in comparison with the rest of the line-up, for Series 1 anyway. Nemesis could've reached a heat final if it was in one of the later heats that didn't have Roadblock or Killertron or Mortis or Robot the Bruce, but I bet it could've had a good go at the other 31, who knows, maybe even reach the Grand Final...Diotoir wouldn't have been treated like a joke then.

Sadly, Nemesis never actually made a heat final, in two attempts, and the only extra bits that we saw of it was the battle with Sergeant Bash and Ramrombit, while it was funny to watch, it wasn't really enough, and only Diotoir got the screen time that we wanted from the team. As I say, we would've wanted more of Nemesis, and perhaps the International League Championship was an answer to those wishes, but by Series 3 it was already outdated and too little, too late. Nemesis was a great entrant for the first war that brought excellent balance in terms of aesthetics, but it remains in Diotoir's shadow as far as we remember.

Toe Cutter
A request by Hogwild94 leads me to Toe Cutter, a robot that I thought always had a hyphen, which I find irritating. I would do what I did for Kan-Opener and just call it Toe, but that doesn't work, and TC's been taken, so Cutter will have to do. Cutter didn't exactly look the most aesthetic in Series 3, whilst other roboteers were experimenting with unusual designs that may have been animal based or had massive weaponry fitted or had bright colours, Cutter was just a grey box with no initially visible weaponry. Despite this, Cutter does stick out for me, I think the weapon choice was quite original, albeit quite ineffective, and I'm always reminded of that moment when it was toppled over by Panic Attack. Cutter reached the second round in Series 3 after defeating Purple Predator, earning itself some degree of respect, but against the reigning champions, it didn't really have much hope. Though in fairness, the second round was probably Cutter's limit, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't aggressive enough and was vulnerable to flipping and axes by the looks of it. I think it's interesting that the show's editors felt the need to show the weapon slicing through a watermelon, even Jonathan Pearce made out that it meant nothing, and much like the A-Kill team trying to sell their robot's strength, it didn't set the bar for itself very high.

Cutter was absent for Series 4, not that we were missing anything, I can't imagine it would've gone far, but Cutter returned for Series 5. It didn't look like much of the robot had actually changed, it was clearly the same body, only the wheel guards had been removed and roll frames had been fitted to the top, apart from that, the weapon and the armour looked the same and it would take something special for the producers to give it the thumbs up to enter Series 5. Clearly, Cutter lacked a lot of necessary traits, as it lost its only qualifier to the lowly Cataclysmic Variabot, a robot that even after winning a battle, the producers weren't impressed with. This loss was enough evidence that Cutter just wasn't up to scratch, and was retired after this. This loss means that Cutter technically remains another one-time competitor that fell in the heats, so for the average fan, forgetful.

I'll use Cutter as an example, but it amazed me at how expensive the robots were back then, that these people were spending many thousands of pounds on, on Cutter's case, a box on wheels. The right technology these days means to build a robot of equal performance wouldn't be as much in cost, but it sort of puts into mind how much effort the roboteers put in just for their 5 minutes of fame, even if was destroyed or battered in a matter of moments.

Cutter's shell appears to have survived the test of time, appearing at odd events as a static display, though I get the feeling that most of the audience at the events won't even remember what robot it is, even with the name on the front.

ORAC
Another request from Hogwild94, ORAC, well, ORAC's Revenge was requested, but I suppose I should also cover the original as well. Though I will begin with ORAC's Revenge, because it's the first one I saw. ORAC's Revenge entered Series 3 looking average in terms of, well, everything really, it looked adequately tough and featured weaponry that wouldn't be considered any greater or worse than the norm, but I've always admitted that ORAC's Revenge has been a favourite of mine, borderline Top 10 in actual fact. Several things lead me to this, the first is the name, ORAC's Revenge just flows off the tongue so well, much better than naming it something like ORAC 2, which comes out just like any other noise. The other main reason I like it is because it just looked quite good, it didn't look too ridiculous like some of the robots in Series 3, but the green paint scheme for scales and the snarling face was a good all-round look, with the small axe weapon and small front spikes rounding off the design nicely. Another reason I like it, a reason why I like a lot of robots, is it's a bit of an underdog. ORAC's Revenge was a good robot, the repetitive motion of the axe and the fact that it survived several bashes into the wall at speed showed it was reliable. Thankfully, most people on the wiki agree, ORAC's Revenge always seems to manage a victory in every wiki tournament it's been in to date. It wasn't Round 1 drop-out material, not brilliant, but far from that bad, and Steg-O-Saw-Us just humiliated it in-battle by slamming it around effortlessly and then shoving it down the pit, this being the first case as to why I disliked Steg-O-Saw-Us back then.

At which point, I should turn to the first ORAC. I knew nothing of ORAC's performance in Series 2, I wasn't even 100% sure that the ORAC's Revenge team had even fought before. Nevertheless, I was rooting for ORAC in its heat to go as far as it could possibly go. This was even though I knew I didn't like it as much as ORAC's Revenge, the name ORAC on its own didn't really feel nice, and the robot itself with its yellow shape and almost anorexic frame put me off a little. That didn't mean I wasn't pleased to see it reach the Arena stage, so it had achieved so much more than my ORAC's Revenge, but against Killertron, the robot I knew finished 4th that series, I knew what was coming. At least it did well, as it turned out, ORAC was a half decent machine back then, but the redesign was necessary.

Back to ORAC's Revenge, I only learned when first joining the wiki that ORAC's Revenge failed to qualify for Series 4. I had always wanted to see ORAC's Revenge come back, and now I know they tried, and it's not like the robot had changed, only the axe head appeared to be different, so it would've been the same robot I knew and loved. Yet, I and the rest of us were deprived of another appearance for it. I wonder how well it would've done..., then again, it may've been faced with Tornado and then it would've been a case of deja vu. I guess after that, there was a lack of incentive for the team to keep working on a robot to compete, but it would've been nice to have seen ORAC's Revenge in later years, even if it wasn't that strong. I wonder what's happened to it now?

Comengetorix
A Madlooney6 request brings me to the greatest "Mortis clone", with its weaponry and its excruciatingly poor reliability, Comengetorix was the closest thing you could get to Mortis this side of the Cambridge border. I don't hold anything against it for this, but what I didn't like about Comengetorix was its reliability. Comengetorix was from the team that entered Vercingetorix, and Jonathan Pearce was eager to point this out every time it entered the arena. Why was this? Anyone who wasn’t new to the show would’ve guessed, and Vercingetorix hardly left a great pedigree, sure, it looked distinctive and strong in Series 4, but it had one win against Fat Boy Tin (alongside Plunderbird 4 under its name, hardly worth shouting about in the pits.

Back to Comengetorix, it looked good, with its dual arsenal and bulky blue frame, so I imagine the crew were keen to give it as much screen time as possible. This probably leading to why it was amongst the select few to be featuring in about every Extreme tournament, like Diotoir and Pussycat. However, whilst Diotoir and Pussycat won a fair few battles, Comengetorix only looked strong when it was battering an already overturned Major Tom, but looked ineffective and cumbersome everywhere else, choosing to break down or cut out in almost every battle. Comengetorix should’ve achieved so much more in Extreme, with the opportunities it had, but its reliability with the speed controllers let it down.

Comengetorix wasn’t selected for the main competition in Series 5, I imagine it broke down in its qualifier and that was that, though was it just me, or did anybody else not realise that it wasn’t there? I’m glad Comengetorix returned for Series 6, not giving up after a failure to qualify, and I was glad to see that the reliability issues had been all but rectified. This meant that I could actually root for it instead of chuckle as it broke down (again). I wasn’t happy to see St. Agro fall, but Comengetorix was through and faced with another “Mortis clone”, Hydra. Hydra was too strong, it took a lot to finally silence that one, and the mediocrity of Comengetorix wasn’t enough to do more than hang to a judges’ decision with its flipping arm broken. Comengetorix had done alright, but it was time to call it a day, nothing more to say or do, it was never going to do any better than Round 2.

As a young kid, a big blue robot with an axe and flipper did look quite cool and interesting, yet I didn’t really warm to it enough to call it a favourite, strange...

Warhog
Another Jimlaad43 request sees me at Warhog, the robot entered by a team that really looked game for a laugh, it's just too bad for them that their robot with a destructive spinning disc didn't manage to win a battle in three series. Warhog first entered Series 4, it didn't look that serious, something that never really changed, and it didn't look like that disc would do anything to two previous heat finalists of the wars. As it turned out, Warhog's first proper slam was tremendous, it caused sparks and sent it flying away, in the air. It was theatrical stuff, and looked like it had caused severe damage to Dreadnaut. At which point, Warhog looked like a bit of a dark horse to win the heat, but the next moment on screen saw it immobilized by the arena wall, if you ask me, this meant Dreadnaut and The Darke Destroyer got off lucky, ignore the later damage to Dreadnaut by the house robots in the battle.

Warhog returned, slightly changed, for Series 5, this brought a bit of promise with it, not only did we remember the carnage Warhog was capable of doing in its Series 4 battle, but it was up against Napalm, the robot renowned for its lack of structural integrity. Utter carnage was almost guaranteed, however, this was an unfulfilled wish, as Warhog was clearly on a limp by the end and hadn't really dealt enough before hand anyway.

This meant that when a largely unchanged Warhog returned for Series 6, whilst it was great to see Warhog and the team back again, I certainly didn't expect much, not with S.M.I.D.S.Y. in the battle anyway. However, Warhog did deliver, sort of, it badly damaged the arena wall, more severe damage than Hypno-Disc was ever able to do to the wall. From then on, we returned to our state of enjoying Warhog looking ridiculous, as it had several piggy-backs from S.M.I.D.S.Y. before eventually being passed gently into the pit. Too bad, it had lasted so long this time as well...

After three consecutive Round 1 drop-outs, you can't blame the team for not trying again, or maybe there were other reasons for a Series 7 absence, but I think we missed out on a lot of fun with Warhog being absent from both Extremes. It's too bad really, Warhog will really only be remembered for being a bit of a joke, because of its form, its face, and its piggy-backs. But the truth is, with the damage caused to Dreadnaut and the arena wall, Warhog was clearly a very strong and dangerous robot, that just failed to deliver every time.