User:RA2/Writing pieces

Since my userpage was getting too long, here is a page for all my writings.

The 10 most underrated robots on Robot Wars
I was planning on making a top-10 list of my favourites, but was displeased when I realized that most of my picks were predictably semifinalists. This top 10 is my way of giving credit to some of my favourites that would normally not get their day in the sun. They’re the ones who, in my opinion (remember that phrase well, should you disagree with my choices), should have been given more reverence.


 * 10 – Plunderbird 2. You’re probably wondering why this robot made the list at all; after all, it’s one of the most spirited teams and practically a household name.  Well, they make the list because of the second version of their robot; the one that made a semifinal.  After the disaster in Series 3, the team shifted towards comedy, and their robots suffered.  Robot Wars was at its peak of popularity in Series 5, meaning that the team was best remembered for the wanton destruction of their Plunderbird 5.  But I’ll never forget the mark of Plunderbird that not only won, but dominated in a match against the guy who would go on to make Wheely Big Cheese.


 * 9 - Reactor 2. The team were true artists, between this and Rhino, they refused to enter a robot that wasn’t beautiful. The rollover design was subtle yet effective, and though the weapons were no Chaos 2 or Dominator; they were respectable.   Any wary robot knew to keep away.


 * 8 – Wo-Wot. Adam Clark has never been successful in terms of winning.  We’ve got Vector of Armageddon who got stuck on a ramp, Corporal Punishment who just plain never won, and 259 who lost a belt in that faithful battle.  And then there’s Wo-Wot.  You have to see it to believe it, a grabber AND a crusher, what a brilliant idea.  As shown in its battle with Lambsy, it can really put the pressure on, and would’ve won if not for a certain interference.  Granted it still would’ve lost to Hypno-Disc and albeit, much more brutally.  Still, Clark was planning on building a new robot anyway, and losing to Hypnodisc is nothing to be ashamed of.  It also could’ve done well in the War of Independence, had they formatted it properly and let Wo-Wot fight an American, which was kind of the whole point of the contest.


 * 7 – General Chompsalot. Another personal favourite of mine, the one that never quite could.  If you look at its battle record, it was always one step away from glory; one more victory would’ve given it a place in the Season 2 Grand Final, the first US Tag Team Terror championship, or the title in either War of Independence.  It was a very efficient grab-and-pit design, I always love those.  It’s such a shame that the General never became a household name; it was such a fun robot.


 * 6 – Joint winners, PulverizeR and Slicer. The Dutch champions got plenty of love in their home country, why can’t they get any in the UK?  In both of PulverizeR’s UK appearances, its disc wasn’t working properly; that was not the Dutch champion I saw in the Dutch Wars videos on Youtube.  If it hadn’t been for those, and all I knew about PulverzeR was its UK appearances, it would have been nothing more than “the Dutch robot that looks like Infernal Contraption whose disc doesn’t work.”  I’m putting Slicer here too, because despite being a Dutch champion, none of its fights are up on Youtube; all I know is that it didn’t qualify for Series 7.  And it’s a real shame too, because based on what I’ve read on the Dutch Forums, Slicer’s victory was nothing short of well-earned.


 * 5 – General Carnage 2. Flipped another robot out of the arena.  Not too spectacular in 2010, but at the time of its battle, only 4 other heavyweights had managed to do that.  So, why wasn’t General Carnage given the attention it deserved? Why was it never seen again on Robot Wars?  Why is it no more than a statistic, the only robot to flip another out of the arena and never reach a  heat final?  Was it because it coughed up its link in the battle against Stinger?  We’ll never know, and it’s a real shame too, I think it could’ve been a semifinalist if placed in an “opportunity” heat (ie, one where they expect the seed to fail.)


 * 4 – Scarab (Series 3). Pop quiz; what do Thermidor, Kan Opener, and Tough As Nails have in common?  Successful horizontal crushers.  But who was the pioneer of such a devastating weapon?  Surely there must have been a failure before success.  There was, but many Robot Wars fans would be hard-pressed to name it.  I’m talking of course about Scarab.  It won nothing, and thus was forgotten.   But in 1999, the webmaster of Tectonic predicted that this design, humble as it may be, would inspire countless imitators.  And how.


 * 3 – √3. Solid proof that anything WJ Dikstra touches turns to gold. If I were filming the Dutch Wars and I happened upon the only 3-way clusterbot in all of Europe, you can bet I would be begging the team to let it be shown to a UK audience- the audience that generates the majority of or Robot Wars’ money and viewership.  What a shame that such a robot was almost buried with the sands of time.  We are very fortunate to have snippets of Dutch Robot Wars on Youtube, but they are only snippets; who knows what other beautiful designs remain hidden from us?  At this point, I have to give a big, big thank you to the uploader of Dutch Robot Wars.  I won’t say your name here, but you know who you are.  You’ve done us all a big service.


 * 2 – Joint winners, Ming 3 and Tiberius 3. Harsh critics call them “Razer clones” and I a real problem with that.  They built their robots from scratch; you can’t just eye up a robot, and then instantly have the capacity to build it, it doesn’t work that way.  Even if the team drew inspiration from Razer, the robots still took a lot of money, hard work, and knowledge to build, that deserves some respect.  And they both work pretty decently; a crusher is NOT an easy weapon to make and maintain.  If you’re still not convinced about these two, try designing your own robot in your head.  I guarantee you will not come up with a design that can’t be classified as a “(insert a famous robot’s name here)” clone.

And the number 1 robot is............


 * 1 – Killerhurtz. My, my Killerhurtz.  Never have I seen such intercontinental dichotomy.  It originates from England, but from its stats, you wouldn’t guess.  How many 1-on-1 victories does it have?   In the States, 12, in its home country, zero.  Not forgetting that it finished second, top 4, and top 8 in three separate Battlebots tournaments.  It was such a spectacle to watch; the obscure arrow-design actually worked as a battering ram, and the axe didn’t fail it when it needed to self-right.  Sadly, Battlebots was never brought to the UK, and Killerhurtz could not replicate that success on Robot Wars. After Terrorhurtz took the spotlight, Killerhurtz was doomed to live in its shadow forever.  All the props to John Reid, Terrorhurtz is a fantastic machine.  It’s just a shame that Killerhurtz will forever be remembered in its own country as, to quote Craig Charles, “pants.”

Top 10 robots who should’ve qualified
After Robot Wars started gaining momentum, it was inevitable that there would be more robots than spots available. Sadly, this meant that many a roboteer would go home without even getting on TV. Luckily, the power of the Internet meant that such robots would not be lost to time forever, and their captains could still get the word about their robots. Thanks to this modern streamlined communication, we’ve been able to come up with quite a hefty list of rejects, thus assuring that those hardworking roboteers got at least a mention for all their time and effort. Of course, in looking through the list, I found several robots who, if I had my druthers, would have not been rejected at all. I will list those robots in ascending order, and make a suggestion about whom each robot could have replaced.


 * 10 – More Panda Monium More Panda Monium.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 3


 * Why it should have: Because of the title sequence. Its spike cannon looks exactly the same as the | one in the title sequence.  Remember the theme song from the first four wars?  It had graphics of all sorts of things they thought they’d see on Robot Wars.  Most of them were based on house robots; the saw on an arm, the chainsaw, and the big bulldozer plough with headlights, to name a few.  However, some of the graphics were based off American designs that they thought would pop up in the UK as well.  The spike cannon, made popular by the American robot DooMore, was one such example.  It must have come as a surprise to the producers when zero spike cannons entered the first two wars, you’d think they would have pounced at the chance to include as many such robots as possible to justify having that graphic in the theme song.  Instead they only put two such weapons through to Series 3 (Aggrobot and Axios).


 * Who could it have replaced: Brimhur.  I concede that retractable spears in general are ineffective, which is why it’s only fair that another reciprocating weapon give its place to More Panda Monium.  Out of all such robots, Brimhur is the most obvious choice.  Have you noticed that every other team with a retracting spear put a good amount of effort into making their robot look like more than a box with a spike?  Seriously, think of all the retracting-weapon wielders from Series 3; there’s Terrorpin, 101, Spike, The Grim Reaper, Twn Trwn and so on.  Brimhur’s team could have at least done with a coat of paint.


 * 9 – Adam Clark’s Twister (no picture available)
 * Failed to qualify: Series 4


 * Why it should have: Though the producers wouldn’t have known at the time, Clark would enter seven different robots over the course of six series. Even so, he’d become somewhat of a celebrity in the first three series, having built three different bots, and modified one.  Anyone who’d spend that much time and money deserves a round of applause for his devotion.


 * Who could it have replaced: Dreadnaut.  I know that’s an unusual decision, seeing as Dreadnaut was a seeded robot, but the fact of the matter is, Dreadnaut broke down all of its appearances, and only won battles riding on the backs of others that broke down.  Unlike Clark who built anew each year, Dreadnaut remained virtually unchanged, which is perfectly fine if your robot shows potential.  The seeding could easily have been transferred to Thermidor 2 or Darke Destroyer; 29 is not exactly prestigious, it’s more of a “looked good in the pits” sort of number.


 * 8 – Banana-R-Armour (No picture, but it was described as a yellow Morgue lookalike with two Mean Streak-esque discs)
 * Failed to qualify: Series 4


 * Why it should have: The name!  Just tell me you aren’t curious to see a picture; a robot with a name like that must be a pretty clever design.  The description makes it sound like it certainly wouldn’t disappoint.


 * Who could it have replaced: Humphrey; replace a boring name with a creative one. It would’ve been clever to name your robot after a 1970’s milk commercial mascot, if not for the fact that the target audience was under 25.  The artwork is equally baffling; you’d expect it to be a red and white striped straw, instead it’s a green Sonic the Hedgehog driving a black and yellow trapezoid.  And the motto does nothing for them either, “look out, there’s a Humphrey about” wouldn’t have been any less memorable if a different team had adapted it; at least with “look out, there’s a Banana-R-Armour about” you get an excuse to say “Banana-R-Armour” in casual conversation.  Now, if the weapon was any good, I wouldn’t be so harsh, but so many roboteers jumped on the flipper bandwagon after Chaos 2 won Series 3.  Surely there must have been riper picks than Humphrey.


 * 7 – Short Circuit Shortcircuit.gif
 * Failed to qualify: Series 5


 * Why it should have: In the qualifiers, it beat Atomic. It had some nice breakaway bits, meaning that even if it didn’t perform, it would make for an interesting decapitation.


 * Who could it have replaced: Kliptonite. I liked most of the entries in Series 5, finding one that should give up its place was no easy task,  But in the end, I settled for Kliptonite because the spiked axe is so difficult for inexperienced teams to pull off.  Unless it’s supercharged like Dominator 2’s, it rarely performs well.  The spiked axe, I feel, was the most dispensable weapon type at the time, so unfortunately, Klitonite gets the boot.


 * 6- Lightning Extreme_lightning.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 6


 * Why it should have: Because of its innovative side-flipper design. I know I criticize some disgins for their ineffectiveness, but only because there are so many of said designs.  Lightining on the other hand is very unique; no other robot in the UK attempted the side flipper, and none in Robot Wars thought to have two.  Lightning looked sleek, and always impressed me with its ability to simply shrug off being flipped.


 * Who could it have replaced: Doctor Fist. For starters, the name sounds like an adult film (or so I’ve heard).  It’s powered by petrol, which has a less-than-satisfactory rate of failure.  And its weapon is a Pussycat blade, except it primarily spins down.  I don’t know what great things were expected from that robot.


 * 5 – Sabre Tooth SabreTooth7.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 7


 * Why it should have: Because three years straight, this team built a new robot every year.  And while the Sabre Tooths may not have been the best at winning battles, each was a very unusual, very appealing design, and it deserved another chance after the misfortune suffered in Series 6.


 * Who could it have replaced: Colossus. The complete contrast to Sabre Tooth, this one was a big chunky blue box, virtually unchanged from the previous year.  Its design doesn’t look good on camera, and the people in charge already know it has issues with self-righting.   I don’t know why they’d take a proven failure over an unknown quantity.


 * 4– ChompalotChompieEx2.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 7


 * Why it should have: Because it defeated two really good robots in Extreme. It gave a good name to the jaws weapon, a design that I prematurely dismissed.  It’s a great looking robot with weapons that actually look like a dragon’s head and wings.  And it had a grudge with 13 Black that needed to be resolved.  Surely the entertainment value of such a robot would make it worth a discretionary place.


 * Who could it have replaced: Cobra. Because let’s face it, you can’t win with a stabber that only gets seven jabs per match; you would’ve gotten laughed at in Series 2.  I’ll rehash this point as many times as I need; Cobra could’ve been a joke entry, except it’s an unfunny silver box.  Now it’s just a joke.  At the very least, the producers could have allowed it to be smashed up by Terrorhurtz or flipped out of the arena by Thermidor or Chaos 2.  Instead it just died in the middle of the arena, depressingly, and against B-List robots.  Who thought that would be entertainment?  You’re probably now wondering why I put Chompalot in a spot where it couldn’t meet 13 Black, its archrival, until the Grand Final.  Well, I was planning to, but then I took a closer look at the competing robots, and I realized something.  All the robots in Heats C and D were so well-built that I didn’t have the heart to remove any over a silly grudge match.  And let’s be honest here; Chompalot would lose that grudge match, no questions asked.  If I were the driver, I’d be content just to battle new and different robots on TV, even if no grudges are resolved in the process.


 * 3– Sir Chromalot Chromalot7.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 7


 * Why it should have: The team always brings an element of fun to the wars, something that was severely lacking in Series 7, with Diotoir, Plunderbird, and Sumpthing sitting out. As an added bonus, they completely overhauled their robot; the signature lorry hub was no more and the design was completely new.  Sure, the circular saws weren’t the most effective weapons, but the team had more important priorities than winning, like having fun and entertaining.  Even though they lost out on the Best Sportmanship award every year, they kept coming back for more, which is quite commendable.  Not so commendable was a certain hiccough in the selection process…


 * Who could it have replaced: T-Wrecks. Let’s get right down to brass tacks, T-Wrecks is a thwackbot.  Rammers and Thwackbots were not considered active weapons.  The producers really messed up in letting this one through, while saying no to Stinger and German Hammer (A similar design to Stinger, and one of the twenty-odd that came all the way from the east only to be rejected).  And of all the robots to incorrectly let through, they had to go and choose the inferior type.  A circular thwackbot simply isn’t effective due to the limited attack range that such a design offers.  I have to assume that T-Wrecks won its qualifier battle, and it wasn’t until afterwards that the producers realized it was a thwackbot; that it got a discretionary place is inconceivable.  Still, it was a blunder on their behalf, and cost a better robot its position in the series.


 * 2 - Slicer Slicer.jpg
 * Failed to qualify: Series 7


 * Why it should have: Because it’s a Dutch champion! Every other international champion got to be on UK Robot Wars, this one should’ve been waved through.  Not to mention that the same person built Techno-Lease -the first ever Dutch bot in Robot Wars- only to have it mangled by Razer.  He came all the way from Holland, is it too much to ask that you let him get his deserved recognition from the primary Robot Wars audience?
 * Before I say who it could have replaced, I should explain that in the qualifiers, most of the international entries ended up fighting other international entries, since they all showed up at the same time. This actually made for quite a good system, as the “you win you’re in” policy guaranteed that at least a certain number of them would qualify.  Having said that, I’ll assume there was also a limit to how many they would accept, and would therefore have to remove an international entry to make room for Slicer.


 * So, who could it have replaced???: Hard. I am sorry to have to bump the only Belgian entry, but if I had to pick an international to go, that would be the one.  All the other international entries were ingenious pieces of work; great-looking designs that held their own in battle.  Whether it be the powerful flipper of Gravity, the devilishly clever pincers of Tough as Nails, or the just-for-fun Tartarus, an international entry always made the heat more colourful.  However, Hard was a different story.  From its uncreative name, to its cookie-cutter design, Hard was simply not representative of the reasons Robot Wars extended its hand eastward.  If they wanted their token Belgian in the wars so badly, they could have picked Caesar, and probably should have instead.

And the #1 robot is……….


 * 1 – Inquisitor Mk 2.
 * Failed to qualify: Series 3


 * Why it should have: Pop quiz; what robot reached the heat final as a newcomer in Series 2 before returning to Series 3 with a completely new design- a wedge shape with a lifting arm capable of flipping a house robot?  You probably said Inquisitor Mk 2, since I mentioned its name a couple lines up.  However, the point I’m trying to make is that another robot satisfies all those conditions, and it qualified without a problem.  The robot in question, if you hadn’t guessed, is The Big Cheese.  Such a legendary robot in Series 3, and Inquisitor has so much in common with it.  So why then, was Inquisitor not given the go-ahead?  Was it punishment for getting a scratch on Mentorn’s cash cow?  Actually, that’s not as ludicrous as it sounds; with the exception of Tornado, every robot that defeated Razer sat out a series later on; Inquisitor missed Series 3, Aggrobot missed Series 5, and Pussycat missed Series 6.


 * Who could it have replaced: Panzer. While I respect the robot’s pushing power, it simply doesn’t make for a good battle.  I propose that we switch the two robots around.  That way Panzer can be in Pinball, an obstacle course much better suited for its design, while Inquisitor takes to the arena, injecting some much-needed life into Heat L.  Believe me, the heat would have been a lot more exciting if Inquisitor were in it; not only do they get an experienced robot, but one that can flip house robots as well; I think we can all agree that such a talent doesn’t deserve to be confined to the pinball arena.

Top 10 Robot Wars myths
As with any history project, gathering information on Robot Wars has not always been easy, and I should know. Thanks to the tremendous efforts from our users, and generous help from our contacts and Youtube uploaders, a ton of misinformation has been rectified by the Robot Wars community. Let us take a look at the 10 historically most prominent Robot Wars myths. Do not feel bad if you were fooled into believing any of these; it is the nature of rumours to spread like weeds, and infest the garden of truth.


 * 10- “Atomic flipped Reactor OotA in the Series 4 qualifiers.”

I read this in the Robot Wars Ultimate Guide, and didn’t give it a second thought. I like to believe that all official Robot Wars literature is 100% factual. However, such is not the case. If you go through the Guide with a fine-toothed comb, several mistakes come to the surface. Most of them are minor things, like incorrectly associating Triterobot with the S3 team, but the Atomic-Reactor thing was a real big slip-up. The truth is, OotA’s were strictly forbidden in the qualifiers due to safety reasons, and this applied for every series qualifier, all the way up to Series 7. And even so, did the Series 4 Atomic look like the kind of machine that could flip an opponent OotA, a feat that only Chaos 2 and Gemini would manage to do that year?


 * 9 – “Das Gepack was German.”

This one’s more or less been put to bed, but I’m still listing it because they really pulled the wool over our eyes. This myth originates from the UK vs Germany competition, where Das Gepack, representing Germany won co-championship. However, all was not as it seemed; Das Gepack’s team wasn’t bringing the trophy back to Germany, they were going back to Holland. For one reason or another the producers couldn’t scrape together four actual German Robots, so Das Gepack, a redesign of the Dutch robot Alien Destructor, was entered in a German robot’s stead. It was quite a clever ploy that had me fooled when I originally saw it on TV; it had a German name, and Kees and Peter’s accents could’ve been from any European country east of England as far as I was concerned. This wasn’t the first time the producers had to deal with a shortage of German Robots; Absolut Krankhaft and Hydrotech from the German Robot Wars were actually Dutch and Swiss respectively.


 * 8- “Pussycat failed to qualify for Series 6.”

I’ve heard several renditions of this story, all of them equally false. The most common version is that seeds had to qualify for Series 6, just like all the other robots, and Pussycat failed to. Apparently, Pussycat got the bad end of Matilda’s flywheel, and was either too damaged to battle, or lost the fight, depending on the storyteller. Now, while it makes for a great tale, the logistics of it just aren’t there. For one, why would seeds suddenly be forced to attend qualifiers? The point of seeding is to reward strong competitors by not making them go through the hassle of nontelevised fights. Secondly, even if Pussycat did fight, there wouldn’t be any house robots; they were only seen in the qualifiers of Series 5, when they were done as a live event. The truth is that the Gribble family was in mourning after the loss of their son, and understandably needed a break from Robot Wars. I don’t know why people pick on poor Pussycat for this kind of thing; there were plenty of occurrences of a potentially high seed not returning; Killertron from Series 3, Beast of Bodmin from Series 4, Wheely Big Cheese from Series 6, or S3 from Series 7


 * 7-  “Sumpthing killed Wel-Dor.”

Back in 2005, I had a desire. A desire to know everything there was to know about a 2-years-dead TV show. But, being as it was two years dead, information about this show was hard to come by, particularly when it came to the first four series. In fact, besides the Run Amok tournament trees, there was only one such source, a site known as Tectonic. It was put together by the captain of TRACIE, Series 1 Grand Finalist. I figured that since he was a contestant on the show, his word would be infallible. Not that I had a choice, as he was the only firsthand account available; it would be many, many years before people began uploading Robot Wars on Youtube. So, everyone used Tectonic as their source for all things Robot Wars; everyone knew about it, and it was a great way to spread the information quickly. Unfortunately, if a mistake was lurking within the summaries, that too would spread like pestilence. The worst example of this was in his summary of the 4th Wars battle between Wel-Dor, Little Fly, and Sumpthing. In it, he incorrectly attributed Wel-Dor’s breakdown to one of Sumpthing’s axe blows. As we know now, it was actually Little Fly who caused the fatal damage, but Tectonic must have forgotten to watch the postmortem, because there was no mention of it on his page. However, the community was unaware of this, and Sumpthing fans went crazy, ecstatic to learn that Sumpthing had not just won a battle, but KO’d a seed! Sadly, the truth rang out in 2009 when a Youtuber uploaded the battle, to the sound of collective bubbles being burst. Still, how can you not love Sumpthing? Even if it never managed to truly win a battle, how many other machines can be called the Benjamin Button of Robot Wars?


 * 6 – “The Nickelodeon and Extreme Warriors series were filmed in the US.”

At first glance, it seems somewhat plausible; they’ve got a different commentator, different host, and different robots. However, there’s just one little problem with that idea: it’s impractical. As it is, Robot Wars is expensive enough to produce, do you really think Mentorn would spring for transporting the arena, house bots, and crew to the States? And what about Dutch and German Wars? Were they too filmed abroad? The much cheaper option would be to make the roboteers come to them; whether or not they pay for plane tickets, it’s still cheaper than setting up another base of operations overseas. Want evidence to go with that? Look in the background of the pit are during interviews. You’ll see the occasional British competitor, including many that weren’t in any Extreme Warriors events. If they aren’t going to be in any events, what would be the purpose of bringing those robots all the way over the Atlantic? Scenery? Sorry to burst your bubble, but Extreme Warriors was filmed in the heart of England.


 * 5 - "Shunt had a cold-fusion engine and an axe made of diamonds."

This is a two-part myth; I’ll discuss each part separately.

Though it was toned down as time went on, the earlier series portrayed the House Robots as sci-fi characters in a post-apocalyptic space adventure. During the house intros, Jonathan Pearce would often stretch the truth, explaining that the house bots were from the pits of hell, sentient beings that had a mind only for destruction, and running on cold fusion. Any discerning fan would be able to tell that the former two of those three statements were false, but not everyone knew that the cold fusion bit was false as well. Here is the Wikipedia article on cold for anyone who needs a good read:. For everyone else, cold fusion is in essence a process in which nuclear energy can be obtained at virtually room temperature. This would provide us with a highly-adaptable, highly-efficient source of energy – if we knew how to do it. Unfortunately, to this day there is no known method of cold fusion; scientists are working on it, but it remains elusive. Until they figure out how to provide power to third-world countries using cold fusion, don’t expect to see it being used for robots on a marginally-profitable TV show.

As for the axe, I can’t fault JP completely for this one; all he said was “diamond-edged”, he never said explicitly that Shunt used diamonds on its axe, but the fact is that many Robot Wars fans misconstrued the phrase, inferring that Shunt wielded the precious gemstone found on engagement rings. I’m sorry to disappoint anyone who thought they could pull off a Flawless heist, but “diamond edged” does not refer to the material that comprises the edge of Shunt’s axe, it refers to the diamond ‘’shape’’: ◊. While nowhere near as majestic as pressurized carbon, the humble tilted lozenge did its job, and pierced many a robot shell.


 * 4 – “Drillzilla cheated.”

From the get-go, this one should seem iffy; how exactly do you get away with knowingly and willingly breaking the rules on a highly-scrutinized televised competition? Still, the bot-haters care as much about logic as Channel Five did about Series 7. They argue that Drillzilla was a shuffler, and should have only been allowed 150 kilo’s of weight, as opposed to the 160 it donned. My case is further hindered by the captain, who himself said that he could be “one-and-a-half” times as heavy as the wheeled heavyweights. However, while the fanboys are right about the shufflebot amendment, they aren’t attuned to the full story. For that, we must journey across the pond to America, a while before the Second World Championship was filmed. As the original creators of Robot Wars, the American roboteers were doing all they could to get something out of the flying-high robot combat market. Their answer to Robot Wars was a robotic combat show called Battlebots.

The incident occurred during “Season 3.0” of Battlebots, in the Heavyweight final. The favourite to win was Hall-of-Famer Biohazard, whose devilishly clever lifting arm had scored it three major titles already. Opposing it was the new kid on the block, Son of Whyachi. Though it was the team’s first excursion into Battlebots, their talent was obvious; they’d constructed an enormous spinning blade to serve as a weapon, and for locomotion, a set of shuffling “banks,” not unlike those used by Drillzilla. Son of Whyachi weighed in at a solid 440 lbs, 200 kilograms. The shuffler distinction hadn’t been established yet, so for all intents and purposes, Son of Whyachi was a bona fide walker. However, the other teams and the audience weren’t as happy. Team Whyachi gave off an image of affluence; they had many complex tools at their disposal, like a lathe mill for cutting metal. Their seemingly-bottomless funds irked a lot of people. The majority of roboteers didn’t have that kind of money at their disposal, the only time they’d see a lathe mill was in the junkyard when they were looking for parts to salvage. Needless to say, Team Whyachi was rather unpopular, and after they pulled off a victory against Biohazard on a tight judges’ decision, the fan outcry was resounding. Between seasons, many harsh words were exchanged about Son of Whyachi, some were starting to question the legitimacy of Son of Whyachi’s walking device. The Battlebots producers knew they had to appease the angry fans, so in order to fight the fire, the shufflebot clause was added to the walkerbots rule. However, relations between Robot Wars and Battlebots were tenuous at best; the Robot Wars producers wouldn’t make a rule change just because Battlebots did. Perhaps out of spite, they chose to ignore the new rule and continue to allow shufflebots the full weight advantage. Because of this, Drillizilla was perfectly kosher, as was Ansgar 3 from a later season. It was not until Robot Wars went off the air, and independent circuits became more prominent, that the shufflebot amendment was adapted into the official European rules.


 * 3 - “Greedo shot first.”

Considered to be one of the greatest cinema travesties of all time; older fans will remember that Han Solo did indeed pull out his gun and fire before Greedo could as much as wink. However, upon re-release, I guess George Lucas felt that a guy who unprovokedly shoots an alien to death would make for a pretty lousy protagonist. His solution? CGI in a laser bolt next to Han’s head the moment before Han draws his own gun. That way, it would look like Greedo tried to shoot Han, and missed, providing justification for Han to kill him on the spot. It must suck for Greedo, not just because he’s a bounty hunter who got killed on the job, but because the last thing he did before he died was to demonstrate his inability to hit the side of a barn door. Wherever Greedo is now, I’m sure he’s thanking Mr. Lucas for putting in that last minute edit.

Wait, that’s not right. Sorry everyone, wrong “Wars.”


 * 3 – “Team Falcon is like that in real life”

On Robot Wars, there’s a great deal of educational material, specifically in the way of mechanics and electronics. Because of said edutainment, people tend to believe that everything they see on Robot Wars is exactly as it is; black-and-white, either pure fact or pure fiction. However, that simply is not the case. While the robots and science are real, the drama isn’t. Just like in WWE, the “characters” are just experts in the field testing out their acting abilities. Do you think that the captain of Snookums is actually a pirate? And what about Mr. Dig, is he a stoner hippie by trade? Or how about Team Blue, are they aliens from the planet Blue? Of course not, they’re acting! Is it so inconceivable that teams like Team Falcon were acting too? The majority of roboteers are good people who don’t wish to cause any of their fellow robot makers and harm. Simple as that. While I’m on the subject, Snake Bite and Probophobia didn’t really have a punch-up, Plunderbird and Mega Morg didn’t really stage a singing contest, and Dr. Zulu did NOT sabotage Firestorm.


 * 2 - “Tornado cheated.”

Razer fans are some of the most stubborn people on the planet. Because of this, myths about Razer are like cockroaches; you can stomp on them all day but you’ll never be completely roach-free. Razer fans hate anything and everything that takes away from Razer’s image of invincibility, like a legitimate loss in the Series 6 Grand Final. In fact, they were in such disbelief over it that they resorted to discrediting Tornado, saying that Tornado’s cage, which was shown getting the ok on TV, somehow broke the rules. The most common argument is that it violated the size limit by not being able to fit in the pit. Sorry Razer fans, but the size limit is 1.4 metres all around, whilst the pit is a 1-metre cube. That’s the designers’ fault, not Tornado’s. There were plenty of robots that had trouble fitting into the pit; remember when Razer tried to drive Widow’s Revenge in, but ended up falling in itself because the Widow was too big to go down? I didn’t see anyone bleating about that. That frame does not make Tornado completely immune to the pit, it can still be pushed on top with its wheels hovering helplessly over the crevasse; Razer would have won for sure, had it been able to let go at the end. And why wasn’t it able to let go? Perhaps because of that special hook attachment the team had fitted.

The other argument I’ve heard is that the Tornado team put on the cage at the “last minute” and the judges, who had never seen it before, had no choice but to allow it. If you weren’t dissuaded just by the ludicrousness of that statement, go back and watch Tornado’s first battle in Series 6. On its stat card, observe that Tornado is listed as 1.93 m in length, a good deal greater than any of its opponents. However, when seen side by side with the enormous Inshredable (1.6 m in length), it is clear that Tornado is the smaller of the two. What’s going on, you may ask? Well, Tornado was weighed and measured with the cage attached, that’s why its stats seem slightly larger than they should. The particularly annoying fanboys will argue “typo,” to which I respond “Robot Wars Extreme Warriors.” The sixth series was not in fact the debut of Tornado’s cage; that happened in the Extreme Warriors War of Independence. You can tell because Razer doesn’t have the hook attachment on; it had not been crafted yet.

While the majority of fans knew better than to believe that last myth, very few knew recognized #1 as the myth it was. The #1 myth is…..


 * 1 – “Widow’s Revenge was built by the wives of the Razer boys.”

I said that Razer myths were the hardest to extinguish, and I meant it. What we have here is an unfortunate case of show hype gone too far. Widow’s Revenge was built by a group of real female engineers, including the captain of Pillow Torque. Their original goal was to raise awareness for breast cancer (hence the pink puzzle piece insignia), and get back at ALL the male roboteers who didn’t spend enough time with their wives. Their “no hot dinners on the table” comments weren’t just directed towards Ian, Simon, and Vinny, no, they were directed at all 95 robot teams in attendance. Now, it is true that Vinny’s girlfriend stepped in as a team member when one of the Widows fell ill, but their association with the Razer team ended there. It was the producers who told them to keep up the charade about being comprised entirely of the Razer Team’s wives. Widow’s Revenge could have been been placed in a heat with any big-name robot, and they could have just as easily been Chaos 2 or Hypno-Disc’s wives. Though Widow’s Revenge was an inconsequential one-off competitor, this myth makes the #1 list for turning a falsehood into a piece or Robot Wars pop culture. When you think of Widow’s Revenge, tell me you don’t immediately think “Razer’s wives.” It’s the knee-jerk reaction you get that shows just how powerful this myth is, and why it truly is the greatest Robot Wars myth of all time..