Thor

"From the halls of the Vikings, comes the hammer of the Gods"

- Jonathan Pearce

Thor was a robot that competed in Series 6 and 7 of Robot Wars, as well as the second series of Robot Wars Extreme. The robot could travel at 17-18mph, was pointed at the back and had two pincers on the front, which did not feature after Series 6, and a large pointed hammer weapon which could self-right the robot, puncture 15mm polycarbonate and strike 15 times initially and travel at 70mph, but the robot was upgraded for later wars (over 300 hours of work Jason Marston had calculated on the final version of Thor) so that the hammer was shorter but more powerful and the robot could reach 20mph top speed but the armour was also thin overall. The shape of the robot changed from series to series - it was long and fairly wide in Series 6, before becoming much narrower in Extreme Series 2, and then much smaller and more wedge-shaped in Series 7. Thor reached the second round of the heats in Series 6 and 7, and also came third in the New Blood Championship in Extreme Series 2.

It had staying power, and hardly broke down, as rambots like Tornado and Storm 2 found it difficult to finish Thor off.

Following the end of Robot Wars, the Thor captain Jason Marston teamed up with Shane Swan from Team S-tec to form Team Bud, which now competes in various robot combat events across the country, both with an extensively modified Thor and with Shane Swan's newest machine called Envy, which largely resembles Firestorm. Since then, Thor has done very well in the live circuit including finishing 4th in the 2011 UK Championships which were held at the O2 Arena. It won the 12PM Portsmouth Roaming Robots event 2011, in a final against Toon Raider and Cherub.

Recent Televised Appearance
In September 2011, Thor appeared alongside Ripper in the BBC One game show Epic Win, which challenged them to break two of four items in a caravan and then break out of it. The two robots started well, destroyed all four items, but after Thor got its axe stuck in the cupboard, the team were forced to give up.

Series 6
"A mighty hammer-axe, of course-but wait until you see the team!"

- Jonathan Pearce on Thor

Thor participated in Heat G of the Sixth Wars, for its debut Robot Wars appearance. In the first round of the heat, Thor was drawn up against Team 101's walkerbot Anarchy, Revolution 2 and the experienced Judge Shred 2 ½. In the battle, Thor and Anarchy almost immediately swapped axe blows, but it soon became evident that they and Revolution 2 were targeting Judge Shred 2 ½. Judge Shred 2½ had to fend off assaults from the axes of Thor and Anarchy, and the spinning blades of Revolution 2, denting Judge Shred 2½'s armour in several places. In the midst of all the attacks, Thor's front pincers were both bent, but it carried on. Revolution 2 rammed Judge Shred 2½ into the arena side wall and in turn was attacked by Dead Metal. Anarchy flipped over Revolution 2, where the supposedly invertible machine got stuck. With three robots remaining, Thor hammered Judge Shred 2½ yet again before doing the same to Anarchy. Judge Shred 2½ almost turned over Thor right at the end, but Judge Shred 2½ was eliminated due to all the damage it took, putting Anarchy and Thor through to the next round of the heat. In the second round, Thor was placed up against the number 12 seeds and future champions Tornado. In this battle, Thor's weak pincers were bent straight away, but Thor got a couple of hammer blows on Tornado early on. Tornado slammed Thor into the pit release button, breaking off part of Thor's side panel. Tornado however, was rammed by the stormy pace of Growler. For a little while, Thor tried to hold onto Tornado between its hammer and its body, but after Tornado got free, Thor very nearly reversed into the pit but drove away. A shove by Tornado had Thor trapped in the CPZ by Sergeant Bash and Growler, and both Thor and Sgt. Bash almost drove down the pit of oblivion. Thor just survived for another judges decision, but the decision went in favour of the seeded Tornado, eliminating Thor from the competition.

Extreme 2
Thor participated in the New Blood Championships as a completely rebuilt robot, with no claws this time. It didn't start Round 1 against Night Raider and Hell's Teeth very well as it tried to hit Night Raider and kept missing more times than hitting it but fortunately Team Blades' robot broke down allowing Thor to go through. In Round 2, Thor faced Chip and one hammer blow on the Welsh machine was enough to immobilise it. In the Heat Final Thor faced Edge Hog. Both robots used their weapons on each other but missed more times than hitting each other. Thor then pushed Edge Hog into Sir Killalot who picked it up, spun it around and let go of it. Edge Hog broke down after self-righting. Thor was in the Grand-Final and up against Storm 2. Thor kept trying to land its hammer on Storm 2 but Storm 2 was too fast. Thor was then hammered by Mr Psycho but got away. Thor was whacked into the pit-release tyre by Storm 2, then after one fire from Thor's hammer, it stayed in the fired position and Storm 2 continued to push a defenceless Thor around the arena. Thor was then nearly pushed into the pit by Storm 2, but it got away. After a few failed attempts from Storm 2 to pit Thor, the fight went to the judges to decide. The judges rules that Storm 2 had won and Thor was eliminated. Thor then took part in the 3rd-place Play-Off against Cedric Slammer. Both robots first of all got their weapons in on each other but did little damage. After 2 misfires from its hammer, Thor landed it on Cedric Slammer which slowed it down and it rolled into the CPZ where after it was slammed into by Growler, broke down and Thor took 3rd place in the New Blood Tournament.

Series 7
At the start of Thor's second main series appearance was a melee against Dutch entrants Gravity, Hodaf The Bad and previous heat-finalist Hydra. Thor struck Hodaf The Bad several times, although this did not cause the newcomers much distress. Thor jumped in the air with the power of its hammer trying to hit Gravity and Hydra. Gravity mightily threw Hydra unto the air again, and flipped it twice more, getting it out of the arena (and damaging the arena wall in the process) before cease was called early because of the safety violation. The judges ruled in favour of Gravity and Thor in the battle up to that point. Thor then faced off with former Tag Team semifinalist Lightning. The majority of Thor's axe blows missed, while Lightning wasn't able get its sideways flipper into action. Both narrowly dodged Shunt, but it was appearing that Lightning was the better controlled, pushing Thor into another CPZ. Lightning hit the pit release tyre and drove straight on top of Thor, which all of a sudden had a very slowly swinging hammer, but was denting its foe's armour. Both remained right next to the open pit until Refbot separated the pair. Lightning got away quickly while Thor didn't, so Lightning got underneath Thor and used its flipper to dump Thor straight into the pit.

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 6
 * Losses: 3

Series Record

 * Series 1-5: Did not enter
 * Series 6: Heat, Round 2
 * Series 7: Heat, Round 2

Trivia

 * Thor was the only robot in the New-Blood Championship to go beyond the first round of the corresponding main series.
 * Thor's recent success has inspired many more hammer-wielding robots to be built, such as Asgard, a featherweight which greatly resembles Thor, built by Team Asgard.