User:Jimlaad43/Wafflings

Here is a page that I will use for any lists (apart from the favourite and worst bots) and other warblings or rants about Robot Wars to not clutter up my user page.

Organisation mistakes
This is a place where I will discuss mistakes and problems (in my opinion) with broadcast and organisation over the course of Robot Wars.

1: Series 3 Seeds This seems to be the biggest bugbear on the wiki. Without seeding, many robots were let down by bad draws. Some heats were packed of heat winners (Cassius 2, Plunderstorm, Pussycat) while others only had one veteran (Razer, Milly-Ann Bug). I have compiled a list of how I would award a 1-16 seeding places based on series 2 and 1 finishes, plus the bias placed towards Razer, but only by giving it a low seeding. 1 - Panic Attack 2 - Cassius 2 3 - Beast of Bodmin 4 - Mortis 5 - Haardvark 6 - King Buxton 7 - Behemoth 8 - Napalm 9 - Facet 10 - Mace 2 11 - Plunderstorm 12 - Chaos 2 (Heat Finalist and Series 1 finalist) 13 - Pussycat (Series 1 finalist) 14 - The Big Cheese (Heat Finalist and Best Engineering winner) 15 - All Torque (Heat Finalist) 16 - Razer (Best Design) This would lead to a reshuffling of the heats. Heat A would contain the same unseeded bots (Suicidal Tendencies, Weeliwako etc) but swap Mace 2 for Panic Attack. The heats would follow the pattern A-1, B-3, C-5...O-4, P-2.

2: Semi-Final line-ups I never thought that the semi finals were set up right. Series 4 saw 16 robots reach the first round, but the draw was weird. Chaos 2 faced Steg 2, 2 finalists from series 3! I know that Steg was seeded 7th, but it should still be avoided. Series 7 seemed to be a similar mismatch of seeds. The splitting each semi-final into odd high seeds and even high seeds was good, but this fell apart in Series 7 as the draw became stupid, for example 1st faced 6th and 3rd faced 16th. It should have been 1-15, 3-13, 5-11, 7-9 before 1-15 vs 7-9 and 3-13 vs 5-11 in the second round. This would make the routes for the top 4 seeds fairer and wouldn't get high seeds knocked out by the champ (if they'd got through, Spawn Again would have had to face Tornado in the first round, knocking out one of only 6 (7 if you count Terrorhurtz) returning heat winners, whereas they would have to face Bulldog Breed in my line-up).

3: Series 7 weapons rule changes The fact that Mentorn tried to disqualify Storm II for not firing its weapon was completely contradictory. There had already been 3 accounts of weapons never moving in the heat. T-Wrecks is one of them, but the matter has been discussed many times and it lost anyway, so didn't matter. The next battle is UFO on its first round. The flipper broke, so it was a moving wedge, but a lot more boring than Storm II. It stayed out of the way as Behemoth knocked Tartarus and Crushtacean out. Why didn't Mentorn try to disqualify UFO then, or force a reserve to enter when it became obvious that there would be no weapon. Finally, the Heat E (A) Final where Tetanus Booster met Tornado and the electronic lifter... but hang on, I don't think the lifter moved. No, one of the two robots that caused the no moving weapons rule to be introduced had turned up with a scoop containing a lifter that "broke" early in the battle. Plus the rule meant that Stinger (who I aren't really a fan of at all) wasn't able to compete. Just watch Stinger vs Fluffy and tell me that the mace wasn't a moving weapon. Finally, what the producers managed to do was kick out their favourite robot. With the maximum pressures rule introduced, Razer were disqualified from Series 7. Now I don't know if the team was willing to compete in the series at all, but if they were, and were told to not turn up despite being worthy 2nd seeds, double world and all-stars champion, former annihilator winner and series 5 champ after all the gerrymandering in the first few series with overly ambitious seedings and weak heats, then the produces messed up very badly.

4: Series 7 reserves Not really knowing what the reserves were, it is tough to know who would replace the missing robots, but the lack was a bad thing. Heat B was depressingly boring with the exciting robots being eliminated in round 1 (Kan-Opener and Terrorhurtz). As stated in many places, the producers knew that Terrorhurtz wouldn't be able to compete. Why not tell George Francis to get Chaos 2 match fit in the time from hearing the Terrorhurtz news and, like Panic Attack, give the controls to the other two teammates. Bring Chaos 2 in as a 'reserve seed' and make Heat B slightly exciting. As for ThUnderpants, they broke down and went down to fix their bot. In this time, why weren't a team of reserves told to prepare in case ThUnderpants wasn't ready. In the world championship, when Typhoon 2 withdrew, finding a replacement would be hard. Storm II and Tornado were already competing and X-Terminator was too badly damaged. Razer weren't allowed to compete, and Firestorm V, the Commonwealth champions were in the All-Stars. Therefore, to be honest, without Typhoon 2, there was no bot that should have replaced it, unless a british qualifying battle occurred as a special event in the All-Stars episode.

5: Sumo Basho 16 competitors, 16 heats, Sumo Basho shown in heats A-H? Either show 1 per heat, or make more. What I would have done is made each seed do the sumo basho. In heat A, the Heat P seeds, Hypno-Disc and Cerberus should have done the sumo. I liked the sumo basho and the lack of it in heats I to P disappointed me.

6: Tornado's naff heat in series 7 The producers of series 7 didn't like rambots. This meant that Tornado and Storm II had an uphill climb to make. However, the defending champs were given an easy heat while Storm II were given "the heat of death". Because Tornado had such a naff heat with un-interesting bots in it, when ThUnderpants withdrew, it was swapped with Heat E, because the producers wanted an explosive start to the series with M2 scoring 2 OotA's in the first battle and a tense final vs Tiberius 3. Storm II, who had added a lifting arm were placed in an evil heat with 3 robots that could have easily been worthy of the much disputed 15th seed, Shredder evolution (Series 6 heat finalist), Supernova (Series 6 heat finalists and long time competitor) and The Steel Avenger (Series 4 heat finalists and fan favourites). Tornado - 1st seeds, Devastator - New boys so unknown quanitity, Ewe 2 - The guys who bought you Lambsy, Saw Point 2 - Fell apart in the Minor Meltdown. ThUnderpants - purveyors of great bots Team Panda, Barber-Ous 2'n a bit - Heat finalist in series 6 and fell apart, Leveler 2 - New boys with weak flipper, Tetanus Booster - Unimpressive in previous series. Storm II - 16th seeds, Supernova - Heat finalists, Rhino - heat finalists with reactor, Mayhem - Newcomers The Steel Aveneger - Long time competitor and previous heat finalist, Shredder Evolution - Series 6 heat finalists, Trax - New blood competitors, Sub-Version - Armed forces veterans If Tornado had a harder heat (for example if Leveler 2 was swapped with Gravity) then A: Tornado might have had some good competition and B: The producers would have had a good heat to start the series with and keep the heat order correct. On the other hand, Storm II had to battle through a really tough heat as it was a "Tornado-Clone" that the producers wanted to eliminate, while letting the primary box on wheels get through easily.

7: Foreign Champions in Series 7 Now, I don't know about Black Hole or Panzer Mk. 4, but PulverizeR wanted to qualify for UK Series 7. As the Dutch champs, surely they could have been invited to have free entry into Series 7, even if they didn't take it. PulverizeR, Black Hole and Panzer were brilliant bots and it would have been interesting to see how they would have fared in the UK Championships.

8: Extreme 1 House Robot Rebellion This was the main event of one episode of Extreme 1. The 3 robots that competed were completely ineffective against the house robots. Scorpion with a weird reshaped body and a chainsaw were never going to cause damage, Plunderbird 5 with a poxy crusher and Stinger with a weapon only effective if an opponent strays too close. As proved many times, house robots were only immobilised by flippers (All but Killalot), Crushers (Razer vs Matilda) and Spinners (Supernova vs Sir Killalot). So a low powered crusher that got broken quickly, a chainsaw and a thwackbot ignored as the others were attacked made the House Robot Rebellion a waste of time.

9: Featherweight heat structure The featherweight championship in Series 7 had such a weird structure. 18 robots entered with 3 heats and a final. So, 3 heats of 6 robots seems logical doesn't it. Hang on, 7 bots/7 bots/ 4 bots???.

What should have happened, but never did
This is a section for stuff that should have happened, but never did.

1: A House Robot Sent OotA It would have been the greatest moment in Robot Wars. The bot would have been a legend. Teams tried, the flipper frenzy in Extreme 1 and round 1 of the series 7 All-Stars. Here, they were close, but not quite enough. The power of flippers after the weight limit went up from 80kg to 100kg increased massively, and the robots were flipping 100kg opponents out of the arena easily and with lots of height and trajectory (Wheely Big Cheese vs Axe Awe, Spawn Again vs Chip). At 105kg, just 5kgs more than the maximum for wheeled robots, it must have been waiting for the inevitable. However, it was not to be and will forever be a dream.

2: Robots that disappeared after 1 series There were some great 1 hit wonders. Pitbull came into Series 3 and won its heat (Controversially) and then disappeared without any trace. Other heat winners from series 3 like Blade and Trident tried to enter but couldn't. These were also sad losses. Different people have different regrets, such that Wheely Big Cheese and S3 had to pull out after 2 years of success due to money and time problems, but my biggest loss is Anarchy. It was a walker that could fight. It had two weapons, one flipper that should have sent Inshredable OotA and an axe "as powerful as Chaos 2's flipper". In my opinion, that was the second best axe in Robot Wars and only one of three robots to create good axes along with Terrorhurtz and Dominator 2. I have not found any reason anywhere as to why Anarchy never competed in Series 7. I would say that that as a heat finalist and from the team that entered 101, it would have deserved that controversial 15th seed and won Heat H.

3: The People's Choice battle I can understand why Razer and Hypno-Disc didn't want to fight each other in Extreme 1 in the People's Choice battle, but it is sad that they never met at all. Series 5 was the closest. In a comment on a YouTube video of the Series 5 Semi-Finals, someone said that Bigger Brother robbed Series 5 of 3 great battles. If Chaos 2 had beaten Bigger Brother, the Grand Final would have seen Chaos 2 fight Hypno-Disc with a srimech. After this battle, the final would have either been Chaos 2 vs Razer or the people's choice, Razer vs Hypno-Disc, with the third place playoff of Chaos 2 vs Firestorm. However, Chaos 2 lost and Bigger Brother faced Hypno-Disc. Gashes in the side, a broken flipper and much damage, it looked like the perfect final, Razer vs Hypno-Disc, but Bigger Brother then shoved Hypno-Disc in the pit. Suddenly, the big battle was gone and Razer took the championship easily. Don't get me wrong, I really like Bigger Brother, I see it as a great flipper and the team are really likeable, but its success robbed us of some great fights in Series 5.