The Steel Avenger

The Steel Avenger (sometimes written as Steel Avenger) was a plough-shaped robot with a large pneumatic axe as its weapon. It was two interchangable axe heads in Series 3, a pick and a broad axe, but this idea was binned in favour of the sharp steel axe that was featured from Series 4 onwards. The bodywork was originally covered in a silver coating as the robot was originally made to vaguely resemble a medieval knight's suit of armour.

The team competed in Series 3, 4, 5 and 7 of Robot Wars, also entering in both series of Extreme. In addition to its weaponry, The Steel Avenger often sported a rainbow-coloured feather duster, to "keep the arena clean", however, this was permenantly removed from the robot after Series 5. In Series 5, the team added a rear lifter to The Steel Avenger, and two mini axes on each side for a self-righting mechanism (its previous srimech, one of the spikes on either side of the robot used in Series 4, failed to be of much use). The design of the robot was so that when at its maximum speed, a charge and impact from the bladed, arrow-shaped end would cause severe damage. The best example of this was its Mayhem battle, where it sheared a wheel off King B Powerworks.

"The plan was to get the new robot – SA2 - ready for Series 7 and go back in there with all guns blazing. As it happened it was never going to be finished in time, so we reluctantly dragged old Steely out of retirement for one last time so we could take part again."

- John and Jacky

SA2 (Steel Avenger 2) was planned to enter the Seventh Wars, but it was not finished in time so the team decided to bring the old Steel Avenger out of retirement and try for another wars. A few small changes had been done to The Steel Avenger to make it perform as well as it could. A gas bottle was borrowed from SA2 and fitted in. This bottle had a different dip tube system and allowed a full 1.1kg gas fill without problems. The old bottle only used to allow a 500gm fill which was why The Steel Avenger always ran out of gas and got stuck. The axe head from SA2 was also fitted, a 3/4 inch thick lump of steel. The last change was to strip down the rear lifter to just a skeleton so that the weight saved allowed for the other changes.

The Steel Avenger had an inexalted rivalry with Diotoir, having lost to it in both the heats of Series 3 and the Tag-Team Terror final in Extreme Series 1.

The team often sported shiny metal breastplates. The Steel Avenger never made it past a heat final, but came in second in the Extreme 1 Tag Team Terror. It also won the award for Best Engineered robot in Series 4, and an award called Best Costume of Robot Wars Extreme, which was not shown on TV.

Like many Robot Wars competitors, The Steel Avenger team entered Techno Games with a weaponless Steel Avenger called Tin Tackler. It entered the football event teaming up with its Tag-Team Terror partner Lightning (Thunder in Techno Games).

It still appears as a static display robot at the annual Debenham robot rumbles, alongside all three Cassius models, Chaos 2 and other famous Robot Wars robots that are now retired.

Series 3
"Series 3 was our first attempt after finding the programme on TV and thinking “I can do that!”"

- John Willoughby

The Steel Avenger fought in Heat O of its first appearance, and was placed up against Schumey Too in the first round. "I counted that Kev got in 11 full whacks with the pick, about three of which made contact"

- John Willoughby

The Steel Avenger missed most of its axe blows, and was almost pushed into the pit by Schumey Too, but The Steel Avenger reversed away just in time. The Steel Avenger then drove far away from the pit and charged into Schumey Too, but it then drove right over the top of Schumey Too. Overpowering Schumey Too, The Steel Avenger then left Schumey Too bouncing on an arena spike, before charging in, axing and denting the 'spoiler' of Schumey Too, and pitting it just as Schumey Too drove to escape right past the pit. This put The Steel Avenger through to the next round of the heat. Before the next battle, the team had to mend the pick, which had become bent by its repeated axe blows on Schumey Too. The Steel Avenger then fought Diotoir from Dublin in the second round. Before the fight, The Steel Avenger exchanged the pickaxe for the broad axe. Diotoir flicked The Steel Avenger onto the arena side wall, getting it stuck there. Sergeant Bash then came out out the CPZ and freed The Steel Avenger and the fight continued. However, The Steel Avenger was almost caught by Dead Metal, and was eventually flipped onto its side by Diotoir's wedge. It was ambushed and attacked by Shunt (which was not shown on TV) and had a huge hole smashed into it, as well as having the axe head cut off by Sergeant Bash. Cease was eventually called and The Steel Avenger was eliminated from the competition. "I would just love to get my own back on them [The House Robots], and avenge the damage they do to our robots. Maybe next time."

- John Willougby

Series 4
The Steel Avenger was ready to redeem its loss to Diotoir and returned for The Fourth Wars. It now had side spikes for self-righting purposes. In the first round melee, it went up against the 11th seeds Wild Thing and newcomers Humphrey. Wild Thing got underneath both Humphrey and The Steel Avenger with ease. It was considerably faster than the unseeded machines, and pushed The Steel Avenger into Matilda's CPZ, and lifted it over and off its wheels. Matilda re-righted The Steel Avenger - and flipped the feather duster out of the arena with her tusks just as The Steel Avenger ran away - but meanwhile Humphrey was having control problems, and could only slowly turn in tight circles. Wild Thing persisted in his attack on The Steel Avenger, slamming it into the arena side wall. However Humphrey then soon ground to a halt and was flipped by the arena floor flipper after being ambushed by the house robots and it was subsequently eliminated, putting both Wild Thing and The Steel Avenger through to the next round. The Steel Avenger was then put up against the 27th seeds Sir Chromalot in the second round of the heat. The Steel Avenger pushed Sir Chromalot around constantly, missing several times with its axe weapon, Sir Chromalot couldn't get away quickly enough and The Steel Avenger was then able to break Sir Chromalot's drill weapon. The Steel Avenger then pushed the seeded robot towards the descending pit and into it. This put Steel Avenger back up against the 11th seeds Wild Thing in the Heat Final. After some ramming from both machines, Wild Thing then managed to topple The Steel Avenger, however the new self-righting mechanism failed to work at all, leaving it immobilised on its side. The house robots then closed in and eventually lined up The Steel Avenger to be pitted, and Wild Thing finished the job, eliminating The Steel Avenger from the competition.

However, despite the failure of its new self-righting side spikes, The Steel Avenger won the award for Best Engineering for the Fourth Wars, beating the previous year's winner Chaos 2.

Extreme 1
The Steel Avenger now had side-axes to replace the self-righting spikes and also a rear flipper. It made its first appearance in Extreme Series 1 by challenging Behemoth for the Challenge Belt. However, despite striking Behemoth several times with slams and strikes from the axe, it was flipped over and over by Behemoth, almost out of the arena at one point, but was then left immobilised in the CPZ. Refbot didn't count The Steel Avenger out so Behemoth self-righted The Steel Avenger, but then toyed with it from then on before flipping it over again, cease was then called and the outcome of the battle was obvious, the winner being Behemoth.

The Steel Avenger also fought in the Extreme Series 1 Tag Team Terror tournament, it fought alongside Suicidal Tendencies. "We teamed up with Suicidal Tendencies to do the Tag Team event, as we had met each other before at Debenham and fought there. It seemed like a good idea to join forces and see what we could do together."

- John Willoughby

In the first round, the pair went up against Napalm and Sir Chromalot. The Steel Avenger chopped and rammed Napalm, before tagging out Suicidal Tendencies. Suicidal Tendencies crumpled what was left of Napalm, and Sir Killalot then came in and picked up and dumped Napalm outside of the arena. Much of the action was edited out of the The Steel Avenger and Sir Chromalot fighting, and Sir Chromalot was dumped in the pit of oblivion, this put The Steel Avenger and Suicidal Tendencies progressed through to the second round. They now fought Cerberus and Thermidor 2. The Thermidor 2 machine ushed out to interfere with Suicidal Tendencies and Cerberus' battle, so it turned into a free for all. After a lot of bashing, Thermidor 2 broke down completely, and both Suicidal Tendencies and The Steel Avenger had dealt decent blows to Cerberus, so the duo won the judges decision and met Pussycat and Diotoir in the final. Both robots were concerned by Pussycat, but The Steel Avenger team had also to be interested in their arch-nemesis Diotoir. Suicidal Tendencies held its own against Pussycat, but Diotoir intervened without a tag and The Steel Avenger rushed out to meet it. However, Diotoir flipped over The Steel Avenger over and pinned it down, with Pussycat cutting into it as well, but missing the vitals. As The Steel Avenger righted itself and attacked Diotoir, cease was called. "I thought that, with the last thrust of the fight on our part, and the great control that ST was showing over Pussycat, we might have got the judges' decision. Craig kept us on tenterhooks as the result came through and it went to..... Pussycat and Diotoir! Ah well, we tried"

- John Willoughby

The Steel Avenger later fought in a Mayhem qualifier battle against two similar robots - Tornado and King B Powerworks were both invertible 4-wheel drive 36 volt machines with cutting discs. This was for the right to fight in the second annihilator of the series. Tornado cut into The Steel Avenger with its disc, but The Steel Avenger managed to hold its own and landed axe blows on both opponents. Tornado then cut a huge hole in the side of The Steel Avenger. "They hit us broadside on and our right-hand side panel just exploded! That was a 10mm sheet of new polycarb which just shouldn't do that. The result was a big hole in our side, but no damage done to any of the works."

- John Willoughby

Not long after, Tornado broke down from damage inflicted by King B Powerworks, leaving The Steel Avenger and King B Powerworks alone. The Steel Avenger then charged at full speed and the 100kg mass of The Steel Avenger did its job; knocking a wheel off King B Powerworks. As time ran out, Matilda hit The Steel Avenger with its flywheel and knocked it onto its side, but this was not taken into consideration in the judges' decision, which went in favour of The Steel Avenger.

In the Annihilator, The Steel Avenger started by going up against Panic Attack, Fighting Torque, Disc-O-Inferno, Napalm 2 and Spirit of Knightmare. The Steel Avenger managed to get through the first round after only taking a few blows from Disc-O-Inferno, but Fighting Torque and Napalm 2 turned into the centre of attention, Napalm 2 was sliced by Disc-O-Inferno and rammed by Spirit of Knightmare and was moving only in circles by the end of the fight. However Fighting Torque was axed by The Steel Avenger, shunted by Spirit of Knightmare and finished off by the disc of Disc-O-Inferno. Fighting Torque was counted out and eliminated from the first round. However The Steel Avenger automatically qualified for the third round as Npalam 2 was forced to withdraw due to the damage that it sustained in the first round. In the third round, The Steel Avenger started by attacking Spirit of Knightmare, missing its gas bottle by just a few centimetres. The Steel Avenger then targeted Panic Attack, failing to break through its armour but landing blows on its side skirts and forks. However, in retaliation, Panic Attack raised and pushed The Steel Avenger, who was then flipped by Spirit of Knightmare into Disc-O-Inferno's spinning flywheel weapon and onto its side. With so much gas having been used up, The Steel Avenger was unable to self-right with its side axes and was eliminated from the annihilator after being counted out by the Refbot. "As it turns out, we didn't go out alone. We had all caused so much damage to Panic Attack that he was out of it as well. We had hit them very hard, and Kim said that we had broken their front fork actuators. They were indeed smashed very badly and it was more than a pits job to put it back together. Also Panic Attack's back end had been hit so hard by Disco that it was very badly damaged and the magnets had gone in one of the motors...but it was good to be instrumental in taking out one of Robot Wars' most celebrated machines"

- John Willoughby

At the end of the first series of Extreme, The Steel Avenger team was awarded with the Best Costume Award, however, the ceremony was not shown on the televised show.

Series 5
The Steel Avenger returned and was surprisingly unseeded for the Fifth Wars despite reaching the heat fianl of the Fourth Wars. It competed in Heat A. The Steel Avenger was drawn against Scottish newcomers, The Tartan Terror in the first round of the heat. Axing the newcomers, The Steel Avenger shoved it into the CPZ with its lifter, where house robot Shunt joined in. Between the two axes, The Tartan Terror broke down and suffered cracked ribs, but took the damage well, despite this, it was still counted out and The Steel Avenger went through to the next round. The Steel Avenger limped out of the arena with a flat tire, from running over one of the Tartan Terror's studs. After fixing the machine, The Steel Avenger was drawn against double reigning champions, Chaos 2, in the second round of the heat. "We have become good friends with the Chaos team, and they are really nice people, but that wasn't going to stop us trying to do whatever we could to win"

- John Willoughby

The Steel Avenger got flipped straight away by Chaos 2, but self-righted quickly. This was a recurring incident as The Steel Avenger was being flipped repeatedly by Chaos 2 throughout the battle, but the side srimechs surprisingly kept working and so did the robot. It also put up a decent fight, taking some collossal impacts without breaking down, and also managing to get a good hit on it down the side of its flipper, and just caught the back of it, narrowly missing the electronics. Suddenly, Chaos 2 slid beneath The Steel Avenger and shoved it over to the corner where it launched it up onto the rail. The Steel Avenger teetered on the brink for a moment, but then fell over, landing on one of the lights, eliminating it from the competition. After this, the team retired The Steel Avenger.

Extreme 2
The Steel Avenger came out for one last session before being replaced by SA2. It returned for Extreme Series 2 to compete in the Tag Team Terror tournament, since Suicidal Tendencies was no longer competing, The Steel Avenger fought with a new Tag Team partner, Lightning. In the first round, the pair went up against Nasty Humphrey and Stinger. "We teamed up with the Lightning boys...their first appearance on Robot Wars and we were pleased to be partnering such a well-built machine."

- John Willoughby

At first, Lightning went out to fight Nasty Humphrey. After a promising start from Lightning, The Steel Avenger tagged out to fight Stinger. After a bit of shoving, dodging and ramming it looked as thought Stinger was having trouble with drive to one of the wheels and possibly aerial problems. The Steel Avenger took advantage of the situation and nosed them towards the pit. Once Stinger dropped into the pit, however, gravity caused The Steel Avenger to follow it in as well. It left Lightning alone to fight Nasty Humphrey again, however Lightning managed to defeat Nasty Humphrey on a judges' decision, meaning that Lightning and The Steel Avenger moved on to the next round. In the second round, the duo fought Robochicken and Bulldog Breed. Bulldog Breed quickly put Lightning out of comission with one very powerful flip in particular, and The Steel Avenger rushed over to aid its ally. However, it soon became clear that Lightning was out from a lost radio battery, and The Steel Avenger was left to fight Robochicken. The chicken put some huge flips in, and whilst The Steel Avenger righted itself each time, it finally succumbed to low gas. The Steel Avenger was overturned, counted out, and was eliminated from the competition along with Lightning.

Series 7
"...Steel Avenger, very experienced in the eye of survival over the years, one big question, why has it never really succeeded?"

- Jonathan Pearce

SA2 was due to attempt to qualify for the Seventh Wars, but it wasn't completed coming up to the time of the qualifiers, so the team brought the original Steel Avenger back out of retirement once again to fight for one last time. "It turned out that we were in the 'Heat of Doom (or Death)' as various people had called it, being grouped with some nasty spinners such as Shredder and Supernova. Storm 2 was also in this heat and was a very powerful rambot. As it turned out, the first fight of the group was between Supernova, Storm 2, Mayhem and Rhino, which kept us out of the worst of it, thank goodness. There were some awful noises coming out of the arena from where we were standing."

- John Willoughby

The Steel Avenger went up against Shredder Evolution, Trax and Sub-Version 1.1 in the first round. At first, The Steel Avenger took on Shredder Evolution, in an attempt to take out the most potent of the robots, it shoved it into the CPZ, before being flipped by Trax, however The Steel Avenger managed to self-right. The Steel Avenger then chased down Shredder Evolution again, and pierced its axe inside Shredder Evolution's wheel guard and The Steel Avenger dragged Shredder Evolution over to the flame pit. It held the previous heat-finalists over the flame pit for a while before the other two machines swarmed in. The Steel Avenger was then flipped again by Trax, but once again swiftly sefl-righted. Then The Steel Avenger struck the titanium top of Shredder Evolution, narrowly missing a wire, and then struck again to drag it around. As cease was called, Shredder Evolution hit The Steel Avenger's axe and put a large S-Bend in the arm. However, the judges' decision put The Steel Avenger through to the next round along with Trax, and eliminated Shredder Evolution. The second round saw The Steel Avenger put up against the limping Rhino, The Steel Avenger managed to land around a dozen succesful axe blows. The Steel Avenger was suffering from leaking batteries, but still managed to activate the pit and it eventually shoved the immobilised Rhino down for the win, that sent The Steel Avenger through to the heat final. "As I said, it's not a great robot, your robot, but do you know why? It's because you never improve it! You come back, year after year as the same thing!"

- Craig Charles to The Steel Avenger team

It was now that The Steel Avenger fought the 16th seeds Storm 2. Storm 2 ploughed straight through The Steel Avenger and The Steel Avenger missed its axe blow, catching it in the arena floor. Once it finally came free, Storm 2 rammed it again, but this time it had a long run up and rammed it at speed right into the corner of the arena. The Steel Avenger flew straight over the arena wall from the impact and was knocked out of the competition. This was The Steel Avenger's last appearance in Robot Wars before being finally retired to make way for SA2. "I thought Steely had done really well this year for such an old machine. To have made the heat final was more than I had expected we could achieve and I have to remind myself that we only went along to have some fun!"

- John Willoughby

Results

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Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 11
 * Losses: 8

Series Record

 * Series 1-2: Did not enter
 * Series 3: Heat, Round 2
 * Series 4: Heat Final
 * Series 5: Heat, Round 2
 * Series 6: Did not enter
 * Series 7: Heat Final