- "As well as its bulldozer blade, Combat Ant is armed with a 29,000 RPM spinning cutter powered by a model helicopter motor. Not to be trifled with."
- — Robot Wars Extreme: The Official Guide
Combatant (styled on the robot as CombatANT) was an antweight robot which competed in the Antweight Championships of both series of Robot Wars Extreme. It won the championship in its Extreme debut, but lost in the Extreme 2 Antweight final to Anty B after becoming immobilised.
Peter Waller also entered Militant into the Extreme 2 Antweight Championship, and attempted to qualify for Series 4 with a heavyweight called Aeolus.
Design[]
Combatant in Extreme 1, wedge view
Combatant in Extreme 1, spinner view
Combatant was an invertible wedge-shaped robot with two wheels that featured sticky rubber tyres for extra grip along the arena floor. Its weapon was a large two-toothed spinning flywheel positioned in the same way as a bludgeoner, which was capable of causing substantial damage to fellow competitors and even throwing them out of the antweight arena, as it did to Pants in Extreme 1. Combatant's design remained relatively unchanged between both series of Extreme, with a skull logo on its wedge in Extreme 1, and a smiley face in Extreme 2.
Etymology[]
The name Combatant is a play on the word for a competitor in combat (combatant), with an emphasis on the 'ant' portion of the name due to the robot being in the antweight class. For these reasons, Pete Waller styled the robot's logo as CombatANT, while the TV show used the spelling Combat Ant.
Robot History[]
Extreme 1[]
Combatant first competed in the Extreme 1 Antweight Melee, where it fought Anto, Pants, Anty B, clusterbot Legion, Razzler and Little Nipper.
Combatant hurls Pants out of the arena
Combatant is flipped over
Combatant shreds Anto's wheel
Combatant throws Legion into the air
It immediately left its CPZ to pursue Pants across the arena, tearing one of its back panels off with its spinner. Combatant drove away onto the Floor Flipper, before hitting Pants twice more, flipping it over and out of the arena in the process. It then proceeded to attack Razzler, but without causing any damage, before driving over the Floor Flipper again, causing the Flipper to fire and Anty B to fall into the mechanism underneath it. While flipped over, Combatant recovered to rip one of Anto’s wheels off, immobilising it while simultaneously damaging Anto's rear armour and pushing it into a CPZ. Next, it pushed Little Nipper as the latter pinned Razzler against the wall, before the three robots nudged each other as Combatant again pushed and attacked Razzler with the spinner. While Little Nipper pushed Razzler into the pit, Combatant began attacking the mobile half of Legion, eventually tearing its flipping arm off and throwing it across the arena. Combatant, Little Nipper and the remaining half of Legion finished the battle by fighting each other, with Combatant being pushed back before driving over the still-open Floor Flipper. 'Cease' was called, and the Antweight Melee went to a Judges' decision which ruled that Combatant was the inaugural Antweight Champion.
- "I had no idea something that small could do that amount of damage! Now, I reckon if we had a robot like that in the real Wars, it would do pretty well."
- — Julia Reed as Combatant is declared the Antweight Champion
Extreme 2[]
Combatant returned to defend its Antweight title in Extreme 2, fighting Hades, Chroma, Anty B once again, Mesmer 2 (successor of clusterbot Legion) and Anty Geddon in its heat.
Combatant escapes the pit with assistance from Hades
Combatant stuck on the arena wall
Combatant approached Chroma as the latter turned Mesmer 2 onto its side, flicking Chroma over twice with its spinner. Combatant and Anty B jointly pushed Chroma onto the Floor Flipper, before Combatant was pushed into the pit by Anty Geddon and Chroma.
- "Now watch for Combatant... flipped out of the pit, from Hades to heaven... in one move. I wish it was as easy as that!"
- — Jonathan Pearce as Combatant is released from the pit
Combatant (right) and Anty B attack Anty Geddon and Chroma
Combatant is flipped by Anty B but not before taking a chunk out the side
With its wheels still on the edge, Combatant was pushed out of the pit through a shove from Hades, and threw itself into a CPZ after clipping the pit release button. There, it momentarily became stranded on its side and the wall, but was freed after a nudge from the ensemble of Anty B, Anty Geddon and Chroma. Combatant proceeded to destroy Anty Geddon despite losing drive to one side, before being pushed around, lifted and sent spinning upon contact with Anty B. It was eventually pushed into the pit a second time by Anty B, but progressed to the Final anyway along with the latter.
There in the final, Combatant faced Anty B for a third time, Pants for a second time and only newcomer Lower.
Lower grabs hold of Combatant
Pants axes Combatant while Lower grabs hold
Combatant is flipped by Anty B
At the start, Combatant was lifted into Lower by Anty B, the collision causing it to recoil and spin across the arena. Combatant recovered to try and attack Lower from head-on, but Lower pinched one of its wheels with its crusher, and Combatant recoiled into the wall while trying to escape. This allowed Lower and Pants to pin it against the wall, before Combatant clipped Pants, sending both robots flying across the arena on impact. Ending up near the closed pit, Combatant proceeded to attack Lower again, but was deflected into the wall after hitting Anty B's scoop, the impact immobilising Combatant instantly as Lower and Pants attacked it one more time.
- "Are the wheels moving on Combatant? I think they're first to go - they've gone! They're out, Combatant, the reigning champion is out, I think, immobilised!"
- — Jonathan Pearce notices Combatant's loss of mobility
Despite Combatant still using the gyroscopic forces of its spinner to crawl towards an arena wall, it ultimately lost the Final – and relinquished the Antweight Championship – to Anty B.
Results[]
| COMBATANT - RESULTS | ||
| Extreme Series 1 | ||
| Antweight Championship Champion | ||
| Antweight Championship | vs. Anto, Anty B, Legion, Little Nipper, Pants, Razzler | Won |
| Extreme Series 2 | ||
| Antweight Championship Final | ||
| Round 1 | vs. Anty B, Anty Geddon, Chroma, Hades, Mesmer 2 | Qualified |
| Final | vs. Anty B, Lower, Pants | Lost |
Wins/Losses[]
- Wins: 2
- Losses: 1
Series Record[]
| Main Series | Combatant Series Record |
|---|---|
| The First Wars | Did not enter |
| The Second Wars | Did not enter |
| The Third Wars | Did not enter |
| The Fourth Wars | Failed to qualify with Aeolus |
| The Fifth Wars | Did not enter |
| The Sixth Wars | Did not enter |
| The Seventh Wars | Did not enter |
| Series 8 | Did not enter |
| Series 9 | Did not enter |
| Series 10 | Did not enter |
| Robot Wars Extreme | Appearances |
| Series 1 | Antweight Champion |
| Series 2 | Antweight Final Entered with Militant |
Gallery[]
Outside Robot Wars[]
In addition to its appearances on Robot Wars Extreme, Combatant also enjoyed considerable success in non-televised antweight competitions, especially in the Antweight World Series. Among its successes, it won AWS 3 and AWS 5, also winning two Team battles and the Tag Team event in the former alongside Little Nipper[1], and finished joint-third in AWS 4 and AWS 6.[2] Combatant also competed at the 2001 Robots@War event, where it won another antweight championship[3]. Combatant underwent numerous rebuilds after its appearance on Robot Wars, with its rebuilds pictured below.
Peter also appeared in Techno Games 2003 with Rocket Car entry Tri-Umph-Ant which lost in its only appearance, performing the worst of the four racers.
As of 2019, Peter Waller still competes at live events in the antweight, fleaweight and nanoweight categories, with considerable success. His most recent robots include:
Some of Peter Waller's antweights and fleaweights at AWS 50
- Anticyclone, an undercutter spinner;
- Flippant, a wedge-shaped flipper/grabber;
- Variant, an invertible robot with interchangeable weapon modules;
- Dominant, an invertible tracked robot with two static scoops at either end;
- Deflea, a fleaweight version of Dominant;
- Defiant, another tracked robot, this time with a lifting scoop;
- Mutant, the name given to two separate antweights; a two-wheeled ring spinner, and a walkerbot with a vertical bar spinner.
Trivia[]
- Combatant faced Anty B in all three of its antweight battles.
- Combatant was the first robot of any type to throw another out of the arena using a spinning weapon, doing so to Pants in Extreme 1.
- It is also the only non-heavyweight competitor to throw another out of the arena through any method.
- Along with Raging Reality, M2 and Eruption, Combatant was also one of four Robot Wars competitors which threw an opponent out of the arena in its first televised battle.
Honours[]
| Honour | ||
| Only non-heavyweight robot to throw another robot out of the arena | ||
References[]
External Links[]
[]
| ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||