Another Ragnabot blog to throw into the pile! The idea is a simple one here - take all of the robots which made it to Round 2 of their heat in Ragnabot 3, and rate them from my perceived best-to-worst order. This will allow us to see whether (in my opinion) the four best robots ended up making it out of the heat, and how many of the overall Top 8 reached the Heat Final.
Of course, it's entirely possible that one of the best robots in the heat fell in Round 1 (e.g. Stinger, Destructive Criticism), but for brevity, I haven't included these robots in the blog. Nobody really needs to separate the quality of robot when we get down to the 26-32 region, after all.
Robots that fell in the Heat Finals are italicised, and the ones actually made it out of the heat are listed in bold. I'll also be rating their hopes of further progression in captions beneath their images. There's also an image of the best robot to fall in the heat, and how I think they would have performed.
These rankings are all entirely my opinion, and if you disagree, please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts!
Magnetar is primed for a very deep run. There are less robots capable of beating Magnetar than there are places in the Top 8.
Ludicrous that Aftershock's peak in Ragnabot is just 193rd place, because avoiding Magnetar would've allowed it to cruise straight into the Top 4.
Even if Aftershock itself isn't through Concussion will be almost as hard to stop. Top 16 minimum.
Firestorm is one of the main preboot candidates for the final stages of the tournament, with only the modern spinners and flippers (and Razer) being its potential undoing.
Although Spawn of Scutter was firmly one of the weakest in this heat's second half, it's not completely out of contention. Relatively unlikely to win its next fight though.
Magnetar - Generally it will be extremely rare that my perceived 'best' robot in the heat doesn't make it out, but this one was actually a close call...
Aftershock - Because it's also a rarity that you'll see the 'second-best' robot fall within the heat! I firmly agree with Magnetar beating Aftershock, it was even proven at an Extreme Robots event after this heat took place, but I still had to decide whether Aftershock was superior to Magnetar in general, outside of the direct head-to-head. Ultimately Magnetar did progress further in Series 10, has the superior wedge, and its primary flaw is something that also affected Aftershock against Big Nipper, so I'll give Magnetar the edge.
Concussion - Revisiting this heat, I forgot just how stacked it was. I firmly remembered Magnetar and Aftershock clashing, but Concussion is right behind them in quality.
Firestorm V - And only in fourth place do we get Firestorm! A candidate for the Top 4 of Ragnabot 1 (altogether) is now resigned to fourth in a heat, yikes.
Atomic - And even worse, Atomic DID get fourth place in Ragnabot 2, but doesn't reach the Top 4 of this heat!!
M2 - Sadness out in force, my favourite robot M2 made an appearance in the Top 32 of both previous Ragnabots, but now it's not even a Top 5 machine inside the opening heat. Dark times.
X-Terminator (S6) - The next three robots are highly interchangeable, and probably beat each other within a triangle. X-Terminator pushes ahead slightly due to its comparative lack of a weakness.
Raging Knightmare - In the middle of the triangle is Raging Knightmare. Winning a Series 7 heat and getting third in an Annihilator is only just enough to slot you into the Top 8 here!
Scraptosaur - And just missing out on the Top 8 is Scraptosaur. Whilst I think it could beat X-Terminator in a head-to-head, the lack of a srimech is large enough of a weakness to exclude it from the Top 8.
Tetanus - This might be a slightly controversial pick, as Tetanus did become immobilised under little pressure in both of its fights, but Tetanus on form is a very capable machine and one I rate quite highly.
Dragbot - The perfect chance to remind everyone that this order is based on my opinion! Dragbot was knocked out of this heat by Spawn of Scutter in Round 2, but I was one of the four voters who picked Dragbot to win that encounter, so I'm comfortable ranking it higher here.
Spawn of Scutter - And only now does the fourth heat winner make its appearance! In, uh, the bottom five. Perspective, man.
Comengetorix - This feels almost insulting to Comengetorix as the Series 6 version was a definite step up from its Extreme predecessor, but it was completely out of its depth in this heat.
Raizer Blade - Even though Raizer Blade is third from the bottom here, I did actually vote for it to beat Spawn of Scutter and escape the heat! Unfortunately I was alone on that one.
Corporal Punishment - Poor Corporal Punishment, far from a bad machine, but in a heat like this, Round 2 was far enough.
Steel Sandwich - And the first wooden spoon goes to Steel Sandwich. We'll be seeing far, far worse machines in 16th place over the coming entries though, so no disrespect is meant to Steel Sandwich here!
Heat B[]
Tough as Nails should be fine for a while yet, the melees at the very least won't bother it. Top 32, I reckon.
Tsunami reached the Top 16 last time, and while the concentration of dangerous spinners and flippers is now higher, it had an outside chance of getting that far again. More likely a Top 32 finish was taken away here.
Although it's only fourth in my heat ranking here, Drillzilla is still in with a very solid chance. Will probably draw something like Apollo inside the Top 64.
Will reliability curse Spawn Again during the melees stage? Certainly it has better odds of progression than Spawn of Scutter.
Well it's hardly going to beat Carbide is it, but I'm sure Berserk 2 will have a lot of support when it bravely enters the melees. Moral support, that is, not actual "through to the Top 64" support.
Tough as Nails - Two for two on heats where both of the best robots fought each other! Tough as Nails and Tsunami are really interesting, because in the perspective of the classic series, I would say Tsunami is the better robot. Here and now, we use reboot Tough as Nails, and suddenly it jumps ahead. But why? Reboot TAN was almost exactly the same as the Series 7 one right? It's not as though it managed to win any more fights either! Ultimately it's the context which seals this. Tsunami lost its arena where OotA's were extremely easy, and suddenly faces much more powerful flippers and spinners in up-to-date Ragnabots. TAN, meanwhile, uses the HARDOX armour it's always had for superior spinner defence, and claims the top spot in Heat B.
Tsunami - But of course, second place for Tsunami is great considering it didn't even get out of this heat. Very unlucky here.
Ripper - Here's something I hadn't even thought possible, two of the top three falling inside the heat! Ripper was defeated in the Heat Final by Drillzilla in a very close 7-6 loss, but I was on Team Ripper in that vote, so it gets my verdict here too.
Drillzilla - Although, of course, Drillzilla has to follow directly behind it.
Panzer Mk4 - Man I'm getting out of control with ranking the heat losers ahead of the winners here. Panzer Mk4 was knocked out by Spawn Again which is fair enough, what with the whole no srimech thing, but I do think Panzer Mk4 is a superior machine overall, especially in a reboot environment. Admittedly, the reboot environment is the reason Drillzilla is ahead of it though, even if I do think Panzer could win that particular fight.
Spawn Again - And for the third time in a row, a robot is side-by-side with the machine it beat/lost to.
Trolley Rage - The main Rage coming from this Trolley is the seething anger in TG's eyes whilst he withholds the urge to call me reboot biased or Garfie biased as I put Trolley Rage inside the Top 8 of this heat, but I do genuinely think it beats the remainder of the pack.
Berserk 2 - The first proper surprise package to enter the Top 96 was Berserk 2, so I figured it would be further down the list here, but it actually earns a rightful place in the Top 8.
Topbot - A Top 10 finish for Topbot, but its bigger achievement was beating Tyranabot in Round 1.
Weld-Dor - The last heavyweight robot in this heat that I can comfortably call "good".
A-Kill - Seeing A-Kill in the Heat Final made me very sad that Lizzard fell in the first round.
The Termite - Hardly the most mobile of US machines, but at least in theory it was better than the last few.
Indefatigable - I actually threw Indefatigable a vote to beat A-Kill but it hardly rallied the troops.
Spin Doctor (S2) - Destroying Matilda's tusk definitely doesn't make me rate Spin Doctor. I know better than most how ineffective ssit-and-spin works in battle, and the random breakdown makes things even worse.
DTK - Fantastic in its home context, but for the first two heats, we see the lower weight classes make up the bottom end of the lists.
AM CVn - Is AM CVn the single weakest robot in the second round of Ragnabot 3? Yes, it probably is. I wouldn't have bet £1 on AM CVn making the second round even if there was a £1,000,000 payout. Incredible.
Heat C[]
Although I don't think Tricerabot 3.0 could pick up any head-to-head wins, the melees are a surprisingly good environment for it. Keep it away from big flippers and it should reach the Top 64.
Tetanus Booster's weirdly thick armour and invertible nature should keep it alive in the melees, it's not exactly easy prey. A second run to the Top 32 would be a stretch though.
Tetanus Booster's partner in crime, Cedric Slammer, suddenly feels like it's in a lot more trouble. In relative danger this time.
I'm really glad to see Hyperactive get this far, but I don't think it's going any further. You never know, though!
Is it even worth including Cygnus X-1 here when all of the four best robots in this heat got through? Cygnus X-1 would've been well out of its depth by the Top 96.
Tricerabot 3.0 - This heat is simpler in the sense that the genuine four best machines all got through, but the decision for the top spot was far tougher. Choosing between Tricerabot and Tetanus Booster really is like choosing between apples and oranges. Tricerabot was a more successful robot overall, but stick both robots in Series 7 and I'm sure Tetanus Booster would do better. Despite their differences in weaponry, the core strengths and weaknesses are shared - they're unusually tanky, but also suffer against flippers due to their giant clearances. Ultimately the decider is that Tricerabot would probably beat Tetanus Booster in a head-to-head.
Tetanus Booster - But even after that dilemma I've just described, Tetanus Booster wasn't even that far ahead of...
Cedric Slammer - ...the next machine, Cedric Slammer. Both Tetanus Booster and Cedric Slammer were surprise entries in the Top 32 of the Ragnabot 2, so it was curious to see them in the same heat. Picking between them was relatively tricky too, with the robots sharing similar weapon archetypes and combat records, but it's invertibility and reliability that favoured Tetanus Booster.
Hyperactive - The only qualifier from Heat C that you might argue wasn't part of the Top 4 would have to be Hyperactive, but with Unibite's unreliability mysteriously absent, I think it's dependable enough to put here.
Cygnus X-1 - After two killer heats, seeing Cygnus X-1 in fifth place is a bit weird. It wasn't a great robot in its home context - you needed a srimech to survive in Series 7 - but take it away from flippers and it's suddenly pretty decent. Good armour and a relatively useful weapon, I was convinced it would escape this heat.
Crusader 2 - Another robot which fell in the second round here, this time at the hands of Hyperactive. There were plenty of ways for Crusader 2 to reach the Top 96 here, but I'd gladly sacrifice it to give Hyperactive some good luck.
Onslaught - Representing Series 5(!), Onslaught is good enough to stake its claim over the other three Heat Finalists, but it never really felt like a contender.
ICU - I've always been attached to ICU and I was very glad to see it reach a Heat Final, but it's only in the Top 8 here because I've excluded the Round 1 contenders. All of Plunderbird 5, Direct Action, Snake Bite and Jellyfish have bigger claims to the Top 8 than ICU.
Derek 2 - If we saw more of Derek 2, it could go further up this list, or further down it. On a mix of reasonable promise and a weak TV appearance, Derek 2 ends up somewhere in the middle.
Thing II - Speaking of Jellyfish, here's the robot that knocked it out. Somewhat amazing that Thing II is one of only two UK heat winner in this heat (excluding Plunderbird 5 with respect to Plunderbird 2 being its own entry in Ragnabot 3).
Fatal Traction - I almost want to call Fatal Traction "overrated" and yet here it is outplacing five robots in this heat...
Victor 2 - Victor could hardly pull off a Doomsword Slash or a Doom Dive Drive, but it was OK. Why am I referencing Inazuma Eleven on the Robot Wars Wiki
Rohog - Last time we had The Tartan Terror, this time we have Rohog in a Heat Final. Who's next, Kliptonite?
Haardvark (S2) - So I mentioned that Thing II was one of only two UK heat winners in this heat. The other was Haardvark, what does that tell you?
Ron - And then we get to the robot that doesn't even have a combat battle in Robot Wars.
Mini-Maul - Guess I was wrong about AM CVn, at least that had a weapon!!
Heat D[]
Terrorhurtz isn't going anywhere, I expect it will settle at a comfy 9th, provided it doesn't beat Carbide again
I don't miss Pulsar, and clearly if it lost to Bulldog Breed in this heat, we would've found a way for it to flub the melee in the Top 96.
Pussycat is horribly redundant against reboot armour, but it is still useful in a melee environment. Should make the Top 64 before getting outclassed.
The only battle GBH 2 ever took part in was a melee against The Alien and Sir Chromalot, which it lost. The Ragnabot melees will be far more brutal than that.
Kat 3, meanwhile, "won" a melee involving Firestorm and Bigger Brother! Despite being a weaker robot than GBH 2, it somehow stands more of a chance at the Top 64.
Terrorhurtz - We haven't actually discussed a UK Grand Finalist on this blog since Heat A, so let's chuck Terrorhurtz in at a comfy first place.
Pulsar - Right before, once again, I'm forced to award second place to something that lost inside the heat. This one was particularly weird, as Pulsar lost to Bulldog Breed in the second round, not Terrorhurtz. Given that Magnetar had only recently won its heat, and Pulsar was just kinda here as a reprise, I get the feeling people didn't really want it there (I know I didn't), and took an opportunity to have it break down against any reasonable foe. As it turned out, it would've faced Terrorhurtz in Round 3 anyway, so we really should've given Pulsar the Heat Final it deserved.
Bulldog Breed - Instead, it was Bulldog Breed who got fed to Terrorhurtz directly after its controversial win. Back to the winning robots, anyway...
Pussycat - You wait for one UK finalist, and three come at once! Pussycat got a very controversial win in this heat, which we'll discuss in a moment, but generally speaking Pussycat is solid enough to reach the Top 4.
Iron-Awe 6 - I'll say it as clearly as possible. If Iron-Awe 6's flipper worked on Robot Wars, it would be number one in this heat, by a wide margin. Instead, we got a robot that was not fast, not well-driven, and not really useful in any particular manner, but still just trundled on and undeniably showed that it could succeed as a pure wedge.
Hobgoblin - So here's the robot that really should've beaten Pussycat. As I mentioned before, I'm happy to call Pussycat a superior machine overall, as Hobgoblin's major weaknesses are more likely to catch up to it in, say, the three-way melees. However in that particular matchup, Hobgoblin should have easily won as it was the only robot capable of causing damage.
GBH 2 - It's hard to find an accurate place for GBH 2 in this list as it's extremely susceptible to damage, but excelled in its strengths. It did qualify out of this heat though, so that says something!
Kat 3 - And even more merrily, so did Kat 3. Magnificent to see this Kat finally land on its feet. More of an all-rounder than GBH 2, with better defence but much weaker offence, with GBH 2's combination lending itself better to 1v1s and Kat 3's lending itself better to melees.
Revenge of Trouble & Strife - Directly behind Kat 3 is its key victim. Although I quite confidently voted for ROTAS in that battle, Kat 3 does have the upper hand in this ranking due to its more reliable srimech giving it more of a fighting chance against flippers.
The Kraken - It's interesting to talk about The Kraken in a second-round context, as it was one of the weakest in Series 7, but here it's a respectable tenth.
Flepser - Needless to say, we're at a point where first-round dropouts like frenZy and Splinter would start to seep in, but Flepser is a nice machine and deserved its near-encounter with the Heat Final.
Sniper - At surface level, Sniper looks very competent. It's such a shame it was so sluggish, but I do think it was taken from us too early, in a loss I ddon't really understand.
B.O.D. - While poor by Series 7 standards, the Blades of Destruction are enough to give BOD free wins over early series machines.
Beast of Bodmin - Just as it did in the real Series 3, Beast of Bodmin continues to overperform. I really feel people need to distinguish BOB from Roadblock, it was a far cry with a much less effective wedge and poor armour, compensated only by a little flicker which would nowadays be useless. It was below standard in the Top 8 of Series 3, and it was below standard in the Heat Final here.
G.B.H. - You wait for one GBH, and two come at once! Extremely fortunate to reach a Heat Final though, which it did by virtue of fighting the only robot left inferior to itself.
Spindoctor (S7) - I guess Spindoctor fends off Steel Sandwich for the title of strongest wooden spoon so far. Or does it...?
Heat E[]
Within this heat, Chaos 2 stands out as the best in attendance, but that's far from the case in the Top 96. This is the first time where I'm not fully confident a top-rank heat winner will even make it through the next stage. After making the Top 8 of the first Ragnabot, I think Chaos 2 should make it through to the Top 64, but I can't rule out an immediate exit.
In fact, I might go as far to say Judge Shred 3 is the most likely robot here to reach the Top 64, despite giving Chaos 2 an edge overall.
King B Remix would've been an interesting party in the melees, as it has a real knack for surviving them in Robot Wars. It probably could've done it here too.
I'm really glad to see Ninjitsu survive the heat, but I'm worried for them. If they face something made out of HARDOX then they will lose their spinner, and subsequently their place in Ragnabot 3.
However, the machine most at risk is Mortis, which I don't expect to go any further.
Chaos 2 - The top two for this heat are similar in a couple of ways, being high-power flippers that suffer key weaknesses with self-righting. However, the two-time champion Chaos 2 was slightly ahead in that department, also boasting more speed and raw power, taking the top spot for the first time in a while.
Judge Shred 3 - But of course, the other big flipper of this heat is still in second place.
King B Remix - Certainly King B Powerworks would be easier to rate, with the vulnerable drivechains of King B Remix being a persistent issue, but with some presumption of functionality, I'll put Simon Harrison's bot in third.
Ninjitsu - Few would deny that Ninjitsu's breakable weapon belt and its complete breakdown against Tyranabot count against it generally, but in a moderately weak heat, Ninjitsu has enough overall competence to steal fourth place. Certainly if Panic Attack did not fall in the first round to Chaos 2 then it would be here instead!
Rick - Rick is secretly one of the best machines in this heat, but it was drawn against King B Remix in the second round, and so it can't even claim to have lost to one of the heat winners! It is in my top five though.
Gravedigger (S5) - Perhaps an unusual choice to come next, but there are four notable axebots in this heat, and to me, Gravedigger had the most potential.
Arnold A. Terminegger - The next of the four axebots would be Arnold, helped in part by its lifter weapon and general reliability.
Steel Avenger - The third axe for me is Steel Avenger, which was far from the strongest axe, but was enough of a solid package to keep it high here.
Foxic - An extremely frustrating robot to rank, Foxic could be literally anywhere from first through to sixteenth. I've put it directly in the middle, which I swear is a coincidence, but I've tried to rank it under the more reliable robots, and above the older entries to share reliability woes.
EWE2 - I didn't expect Rick and EWE2 to be so far apart, but that really is the virtue of Having a Wedge vs. Not Having a Wedge, huh?
Alien Destructor II - To say that Alien Destructor had four fights on Robot Wars, it remains very hard to rate. Both of its Dutch Series 1 fights (including a win over Scraptosaur and a loss to Twisted Metal) were interrupted by House Robots, while its remaining losses were at the hands of Chaos 2 and Crushtacean. The history of Das Gepäck shows that this could've been a quietly decent machine, and one I'll choose to respect.
Mortis - And the fourth axebot is the one which actually escaped the heat, Mortis. I do agree with it beating Steel Avenger as its thick armour helped it there, but Mortis is more vulnerable to the rest of the Ragnabot cast due to its lower weight and snap-prone tracks. Of course, if I just remembered to vote for Tiberius S4 in time, then Mortis wouldn't have even passed the first round, never mind the heat!
Judge Shred 2 - So Judge Shred gets to take up slots in the top two and the bottom four! Perhaps if Judge Shred 2½ was the rightful "third" version and the Series 7 entry was Judge Shred 4, then this wouldn't seem like such a dramatic leap in quality.
Anorakaphobia - The secret fifth axebot of the heat, it's easy to forget it was there after ultimately proving to be Chaos 2 Fodder for the second time in Ragnabot history!
Basenji - Although I am aware of Basenji's hidden victory over Tornado MER in the states, the version of Basenji we saw on Robot Wars is not a machine I rate, even if I was quite attached to it for many years after the builder uploaded his Extreme Warriors fights to YouTube. Those wheels needed at least some kind of reason to come off against Darkness.
Groundhog - And here at the bottom of the list for this heat is Groundhog. There really was no contest for the worst second-rounder in Heat E.
Heat F[]
Shockwave may have lost its only three-way melee in the show, but it's hardly going to be drawn against Apollo and Carbide again. Shockwave can take the next couple of rounds for granted, I see it heading for the Top 16.
Dantomkia falling in the second round is easily one of the biggest casualties so far, and one that prevented it from reaching heights as far as the Top 32.
Vulture is the greatest robot ever created and will win Ragnabot. Well alright, it'll likely take a hit somewhere inside the Top 64, but probably with me trying to vote it through!
This isn't the last we'll be seeing of Twister in the blog, but this rendition will start to struggle going forwards. I'd say 50/50 chances of getting through the next round.
With Zorro being so hard to rate, any opportunity to knock it out in the Top 96 will probably be taken. In real danger.
Shockwave - Straight away, the best robot in this heat was Shockwave. With Aftershock already gone, it has to carry the torch for two now, but I reckon it can!
Dantomkia - And the biggest victim of bad luck in this heat was easily Dantomkia! It was quite clearly the second-best in this heat, and a real distance ahead of the rest. However, it drew Shockwave in Round 2, and that was that!
Vulture - I have to be careful what I say here, as I'm writing this blog from inside Adam Hamilton's house! Vulture should take third here quite comfortably, let's just hope he doesn't notice...!
Twister (Series 7) - One of the more highly rated first-round losers in Robot Wars, we know that Twister beat Ceros in its qualifier and so that has directly impacted the ranking here!
Ceros - As in, Ceros finishes directly behind Twister. I do think Twister would do better in a modern environment too, it's always a painful reminder that reboot competitor Rusty was the 'improved' Ceros!
Weber - Now here's a flipper that did compete in the reboot! Weber could've had a claim for fourth place here, but Twister did defeat it in their Ragnabot battle, and I'm not convinced this version of Weber could self-right even on a full tank of gas. I hope the Russians take some comfort in knowing that the newest version of Weber would top this list!
Trouble 'n' Strife - I am a little uncomfortable putting Trouble 'n' Strife this high as I do think its imbalance and lack of control are significant issues that hold it back more than some are led to believe. This is one of the weaker heats though, so it clinches a Top 8 position.
Zorro - The proper wildcard of the heat, Zorro could've been rubbish or it could've been awesome, we'll never really know. We kinda need to though, because it's in the Top 96!
Centurion - Perspective. This is one of the weaker heats of Ragnabot 3, and yet Centurion misses out on the Top 8. Meanwhile, in Ragnabot 1, Centurion reaches the Top 32 of the entire tournament and gets 17th. Does that strike you as odd? It gets worse when you realise Centurion's wins back then came at the expense of Manta.
Kick Robut - This will seem quite high to many people, but I was tempted to put Kick Robut above even this spot. It's such a shame we didn't get to see this robot in some proper one-on-ones because the potential was there long before the likes of Probophobia and Shockwave came along.
Mean Streak - On paper, Mean Streak has a lot of advantages, being a Series 7 robot with decent spinners and an invertible nature. Sadly, the weaker armour and side-stranding potential stop it from being a true threat.
MouseTrap - A fairly low ranking for the former heat winner who once nearly vanquished S3, but I think it says a lot that MouseTrap's best performance was a defeat. Lacking a srimech is a massive deal nowadays.
259 (Middleweight) - Including the middleweight 259 in this tournament was a lot of fun, and I'm glad it collected a Heat Final along the way, but of course I can only be so generous with my ranking of a middleweight.
T-Wrecks - I tend to have T-Wrecks' back in fantasy tournaments, especially in regards to defending its inclusion in Series 7, but I'm of course forced to rank it low here.
Chimera - Another "weaponless" robot, but despite being much newer, Chimera stands out to me as worse. Its speed is lower, and its huge tyres present an even bigger weakness than T-Wrecks already faces.
T.R.A.C.I.E. - At the bottom is T.R.A.C.I.E., a robot far more unreliable than people care to mention, with breakdowns in the Football and its "win" over Prince of Darkness. Not to mention its very low weight and lack of an active weapon.
Heat G[]
Arena Cleaner will be the death of me in this tournament, as I can almost guarantee that there will be one or two votes against it in the melee because 'Scott Mills will leave his wheels exposed to the spinner of Frostbite' or something, but as long as enough people believe in the true potential of Arena Cleaner, it's headed for the Top 16.
I had fears about Sabretooth heading into Ragnabot 3, worrying that people would base its performance on its Series 10 Heat when the weapon faults were remedied prior to its final three fights. It looks like Sabretooth has escaped that criticism so far, which is good. Top 32, maybe further.
S3 is still a threat, even to the modern robots, and I don't doubt its progression from the melees. It won't lose to the likes of Rammstein again, put it that way.
You don't understand how badly I wanted this image to be DisConstructor but I just couldn't do it!!
Revolution 2 is done for. It needs to be drawn into the same melee as Storm2 who then focuses on the Direct Action equivalent to give Revolution 2 a hope here.
Arena Cleaner - Where there is ToastUltimatum, the Arena Cleaner agenda is not far behind. I don't hide my opinion that Arena Cleaner is easily one of the strongest robots to compete in Robot Wars, with claims of 'loanerbot' and 'exposed wheels' being used far too often to diminish its absurdly powerful bar spinner which boasts even more reach than the likes of Carbide. Arena Cleaner is just short of the Top 10 robots that have competed in Robot Wars altogether, and it nearly losing to DisConstructor in this heat almost made my head explode.
Sabretooth - Thank heavens we got 10 Robot Rumble and World Series Sabretooth towards the end of Series 10, because if I had to judge the nearly weaponless Sabretooth from its first four fights, I wouldn't be able to rank it this highly. Thanks to its return to the Series 9 motors, we have a beast that is only likely to fall in defeat against other quality reboot competitors.
S3 - Another powerful spinner, but this time from the classic series. S3's softer armour and comparatively tamer weapon puts it behind the reboot spinners, but still well ahead of everything else in Heat G.
S.M.I.D.S.Y. - Dependable old S.M.I.D.S.Y. gets to be the strongest non-winner of heat, but only by the slimmest of margins. I think the next two robots down the list have far more combat potential than S.M.I.D.S.Y., but based on what we saw on TV, you'd have to hold more faith in the more dependable S.M.I.D.S.Y. until proven otherwise.
DisConstructor - Time for another agenda, DisConstructor really could have been superb in Series 7 if not for its self-pitting, a potential heat winner in some scenarios. For many years, that belief came purely from the statistics of its 20kg 2500rpm spinning disc, and reports of it destroying Skorpizoid in its qualifier. I was so pleased when I stumbled across footage of DisConstructor at Cosford in 2004, landing a huge blow on X-Terminator which seemingly proved all of my hopes correct. Unfortunately however, DisConstructor did have a lot of mobility issues in this fight, which clearly carried over to its Series 8 campaign. A more mobile DisConstructor would reach the Top 4, maybe even the Top 3... still wouldn't beat Arena Cleaner though.
Bonk - This is another tricky one, because Bonk was statistically very powerful, and every roboteer I speak to about Bonk all seem to hold a really high opinion of the machine. I don't doubt the abilities of its axe, which net it sixth place in the heat, but the poor reliability we saw in Series 8 was also apparent on the live circuit.
General Chompsalot 2 - One of the quiet successes in Extreme Warriors, there's plenty of good things to say about General Chompsalot 2. I wouldn't back it against the solid pushing boxes of this heat (S.M.I.D.S.Y., Bonk), nor can I trust those tyres against the good spinners, but it's definitely a tier above the remainder of this heat's crew.
G-Force - There was a great deal of choice for the final spot in the Top 8 here, but I've chosen to settle on G-Force, a Top 64 finisher from Ragnabot 2. This machine is plagued by recurring reliability issues, but when it worked, it was a nippy blighter that was great fun to watch.
Revolution 2 - And as we get to the lower half, it's time for our fourth heat winner to surface. If Berserk 2 or Zorro were previously the most surprising heat winners in Ragnabot 3, then Revolution 2 certainly took that title here in Heat G. It's yet another machine here which is plagued with reliability woes but otherwise exhibited reasonable potential, just a little bit more of the first half and a little bit less of the second.
Killertron - I do feel people are a little harsh on Killertron, it's true that Series 4 made it appear very out of its depth, but you can hardly blame it for being drawn against Wheely Big Cheese. By Extreme, its axe certainly could cause no damage, but it's not like Terrorhurtz and Thor can break through HARDOX in the reboot either. Those robots used their weapons aggressively to earn points, and we tend to give robots like Bunny Attack the benefits of this, so maybe Killertron could join that pack. The wheelie bin armour, yeah I can't defend that.
Attila the Drum - Now this is a robot that really does suffer outside of its own context. Attila put on a spirited performance in the Annihilator where it was more likely to hit things accidentally and cause real damage, but a 1v1 against more up-to-date robots would generally be the undoing of this machine. I mean, that's why they came back with Jackson Wallop!
Aggrobot 2 - Certainly an unexpected Heat Finalist here was Aggrobot 2, a machine decent for its time with speed and a reasonable wedge, but too soft externally to be a real contender. It can take some solace in matching the performance of rival S.M.I.D.S.Y., at least.
Shear Khan - Another unlikely heat finalist who ultimately finishes in the bottom four here, but such is the way of Ragnabot! Some robots have to beat Aftershock in the second round, others have to beat Pathetica. Shear Khan was at least a tidy enough machine, just lacking in speed or proof of potential.
Pathetica - Pathetica can follow right behind, and certainly on appearance it looks as though it could be several places higher on the list, but the level of nothing that Sater had to do to make Pathetica break down was truly extraordinary. Pathetica having a combat win puts it ahead of the bottom two, but breaking down so easily is indefensible.
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Miss Ile - I don't want to rip on Miss Ile purely for being a Series 3 machine, as we know the team injected £2000 into it back in the days where robots were being built for a few hundred quid, but it was just so ponderous in its battle.
Dreadnaut (S2) - And we conclude with the first version of Dreadnaut, a robot famous for having great difficulties in all of its appearances, but just kept progressing onward regardless. It did it in Series 1, it did it in Series 2, and now it's done it in Ragnabot 3. Brilliant.
Heat H[]
TR2 holds a weakness not shared by the other reboot flippers in that it cannot flip anything out of the arena, but this won't stop it from going on a deep run. The Series 8 version fell within the Top 16 last time, I can see the new version upgrading to the Top 12.
I hadn't really thought about Hypno-Disc's odds in the melees until now, but we all know that Hypno-Disc famously lost the last three melees of its career. All of a sudden I'm slightly concerned for Hypno-Disc.
Dominator II was famously hard to kill off, and the melees should be no real challenge. However I do think Dominator II won't be able to avoid a HARDOX opponent in the Top 64, and that will be its end.
Much like Dominator II, few could kill off Wild Thing in a hurry. Wild Thing 2 may have prospered in the melees, but it would have gone no further.
Sadly I don't think Texas Tornado can pass the melees. Its vulnerable aerial among other issues caused it to lose votes within Heat H, and that's before we even get to its actual next fight! I might throw it a vote though.
TR2 - The best robot in this heat was, unsurprisingly, TR2. It's one of those robots in the camp that simply won't lose to a preboot competitor, and the upgrades made for Series 9 will only help TR2 make even more headway than the Series 8 version did in Ragnabot 2.
Hypno-Disc - I really struggled to separate the number two and three of this heat, those being Hypno-Disc and Dominator II. Certainly the more successful robot in their final guises was Dominator II, outplacing Hypno-Disc in all events and even beating it directly. The reboot environment hinders both robots equally, with HARDOX being more likely to break Hypno-Disc through recoil, while also being a complete defence against Dominator's axe. It's a really close call, but Hypno-Disc's flywheel is still threatening and makes it just that bit more fearsome.
Dominator II - But by all means, if you think Dominator II had exceeded Hypno-Disc as a machine by Series 6, then do let me know!
Wild Thing 2 - It's very challenging to rate Wild Thing 2, as appearances suggest it would be no better than average, and indeed, its wins weren't exactly inspiring... but I can't deny the aggression, control and defence of Wild Thing 2. So many robots below it on this list exceed Wild Thing 2 in one or two areas, but as an overall package, Wild Thing 2 sneaks into the Top 4.
Anarchy - As a practical example of the above, Anarchy has great weaponry, greater than that of Wild Thing 2, but falls below on lower mobility and weaker control.
Rabid M8 - This is genuinely the first time in several heats where a robot has outranked the machine it lost to in the heat. Rabid M8 fell to Spin Doctor US, which is perfectly understandable with the huge tyre weakness, but Rabid M8 would overall beat more robots than Spin Doctor can. The most blatant example, you wouldn't see Spin Doctor beat Gabriel 2.
Texas Tornado - On a personal note, I was so pleased that Texas Tornado got through this heat, even if there seemed to be opposition at every corner. I'm very much on the side that thinks Texas Tornado is a solid performer, and it gets a respectable ranking here.
Son of Armageddon - This ranking for Son of Armageddon is based specifically on its modifications for the third place play-off. Son of Armageddon was a modestly good German machine for most of its series, but with a key weakness that it lacked a lip on its flipper... until the third place playoff where they finally added one! Just a shame it can't self-right from the top or sides.
Tip-Top - This machine is somewhat in the crew with DisConstructor, Mayhem, Chip etc as a reasonably effective spinner which never got to prove itself, but with its own unique locomotion-based weakness. I think the weapon power is enough to put it at the top of this heat's lower half.
Spin Doctor (US) - The final position for Spin Doctor is only tenth, but to say it beat the number six of this heat, there's an achievement in there somewhere.
Storm Force - The LiamBryant machine was lacking in a decent wedge, control, reliability, good armour, pretty much the whole package! But it did have a useful axe and a functioning rollover design, so that's something in its favour.
Brutus Maximus - Oh Brutus Maximus, how you've been the subject of much discussion recently. Formerly a robot regarded as one of the worst competitors in the show, many have recently come around to Brutus Maximus, seeing that although its wooden armour and bicycle tyres made for a novelty entry, it was still fairly reliable and decent at pushing to compromise. Depending on how you look at things, it could have climbed above Storm Force on this ranking, but certainly I would back Storm Force to win a head-to-head between the two.
Oblark - You could basically use the flaws held against Storm Force all over again for Oblark. This time it has two functioning weapons, although they were so functional that they broke themselves. I think that's worse in the long run.
Hippobotomus - I honestly think Hippobotomus is a second Brutus Maximus in disguise. From appearance alone, it was clearly a novelty entry, boasting only a plastic sandpit for armour. Despite this, its weapon was fairly aggressive, the robot was surprisingly nippy around the arena, and it held up to Stinger for a full five-minute fight, even lasting a couple of minutes in the Annihilator. Hippobotomus may be low on this ranking, but it's worth reminding you that it needed to reach Round 2 of Ragnabot 3 to even be eligible for this blog. I don't think it's too unworthy of the second round.
Whirling Dervish - Even towards the very bottom of this list, it feels like Whirling Dervish is being done dirty here, but I want to stress that it was a decent machine for its time. Two flails being spin 360 degrees at 450rpm was quite ahead of its time for Series 2, and it deserved better than to be Panic Attack's first victim. I just have to rank it low here due to its low speed and lack of a srimech.
Ivanhoe - Easily the weakest machine in the second round of Heat H was, for me, Ivanhoe. Indeed, I don't even think it should've been there at all, with Tender Caress being more deserving of the second round slot. Ivanhoe wasn't too bad for its time, but even in its own context it had to be one of the weakest Heat Finalists.
Heat I[]
Razer has boundless potential depending on its run, beating basically every classic series contender bar the likes of Typhoon 2, but the reboot machines are the death of it. I think it'll take a stumble inside the Top 32, but it's not impossible to run all the way to the Top 12 with luck on its side.
Crackers 'n' Smash definitely bit the bullet on the draw in this heat, as I do think the Top 64 was all but locked in for them otherwise.
The Revolutionist is probably out of its depth going forwards. Plenty of flippers will be out there to get it, and it's often going to be the least reliable in attendance. Needs a relatively kind draw to reach the Top 64.
Certainly one user on this wiki has a real agenda to knock Steg 2 out, and I think they'll get their way in the next round.
Much as ShorT CirCuiT has risen in public opinion after its Atomic victory was verified, it's still all but finished now. The Top 96 will be brutal to it.
Razer - The strongest robot in Heat I, the certifiable 'best Ragnabot heat to date', had to be Razer. Out of this selection, any robot could have qualified, with the only machine in no doubt whatsoever being the Ragnabot 1 champion Razer. The only mild danger it could have faced would have been Crackers 'n' Smash (which it beat), and maybe Typhoon I guess?
Crackers 'n' Smash - Opinions are often split on these machines across the wiki, with some believing in their potential and others regarding them as some of the reboot's weakest. My response to this is that we need to separate the Series 9 versions of the group from their Series 10 successors. I agree that the Series 9 entry was a little under par, and fell short of my expectations, but the Series 10 entry was quietly a lot better. The drum on Smash worked reliably in all of its fights this time, even making an impact on the arena wall; it's just unfortunate that a nightmare draw against Eruption, Aftershock and Big Nipper means that weapon was never brought into play. Crackers 'n' Smash "2" isn't too far ahead of the other robots in this heat, but they do enough for me to put them in second, despite their heat semi-final defeat.
UFO (S7) - In third place is yet another machine who felt the force of Razer, falling one stage later than Crackers 'n' Smash. My ranking of UFO might be surprising to some, as it was in heavy danger of falling to Hodaf the Bad in what turned out to be a 7-7 vote - a split decision from the Judges! As the judge who placed the casting vote, I'm happy to admit that I rate UFO quite a lot, it really was a tidy little wedge flipper whose weakness of being side-stranded in a fairly fortunate flip is often exploited to knock it out earlier than it deserves. Of course, Razer was a fair way to lose it in the end...
The Revolutionist - I have no doubts that plenty of other readers would put The Revolutionist as high as second in this heat, but a couple of issues with unreliability and self-righting relegate it to fourth for me. I do respect that the Season 2 version of The Revolutionist only broke down in the Ultimate Mayhem, but its future with the various Shrederators doesn't fill you with confidence. Still, it was reliable and destructive enough to reach the Top 4, and most importantly, escape the heat.
Mechaniac - Now the order starts to get funky, as our fifth place is a one-time loser from Series 7 who ended its fight in burning pieces. Despite this, Mechaniac was a very logical design which seemed to boast reasonable power, and its flipper could have helped it escape the heat if it just collected one more vote against The Revolutionist.
Hodaf the Bad - Another Series 7 first-round loser in hot pursuit, Hodaf the Bad remains a bit of a mystery as it performed OK in its melee which was ultimately cut short before it could be eliminated properly. The flipper was decent for attacking and self-righting, and the disc is a bonus. It's just difficult to put stock in its reliability considering the future of Crazy Coupe 88 and Iron Heart 88.
Reactor II - This was a real interesting story in Heat I, as I do feel Reactor II soaks up a lot of Prizephita's credit. Both had similar weapons and the same combat record in Series 5, so they're often lumped together when in reality Prizephita Mach II was a fair bit better. Reactor II falling to Mechaniac signalled a changing of the guard somewhat, and shows that Reactor II is nowadays quite accurately rated.
Steg 2 - In these later years of fantasy tournaments, everyone seems to have a very clear opinion on Steg 2, but I'm somewhat left without one. Certainly I was unimpressed by its lethargic win over Iron-Awe when I first discovered the uncut fight, and it was clearly second-best to Crusader 2 but the rest of its work seems worthy of credit. Steg 2 did escape this heat, so a Top 8 ranking has been earned here.
ShorT CirCuiT - I continue to find it amusing how ShorT CirCuiT is far more heavily associated with its untelevised qualifier battle than it is for its actual UK series appearance. I mean, just look at the wiki article, the Series 6 section is totally dwarfed by everything else. While seemingly very outdated for its time, I am forced to give ShorT CirCuiT some credit on the grounds that it genuinely and undeniably beat Atomic, also made it through this heat with relatively little opposition.
V-Max - It always continues to confuse me how V-Max was only a reserve for Series 4, as I don't doubt that it could've been a Heat Finalist in plenty of heats, even a winner in the MouseTrap-tier episodes. While an unfortunate victim of Hypno-Disc in reality, V-Max gets to show its stuff here, and would've been a Top 8 machine if it didn't get outvoted by ShorT CirCuiT so decisively in its loss.
Typhoon - It was always going to come down to Typhoon and 259 for the highest-ranking lower weight class machine. Typhoon remains an undefeated machine and the most dangerous middleweight in Robot Wars, but was deceptively weak in its hits, making it a difficult package to rate. I still value it over the weaker heavyweights of this heat though.
Rhino - You really have to feel bad for Rhino, as its predecessor Reactor II is in this same ranking, five places higher than it! I do feel Rhino was intended to be an upgrade, it just didn't work out that way.
Spike (Extreme Warriors) - If the classic loanerbots did something well, it was axe weapons. Spike was far from Tut Tut's level, but was competent in its own right, and cannot be written off. Just a shame about the tyres and the lack of a srimech.
Hammerhead (DS1) - The original Hammerhead is a fun little machine, it no doubt wouldn't have even been included in this tournament if I didn't campaign for its inclusion right at the start of Ragnabot 1, so it's just a shame I have to put it in my bottom three. The weapon was reasonably useful, the robot was just vulnerable around the tyres, and it was a bit slow.
Bottweiler - Genuinely how do you rate Bottweiler? We have nothing to go on other than its statistics, but that was still enough to get it past Bunny Attack, who would probably rank in exactly the same slot here. I definitely would have preferred Bunny Attack winning the fight in the interest of fun and an easier judging process, but I did have to throw my vote to Bottweiler on that occasion.
Death Trak - And the next wooden spoon goes to Death Trak, who felt utterly out of place in the second round, but hilariously so, and I was very pleased for its success.
Heat J[]
Thor falls into a very specific category where it beats the majority of the classic series, beats the lower ranks of reboot competitors, but generally loses to the reboot's best flippers and spinners. Should probably translate to a Top 16 slot.
A reminder that seeing Bigger Brother here does not mean it's through! My heart says that it would've got through the melees easily, but my head says that after drawing Apollo and Thor within the heats of two Ragnabots, it would probably end up in another nightmare draw somehow.
Brute certainly falls into the lower ranks of the Top 96, but still stands an OK chance in the melees. After all, it has won a six-way melee outright in the past, and got second place in an Annihilator, just against much weaker opposition than it's set to face next.
We all know what's going to happen here. Twister is going to get knocked out of Ragnabot 3 by the other Twister.
I could probably count on two hands the number of machines left in the competition that √3 would beat in a head-to-head, but the melees are an intriguing concept for it. If it can hang back and bait the heavyweights into fighting each other, or sacrifice one of its thirds to pin another opponent in place, the Top 64 is not completely out of reach.
Thor (S10) - As with most reboot finalists, Thor's position in the Top 96 was never in doubt from the beginning of this heat. Thor is far ahead of the rest.
Bigger Brother - When I started this blog, I didn't realise how often I would be awarding second place to a robot that fell within the heat, but this is an example that immediately comes to mind. Bigger Brother would very easily defeat 30 robots in this heat, and only Thor could beat it, but sure enough, Thor beat it. Bigger Brother is incredibly unlucky to fall in the heats of Ragnabot yet again.
Brute - After Thor and Bigger Brother, the quality of robot declines very steeply, with a distant third place going to Brute. Although Brute is hindered by its vulnerable wheels, and its drum hardly seemed too effective, it was nippy and aggressive enough to earn yet another good placing in Ragnabot 3. Heck, the only time it ever lost a Ragnabot heat was a controversial defeat to 3 Stegs 2 Heaven for 65th place - this, by the way, would have put Brute on the famous 'Overkill GTI route' to 17th place :(
Twister (DS2) - Despite this being one of the definite weakest heats in Ragnabot 3, at least we can say the top four of this ranking was made up of "Grand Finalists". I exaggerate this, as Brute only won one fight to get fourth place, while Twister actively lost in its heat before concluding its campaign with a 2-2 record, but "finalists" they are! I was opposed to this version of Twister competing in Ragnabot 3 at all, as it boasts no advantages not already seen in the Series 7 version, and exists purely to be a worse Twister which has now occupied two places in the Top 96.
Probophobia - Does Probophobia also count as a Grand Finalist by finishing second in Nickelodeon Robot Wars? That would be the biggest technicality yet, but hey at least it's not Phantasm. Probophobia was plenty capable of escaping this heat, but it had to be sacrificed in order to further Brute's redemption run.
√3 - In concept, √3 really should be a terrible robot. I still cannot believe how effective it was. Just look at how The Swarm and The Four Horsemen underperform in their own contexts, and they have: A) damaging weapons, and B) more robots! With the flippers of √3 likely being useless, the entire machine was essentially three 35kg wedges (the machine was overweight) without the drive power to do much of anything, but it's simply undeniable that they did very well in combat. ODT-Zero and Pika III are both respectable machines in their own right, and √3 pulled ahead over each, so I can only respect the multibots with a sixth place ranking.
Blackdevil Warzone - The first robot inside my Top 8 that fell before the Heat Final! Blackdevil Warzone had a fairly adequate drum spinner for its time, and was generally a good all-rounder.
Killerkat - I didn't originally have Killerkat this high, with many people being critical of its side-stranding weakness, but in fairness, the robots immediately below it can't self-right at all! Killerkat's spinner wasn't fantastic but at least it worked.
Maximum Torque - By far the best robot to fall in the first round of Dutch Series 1 (excluding Meshuggah which didn't compete in the Losers Melee), Maximum Torque deserved better, and they finally got it in Ragnabot 3. It genuinely felt like everyone was on its side in this heat, and it even collected two votes to escape the heat, but it wasn't to be. Happy with this though for the speedy and reasonably built Maximum Torque.
Falcon - Like Maximum Torque before it, the Heat Finalist Falcon narrowly misses out on my own Top 8, but still maintains a slot in the Top 10. Falcon may have had a dreadful 0-4 record but at the end of the day it was a useful wedge that exceeds the abilities of most robots in this Heat of Life.
Cyclone (DS2) - Across two fights, Cyclone never managed to spin, so I must rank it purely as a ramming circle, but like Delldog and Season 1 Revolutionist, that's still capable of collecting the odd win or two. If only The Tragic Roundabout could emulate this...
Big Brother - I wouldn't be surprised if a few people ranked Big Brother slightly higher than this. Even with its own successor Bigger Brother in this heat, its biggest comparisons are Maximum Torque and Falcon, with all using their speed and wedges for attack. Big Brother falls a bit behind them due to its less prominent weapon, lower weight, and a wedge that was lower than Maximum Torque but likely not Falcon.
Mastiff - In principle, Mastiff should be worthy of the Top 8 in this list, being a relatively quick robot with a wedge and flipping arm. However, it is penalised greatly for its inexplicable breakdown, and its generally exploitable shape.
Rhino (EXT) - Certainly I don't think the Army boys built Rhino with the intention of it being a competent fighter. As a combat entry, it's a bit of a 3/10, but as a tribute to the Army, 10/10.
The General (S3) - The General is another Armed Forces tribute pusher, but when comparing it directly to Rhino, we at least saw some controlled pushes from Rhino (including a technical pitting), while the only thing The General pushed was a football. Perhaps The General was better than Rhino, but we'll never know.
Vector of Armageddon - And once again, a featherweight scoops up the wooden spoon. Still, I do want to give Vector of Armageddon credit, I believe it was the best featherweight in Series 1, and I really wanted to fight it with The Tragic Roundabout when I saw a fully functional Vector of Armageddon at Robonerd. I reckon Adam Clark would've had me beaten.
Heat K[]
The Grimreaper's tendency to reach the Judges' decision will prove very favourable in the melees, so I think the most likely outcome is a Top 64 finish, but one step further might be within reach.
I'm glad we don't have to worry about Androne 4000 being KO'ed by the floor flipper, but it may not be enough. Melees never were kind to crushers. Androne 4000 crushed through Concussion's removable link and KO'ed it, yet it was still given the technical third place in its real-life melee, which is a bit foreboding while we look towards its next three-way bout. It'll probably be fine, but nothing we can take for granted.
M2. Mute. Atomic. Shredder. Gravity. This is my Top 5 favourite robots in order, and every single one of them fell in the Heat Final this time. I'm looking at my own favourite robots list to see who I can even cheer for, but the next in line is Eruption and I can't say I'd be ecstatic about that winning Ragnabot 3.
Finally, Wild Thing actually gets a decent result on the wiki, and I reckon it will get better. Survival was kinda this robot's thing. It would need a cruel draw to fall in the melees.
Ask anyone else and they'll tell you Frostbite is completely doomed in the rumbles. I dunno though... is it? I shall say no more.
The Grimreaper - So far, The Grimreaper is the first preboot robot to finish at the top of a ranking here without itself being a Grand Finalist. It's not as though this heat was lacking good robots - admittedly there were only three reboot competitors and two of them made it through, but I think The Grimreaper was the most dependable bot of the bunch.
Androne 4000 - Certainly not an easy robot to rank, Androne 4000 has plenty of flaws with its ground clearance being certifiably massive, with its srimech not working when given the opportunity either. The wedges weren't great either, and a crusher is hardly the easiest weapon to work with. Still though, Androne 4000 doesn't just have a win over Tauron to its name, but also a KO on Concussion, which I'm forced to respect with a second-place finish.
Mute - That's it Toast, put your second-favourite robot in the top three, I can't smell any possible bias here! I'm still hurting from M2 biting the bullet at the start of the blog, so Mute is getting a leg-up here as I think it would be able to beat the next two robots in a head-to-head, even if they're all on a roughly similar level overall. By the way I'm still sad that Mute LOST even if it was probably CORRECT--
Wild Thing - The Series 5 version of Wild Thing gets fourth place in its heat, just like Wild Thing 2 did for Heat H. The difference? Wild Thing actually escaped this heat to make the Top 96, Wild Thing 2 didn't even pass the second round...
PulverizeR - The biggest scalp of the second round, PulverizeR is really owed a good Ragnabot run after being completely robbed of a spot in the Top 32 during the first Ragnabot, and this should've been a fairly easy heat for PulverizeR really, but a second-round draw against The Grimreaper killed it off.
Ming III - Now feels like a good time to mention Fluffy and Rocky-Bot-Boa fell in the first round of this heat. There's not a shred of doubt they would've been in my Top 8 if Ming III is this high up.
Jackson Wallop - Much as it had no business beating Kill-E-Crank-E in the first round, I'm forced to admit Jackson Wallop is probably a Top 8 machine in a heat of this standard, with a strong weapon compensating for its large weaknesses.
Frostbite - Hahahaha Frostbite actually got through the heat, that's wonderfully gratifying. The robot that nobody thought capable of even escaping a melee where its opponents were Wyrm and HIGH-5, now gets a Ragnabot heat win to go alongside its real-life victory. The armour was terrible, the movement speed was ponderous, the weapon was below standard for its time, but Frostbite still packs enough of a punch against classic series foes to reach the Top 96.
King of Diamonds - Now feels like a good time to mention again that Fluffy and Rocky-Bot-Boa fell in Round 1 of this heat. I just put King of Diamonds in ninth place man.
Panzer Wraith - Panzer Wraith was certainly nothing extraordinary at the time, but in hindsight it's nice to see such a bulky tracked machine around this time period, and it's great to see that a cutting disc other than Pussycat once achieved a KO. Panzer Wraith is too vulnerable to all weapons to go any higher, but it was nice to give this robot a Heat Final.
Ruf Ruf Dougal - There was absolutely a possible draw or two in the Heat Finals that could've propelled Ruf Ruf Dougal out of a Ragnabot heat once again, but this time it has to settle for the third round, which is still plenty good enough for such an obvious novelty robot.
Facet - The main draw Ruf Ruf Dougal needed was Facet. While certainly far above average for the Series 3 standard, Facet is hopelessly out of place in Ragnabot where it has to face... actual weaponry. I respect Facet's strengths, but if you could probably be written off by an axe, let alone spinners, I have to look towards Facet with a critical eye.
Weld-Dor 2 - I want to be able to support Weld-Dor 2 and believe in its untapped potential, but its own builder is so scathing towards Weld-Dor 2 in conversations with Anthony Murney that I'm forced to believe him.
Humphrey - I stand by my belief that Humphrey should've fell in Round 1 to Juggernot II, but both would occupy the exact same space in my ranking here.
Siren - How am I supposed to judge Siren??? You tell me, I haven't got a clue.
ORAC - But even if Siren is a near-impossible robot to judge, and Humphrey was a one-time breakdown, the robot most out of its depth here was ORAC. Somehow I don't think this is the last time you'll hear those words...
Heat L[]
If the slow Storm2 from the reboot was narrowly able to overcome Firestorm and Razer in the previous Ragnabot, then I'm confident that Storm2 will go far once again. Top 32?
Lightning will not be taking part in the melees, which is a pity for it seemed to excel in them. I reckon the Top 64 was on the line.
It's quite simple. If IG-88 draws a flipper in the melees, it's probably going out. Otherwise, it's probably through.
Chip, do me a favour and keep away from the arena wall. An invertible spinner should be right at home in a three-way melee, but we saw in Series 7 that Chip really wasn't.
Tut Tut faces significant danger from hereon out. An axe can only really attack one machine at a time, leaving Tut Tut completely exposed to a OHKO from a flipper, or a tearing blow from a spinner. Perhaps if Tut Tut can team up with a fellow American machine, we'll see its Tag Team success return!
Storm2 - Be it the nippy Storm II from Series 7 or the slow-but-self-righting Storm2 from Series 8, Team Storm's machine was well ahead of the pack in this heat.
Lightning - I can't honestly tell if this is an unusual opinion or if people would be inclined to agree, but I think Lightning is next-in-line for this heat, and was unlucky to meet Storm2 in the Heat Final (as was Tsunami in Round 1!). Good defensive capabilities including its angled wedge and srimech give it a slight plus over the third place machine which boasts the same success rate.
IG-88 - There have been many, many times now in fantasy tournaments where IG-88 goes on a tear. The bi-rotational axe was the real deal, and as we never saw IG-88 break down (unlike its predecessor), we're allowed to give it the full benefit of the doubt on reliability. It's only flippers that pose a real risk to IG-88, but the risk they do pose is huge.
Chip - Putting Chip in the Top 4 sounds like such a personal agenda from me, but I don't see a way around it. Chip may be a Round 1 loser in context, but Twisted Metal Evo was a former Dutch finalist that wouldn't feel out of place in the Top 4. At the conclusion of this heat, Chip defeated Twisted Metal Evo, and thus...
Twisted Metal Evo - I am forced to rank Twisted Metal Evo directly beneath Chip, while putting them both in the top five.
The Stag - Right we're going full-on personal agenda now, The Stag is quietly a great little machine, secretly causing 259 levels of damage to Wild Thing 2, and getting a nice qualifier win over Gyrobot. Pitting yourself doesn't make the robot bad, ask DisConstructor and Killerhurtz.
The Scrapper - 100% entirely a ranking based on potential. We never saw The Scrapper do anything of note, after being promptly defeated by Revolution 3 and St. Agro, but surely its disc can't be much worse than Chip and Twisted Metal Evo, if it even is worse!
Tut Tut - The fourth of our heat winners, Tut Tut was a great loanerbot for its time period, and regularly does well in our fantasy tournaments. If Tut Tut could self-right then I would have it even higher, but that's a major weakness to go alongside its thin armour and absent baseplate.
Hassocks Hog 2 - While the single appearance of Hassocks Hog 2 in Series 7 suggests it was a poor robot without even a working flipper, we know from live events that the flipper was at least decent when functional, and sometimes in Ragnabot, that's all you need.
Trazmaniac - A machine I absolutely love, Trazmaniac ranks third-highest out of the Round 2 defeats, striking a nice balance of useable weaponry, good pushing power, and well-protected internals. I don't think the robots beneath Trazmaniac would come close to beating Philipper II than Trazmaniac did. Now that I mention Philipper II, it's a shame that their Round 1 loss against Push to Exit makes it ineligible for this blog :/
Diskotek - People often like to make the comparison that Run Away was very good in Robotica and it simply didn't translate to Robot Wars. I'm more of the opinion that Run Away was just extremely fortunate to win Robotica in the first place, but it is funny how these comments never cross over to Diskotek and Flexy Flyer. It's perhaps because Diskotek was much more optimised for combat, and that is evident in its OK ranking here.
Terror-Bull - If putting The Stag in sixth was a personal agenda, then this is the other side of the coin, with Terror-Bull being the machine that knocked The Stag out of the heat by a fairly wide 7-3 margin, but this ranking should demonstrate that not only do I think The Stag would beat Terror-Bull in combat, but also that I think it's the better robot by a fair margin.
Shockwave (EXT) - With its vertical bar spinner, Shockwave boasts a reasonable weapon that would push it further up the list in some heats, but it's a recurring point that lacking a srimech has to count against you in these rankings.
Darkness - In many respects, Darkness is quite similar to Diskotek, but its lack of a wedge and very breakable weaponry makes it a bigger step down than you would expect from a Heat Finalist vs a Round 1 loser. They both fell to a Juggerbot, just at very different stages of the competition!
Blade - Oh how I want to put Blade higher. Blade is a robot I've often defended when it's been named as one of the worst heat winners in Robot Wars, as I do think it was a fair leap ahead of the true worst, and good for Series 3 standards. Unfortunately we are not ranking robots on Series 3 standards here.
Demolition Man (S7) - Today's wooden spoon goes to Demolition Man, a robot that on surface level seemed to have a decent spinner, but in practice moved about as well as a trolley on a downward slope - slides forwards a bit then comes to a stop. If Demolition Man demonstrated some proper movement then it wouldn't be a wooden spoon, but this isn't the final time Demolition Man will be trying to avoid one!
Heat M[]
Let's be really, really bold here. I believe Big Nipper is going to take sixth place in Ragnabot 3. Remember this caption.
Flammable fur and slightly ponderous speeds are the only things we can use to hold back the very potent Diotoir 3, which should be on a collision course for the Top 32, perhaps one step further with a bit of good fortune.
Gravity is a robot that many have come to expect in the later stages of our tournaments, so its participation will certainly be missed. What was once a lock for the final stages would nowadays be in danger at even the Top 64 stage.
By defeating Conquering Clown 2 in a close call and then escaping the heat, Reptirron the Second has already achieved what it set out to do. Without a particularly threatening weapon, Reptirron's only path through the melees is survival, and without a srimech, I doubt it will do so.
Loanerhard reaching the Top 96 is endlessly amusing, but it goes into the melees as a free pass. It's not the worst robot in the Top 96, but the odds are stacked heavily against it.
Big Nipper - In what should be a fairly agreeable move, Big Nipper takes the top spot in this heat. It took a while to get here, the Series 7 days saw Big Nipper respected as a decent competitor with its live event success acknowledged, although hopes still weren't that high for it in Series 8, and its TV performance did little to change perceptions. Series 10 rolls around and there's still fairly little expectation of Big Nipper in its heat of death, but the team finally proved themselves and showed what Big Nipper can do. From that point in, Big Nipper finally settled in as a Robot Wars elite, and its status has never dropped since.
Diotoir (S10) - One vertical spinner from the reboot wasn't enough for this heat, as we also have Diotoir 3 taking part. Although an 0-2 robot by statistics, the reality is that Diotoir improves on the already frightening basis of Kadeena Machina by adding wheelguards and a superior driver. The question is not whether or not Diotoir will do well in Ragnabot 3, it's simply a case of seeing who will do better out of itself and Kadeena Machina.
Gravity (S7) - Losing Gravity within the heats really solidified the changing of the guard, for Gravity was certainly finalist quality in the first Ragnabot tournament, plenty capable of a very high finish against other classic series opponents. However, its weaker armour and the standardisation of the powerful bungee wedge flipper leaves Gravity now just one of the pack - but one we'll always adore, and deserved better.
Raging Reality - Gravity was not the only scalp of Diotoir inside this heat, as a former Top 16 entry from Ragnabot 2 was also knocked out by the polkadot spinner, in the form of Raging Reality. Of course, that former Top 16 finish was not really testament to Raging Reality's capabilities, with its run being extraordinarily kind all the way through, but it couldn't repeat that good luck here.
Barber-Ous II'n a Bit - It's definitely awkward to rank Barber-Ous II'n a Bit from the Seventh Wars, as we have little idea what its upgrades were compared to Series 6, but we are keenly aware of its downgrades. For Series 7, the removable link of Barber-Ous II was moved to a new location which simply wasn't a good idea, causing the link to easily pop out in its main competition. Henceforth, I think it would be fairer on the Barber-Ous team to use their more reliable Series 6 machine in fantasy battles, and I'll reflect that in my ranking by putting "Barber-Ous II'n a Bit" in fifth place based on its previous incarnation's success, even if the actual changes made to 'N a Bit were overall unhelpful.
Reptirron the Second - In outlets like the Series 7 Rankdown, I've often been keen to stress that the criticism thrown towards machines like Cygnus X-1 and Colossus for being Seventh Wars flippers that can't self-right are somewhat unfair, considering that Reptirron the Second also falls into this category but seemingly escapes this criticism due to its televised victory (and maybe a lingering desire for this machine to repeat its Wikia Series 8 hilarity). Much as I think Reptirron the Second is around the same level as the Herbinators and 8645T 2s of this world, its defensive build and functional weapon are still enough to put it high up my ranking, and into the Top 96.
Conquering Clown 2 - In comes this heat's Grand Finalist! It's not Big Nipper, it's not Diotoir, not even Gravity, but Conquering Clown 2. THe luxury of being a decent robot in Extreme Warriors, eh? Conquering Clown 2 has a somewhat useful weapon, but its key strength was its functionality as a speedy wedge. Flimsy wheels and self-righting concerns always put a ceiling on this novelty machine, but Diotoir is not the only 'comedy entrant' in this heat which turned out to be quite good.
Warhog - I've always been on the side that chooses to give Warhog credit. The Series 4 breakdown reflects badly, but the Series 5 loss was a simple oversight that wasn't the fault of the robot itself, and Series 6 showed us a fairly capable Warhog which just so happened to be outclassed by a perfect counter to its design. It's no fluke that Warhog reached the Heat Finals here.
Cassius II - The abilities of Cassius II have recently been brought into discussion upon learning that Rex Garrod restricted his machine to a single weapon usage per fight following the infamous safety incident of Series 3. Some users believed this had to be factored into all Cassius II fantasy fights, but with good safety in place, I think we're quite welcome to use the full-form Cassius II which repeatedly flipped Dundee in Round 1. While driver error, thin armour and constant rearing up keeps Cassius II quite far from realistic heat victory, the former runner-up is still usually capable of picking up one or two wins.
Gravity (DS2) - The second Gravity of this heat was the hidden version seen in the heats of Dutch Series 2, and it's a fairly competent robot, just in a very different way to Gravity 3. Its flipper was useful in lifting robots up and dictating the pace, but it was a far cry from the full-pressure launcher of its successor when it comes to power. Instead, Gravity 1's key strength was its pushing power, exhibited in a dominant win over the dedicated pusher Das Gepäck. Whilst I would love to see this version of Gravity succeed one day, at least Gravity went out on its own terms this time, being eliminated ironically by its own successor.
Aggrobot - I feel there's a half-joke that needs to be explained here, as Ragnabot votes for Aggrobot from NJGW or myself will typically reference the robot's "HARDOX armour", which may orn may not be true. The Series 7 version of Aggrobot was introduced as boasting "hardened steel armour", or "wear-plate steel armour", something along those lines, which is generally how you refer to HARDOX if you're deliberately trying to avoid promoting a brand name. I'm sure the Beast team did not actually say "teams like to hide behind Wear-Resistant Steel Armour boxes" for their Series 8 website profile, HARDOX boxes definitely hits home more comfortably! Aggrobot did indeed tank a blow from Zorro almost spotlessly, and with both Tough as Nails and Dantomkia starting to pioneer HARDOX in Series 7, we're inclined to believe Aggrobot might be part of that trend. Essentially a HARDOX wedge, Aggrobot essentially sports reboot-level defence if we're not mistaken, but its offence is limited purely to wedging and mild lifting.
Hannibal - Now this really is an awkward one to explain, as Hannibal fell in the second round of the heat to THE BASH, and I was the first voter to go in favour of the Dutch machine, but Hannibal has climbed slightly higher on my list. Whilst I do still think THE BASH should defeat Hannibal in a head-to-head thanks to the grabbable framework of Hannibal, the more heavily protected and invertible Annihilator champion is generally better suited to a greater number of matchups in Ragnabot overall.
THE BASH - With that said, THE BASH directly follows Hannibal in my ranking, and even though it finishes at a fairly low thirteenth here, I do actually believe THE BASH had a rightful place in the Top 96 from this heat, with its Heat Final draw being the stuff of dreams, but ultimately one where more people thought it was the sergeant's time to retire.
Hard (DS2) - So this has surely got to be the lowest ranking of any heat winner in the blog so far, right? By virtue of escaping the heat with wins over only 4x4 and THE BASH, even a Top 96 finish from the loanerbot Hard is only enough to warrant a bottom three ranking here, particularly as I do feel THE BASH had its number. Whilst Hard's axe could potentially retain the power of Tut Tut, its armour was negligible protection, and I'm amazed to see it do so well, especially with the real Hard falling in the heats. Not that I'm complaining - I love a completely unexpected heat winner, and loanerbot Hard meets that criteria tenfold!
4x4 - Although 4x4 boasted a reasonable amount of speed, enough to earn it the win Team Monad needed to reach Round 2 in the first place, it could only serve as a stepping stone for Loanerhard when the second round commenced.
Forever a Robot Wars champion <3
Typhoon Thunder - Much as I adore this cute and admirable little Typhoon (and its driver), I'm forced to put her rock-bottom in this particular ranking. The damage output from Typhoon Thunder's singular hit on the immobile Ellie's Little Pink-Bot was minimal at best, and the robot's driving was subpar. That's no fault of Queen Keri, it is just remarkably difficult to drive a full-body spinner, but when you're a lightweight machine in a heavyweight competition, I have to be a big meanie towards poor old Typhoon Thunder. I'm sorry!!!!!
Heat N[]
Carbide will win Ragnabot again. The only possibility that might prevent this would be a Terrorhurtz draw (or a strong belief in Eruption), and even then I'm voting Carbide.
Although Manta is limited by its lack of a srimech, I think it's nippy and stealthy enough to keep out of danger in the melees. Battery power shouldn't be a concern in three-minute fights.
259 is absolutely not built for three-way melees which will start to feature opponents more modern than itself. To qualify through the melee, 259 needs to draw a classic series robot that it can destroy all by itself, and wipe it out ASAP.
While I think Expulsion is perfectly respectable when taken out of a pure Series 10 context, it seems much of the wiki really lack faith in the machine. In a three-way melee, you only need a couple of votes to eliminate a machine, so I think Expulsion would go no further.
Vader has been given the benefit of the doubt on reliability so far, but I don't think that will carry over to the next stage. Essentially in the same situation as 259, but even less likely to get through.
Carbide - The strongest competitor in all of Robot Wars is Carbide. Naturally it follows that Carbide is therefore the best in this heat.
Manta - All things considered, this is a bit of a weak heat, with Manta being the second-best. Heat N somewhat follows the typical "champion's heat" structure from Series 4-7 in that sense.
259 - Although I'm a little uncomfortable putting a machine with obvious reliability concerns in third place, 259 escaped this heat for a reason. Besides, 259 would have beaten Wild Thing if it was a 3-minute fight, like the whole of Ragnabot is.
Expulsion (S10) - Controversy ho, I am awarding fourth place to a robot which managed to lose a vote to Psychosprout in Round 1. I understand that I'm on the positive end of rating Expulsion, but its weighty weaponry does pose a threat to classic series competitors, and its woes with falling over are highly exaggerated by fans, as it always took a flipper attack or very strong charge into the angled wall to topple Expulsion. I'd even vote for Expulsion to beat 259 honestly, so it's very unfortunate to have fallen in Round 2.
Vader - Well that's the top five sorted, with all four heat winners and the next-best all lumped together. The comparison between Vader and 259 in Series 6 was an interesting one, because 259 boasted more power, while Vader had an edge in reliability. One disappointing Series 7 performance later, and Vader somehow collected the unreliability issue too, so 259 is cleanly ahead.
Mechadroid - This was such a fun story to watch in this heat. Nick and I thought we were the only Mechadroid fanboys in the world, but everyone seemed to rally behind this plucky machine on its route to the heat final, which was nice to see. Unfortunately it then got decimated by Carbide.
Diotoir (S5) - It's not been long since I was singing the praises of Diotoir 3 from the World Series, but the actual team-built Diotoir has to be held back for obvious reasons. Still good enough for a top eight finish in one of our weaker heats, and I'm just grateful it didn't have to be a Carbide victim.
6 Million Dollar Mouse - Another slight mixup, as I did vote for Ming II to knock 6 Million Dollar Mouse out of the tournament, but on reflection I'm quite surprised I did so. With a little bit of hindsight, I think I'd change my mind on that one, and I will at least respect this by pushing the rich rodent up the list.
Pitbull - Next we have a three-time Ragnabot Heat Finalist, Pitbull. Very much the S.M.I.D.S.Y. of Ragnabot, it always gest to the final hurdle but never truly threatens its third and final opponent.
3 Stegs 2 Heaven - The next two robots were very hard to separate, as both were not-the-best editions in a lineage of experienced machines, armed with reasonable weaponry while being notoriously easy to kill. Slightly more value given to 3 Stegs 2 Heaven through its deeper run in a main competition.
Ming II - The other side of the coin being Ming II. Funny how far beneath 6 Million Dollar Mouse it ended up, considering my vote in that fight.
T-Bone - It's always a challenge to rank T-Bone, as many people on the wiki seem to really rate it, with T-Bone supposedly doing very well in the qualifiers. I, on the other hand, feel like T-Bone bending its own disc on the surface of 8645T is the kind of flaw that would happen again quite easily, but I'll still push T-Bone slightly up the list based on the potential everyone else sees.
Sawpoint II - Whereas this robot, I'll rank purely on my own beliefs. Sawpoint II severing the flipper of EWE2 is enough to at least tell me Sawpoint II belongs above the earlier-series competitors comprising the bottom three.
Ultor - While many would suggest the most charmed heat winner of Series 3 was either Blade or Trident, there is a hidden third option, and I do believe Ultor was the true weakest heat winner, essentially being Trident But A Bit Worse. Still decent for its time, but far too primitive for Ragnabot, where it regularly collects its "first" combat loss.
The Tartan Terror - Perhaps the most infamous heat finalist in Ragnabot history, The Tartan Terror still got to Round 2 in its follow-up run. How does this keep happening??
WYSIWYG - And much as it's a shame to keep deferring the wooden spoon to a lower weight class machine, I feel it's less of an insult to penalise them, and more a spotlight to show just how many welterweights got through to the second round at all. It feels like there's been one in at least half the heats so far!
Heat O[]
I'm sure this will be the only time that the leading image will be a robot that failed to reach the Top 64, but losing Supernova is a monumental upset as I think it was set up for a Top 16 finish.
But with Supernova gone, clearly the job defers to Nuts 2 to reach the Top 16 in Supernova's stead.
Black Hole remains quite highly regarded to this day, and going into the melees, I think it's fairly safe. Nothing beyond the Top 64 for me though.
Tiberius does one of two things in melees, it either dictates the pace with aggressive attacks (MouseTrap, Supernova, Fluffy), or hangs back and lets the world pass it by (M2). I think the key in deciding Tiberius III's involvement is the presence of a flipper, and if it hits one in the melees, Sam Smith will be very concerned. Keep it away from flippers though, and the Top 64 awaits.
There was at least one vote against Pinser in both Round 2 and 3 of the heat, and in the melee environment, you only need just over a third of the voters to knock you out. In all fairness, I can't say with confidence that I'll be backing Pinser in the next round either.
Supernova - Well THIS is unprecedented! I was surprised enough at so many robots getting second place on my rankings while still drowning in the heat, but I never thought it possible that the actual No. 1 would be a robot that fell in the heat! The robot to take this dubious title is Supernova, who lost its heat final to Nuts 2 on the grounds that the flail spinner would snipe its flywheel chain, which I agree with. However, Supernova is the more versatile machine overall, and poses more of a threat to the likes of Eruption and Behemoth, making Supernova my top ranking, and possibly the biggest scalp of the heats since Aftershock.
Nuts 2 - Although it may be relegated to the second-best of Heat O by my ranking, it remains easily the best machine that made it out of the heat, something we never expected to say around Series 8-9 time.
Iron-Awe 2.1 - We're keeping all the Nuts 2 victims close together, as Iron-Awe 2.1 was its second-round opponent, but one that I believe is versatile enough to be the third-best in attendance, and probably would've escaped this heat intact if it just avoided the top two.
Black Hole - The other main option for third-best would be the German champion Black Hole, which I've listed in fourth - but still second-best out of the heat winners! Black Hole was perhaps a little better than Iron-Awe 2.1 in a classic series context, but I think the reboot advancements invalidate the mini spinners of Black Hole more than the flipper of Iron-Awe 2.1.
Tiberius III - Not far behind the pack is Tiberius III, a robot that I still fail to understand how it complied with the weight limit. Crushers are heavy, but Tiberius III still had room for excellent armour and a srimech as well, even if the latter was a bit useless.
Soldier Ant - Behind Tiberius III is Tiberius III... again! I don't think there's any doubt where Robo Challenge found the inspiration for Soldier Ant's design, and in some respects, Soldier Ant is a better machine with greater speed and a slightly more prominent wedge, but with the significant extra weakness of its exposed wheels.
Pinser - Why not, let's chuck in all the crushers back-to-back. Pinser suffered on Robot Wars by breaking down in the middle of double-knockouts while another machine was left standing, but Ragnabot is largely a 1v1 environment where Pinser is somewhat saved of its troubles as long as the opponent is also declared dead in that situation. Just a shame for Pinser that once it finally performs well, we introduce a three-way melee stage...
101 - Wan Oh Wan is a true Awl-Star of Rohbot Woors, and Moike Franklin is one of the most loikable rohbuteers to ever compete on the shohw. Trying to type out TG's Australian dialect in text form did not go well and I regret trying.
Spirit of Knightmare - Meanwhoile, Spirit of Kan-Ightmare is one of the worst competitors in Rohbot Woors Spirit of Knightmare feels out of place in the Top 10 of the list as it really wasn't as good as its Annihilator runner-up title would suggest, but I will concede it beats most of the robots ranked below it in a head-to-head.
Hell's Teeth - One of the very first beneficiaries from a Heat of Life in Ragnabot history, Hell's Teeth once made the Top 64 through the first notably weak Ragnabot heat we ever ran, but I don't think it will reach those heights again.
Spartacus 2 - Over time, I'm seeing more and more people regard Spartacus 2 as quite a bad machine that was only 'fortunate' enough to have a win because it fought Flippa, but I really don't think Spartacus was bad at all. It had a reasonable amount of speed, and withstood quite a few hits from Supernova, with the weapon being situationally useful too. I will grant that the lack of a srimech is a hindering factor though.
Tomahawk - So that Heat of Life that Hell's Teeth qualified through in Ragnabot 1? Yep, Hell's Teeth wasn't even the weakest machine to get through it! Tomahawk's recurring issues with reliability over the past decade convince me that the OHKO at the hands of IG-88 was no fluke. You know who was one of the best robots in that Heat of Life? Cyclone 2, which lost to Tiberius III in the first round of this very heat. Life is cruel.
Henry 2 - I'm feeling generous, so I'll rate Henry 2 based on the potential of what could've been, rather than the reality of what we saw. A speedy flipper like Henry 2 could've been great in Series 4, albeit not beyond that.
Cerberus - So now we finally get to Cerberus, a whole six places beneath 101 which it knocked out of this heat. I did indeed side with Cerberus to win that particular battle, but it was a very situational matchup, and 101 would do better than Cerberus in Ragnabot more often than not, thanks to its invertibility and tenacity.
Scarey-Go-Round - I already had a problem with this name for being spelled wrong on the show, but it only gets worse when people keep calling my robot Scary-Go-Round instead of The Tragic Roundabout, mixing up the two names. Somehow it's not the wooden spoon of this heat though!
Pour one out for O Raz3r O lads
Penetrator - What on earth is Penetrator doing in the second round? Who asked for this?? Allow me to also pay a tribute to Alpha, who fell to 101 in the first round of this heat after genuinely months of O Raz3r O eagerly awaiting its debut (and for some reason thought he might be able to vote for it).
Heat P[]
Tauron is this heat's only hope of any success in the Top 96. Tauron will do absolutely fine, likely reaching the Top 32, it'll just be the only one from this pool.
I've referred back to Chimera2 during this article so much that I genuinely forgot it fell in the Heat Final. Even then, it's not like Chimera2 would've gone much deeper into the competition.
I think a lot of people will want to see Suicidal Tendencies succeed in the melees, especially given how well it handled its own Series 4 melee, but the Annihilator hardly went well, and the tracks will be an easy target that will likely bring it a loss in the next round.
Now by no means do I think Pressure would've qualified through the melees... I just wanted it to be there.
Bucky the Robot is unlikely to win the melee on its own merit, but perhaps if there were a Fog of War used 'tactically' then the other opponent would get CAUGHTBYRAPIDAAAUGHHH
If you manage to draw Orac's Revenge in the melees then all your Christmases have come at once. This will be the robot everyone wants to fight, and is almost completely guaranteed to fall at the next hurdle.
Tauron Mk II - Of the sixteen robots listed here, the best robot by a country mile is Tauron, who is hilariously far ahead of the remaining fifteen, and uncontested by all of them. And yet, there genuinely was a really good match for Tauron in this heat, which did indeed lead to me voting against Tauron at the very first hurdle. That robot was Cathadh, the lighter version of Arena Cleaner with revised American electronics. Were this Arena Cleaner itself, I would have no doubt that it's a better robot than Tauron and I would be even more confident in my vote, but losing the Arena Cleaner clone in the first round is something I can accept. So we've lost Cathadh and Pulsar, can we make it a set by knocking Kadeena Machina out in the heats?
Chimera2 - When the second-best robot in the heat is Chimera2, you know this is a weak one. While miles weaker than Cathadh, Chimera2 gets to claim second place basically thanks to nothing more than its HARDOX wedge and HDPE wheels. As a side note, the robots in this heat were actually supposed to comprise Heat A, but Jimlaad pushed this heat further down the queue so that a more exciting heat would kick things off. In reality, everyone would've appreciated this heat more if it remained Heat A (as everyone wants to vote in the opener), and the 'real' Heat A would've been better off here to break up a dry spell of heats made up of very few good robots.
Suicidal Tendencies (S4) - Finally, we get to a robot in this heat with an actual combat win in real life! Suicidal Tendencies 2 should be good enough to earn second place for this heat ahead of Chimera2, but its frustrating losses of drive in various battles prevents me from being that generous.
Pressure - Now this one really annoys me. Pressure is a robot that I have loved for many years, thanks in part to its entertaining win over Piranha, and interesting submarine design. Pressure is not exactly a great robot, performing well only in the environment of the New Blood Championship's weakest heat, but for whatever reason, the gods smiled upon Pressure in the previous two Ragnabot tournaments, as it has twice made the Top 64... somehow. Moving into this heat, I was stunned to see that Pressure was legitimately one of the four best robots in attendance! I really got my hopes up for Pressure to escape the heats for a third time in a row, because by all accounts, it really should have! Unfortunately a bitterly disappointing draw against Chimera2 silenced its conquest in the second round. And that was AFTER Chimera2 already knocked out NEATer Machine in the first round!!
Bucky the Robot - What a weird thing Bucky is. The positives of Bucky include reasonable modern drive power, decent armour in places, and it was the only robot to take RAPID to a Judges' decision. The downsides would be Bucky's completely impractical design, being the kind of robot that absolutely needs to wedge under something, but the team basically forgot to give it any kind of wedge leading into its extremely steep front. Team Tomco have advanced very quickly, and their machines are getting better all the time, but Bucky the Robot was a real mixed bag. One that we all love, of course!
Devastator - No weaknesses, they say! Devastator really wasn't great as far as spinners go, and Series 7 definitely housed better spinners that lost in Round 1, like DisConstructor and Chip. The weapon of Devastator was more of a cutting blade really, being made of thin sheet steel, but if that's good enough for Pussycat, I guess it's good enough for the Top 8 here.
Hammerhead 2 - In comes a Dutch machine that I've really grown quite attached to. My main goal in rewriting its wiki article was discovering what Hammerhead 2 actually did to win its Series 7 melee, while also revisiting some fairly entertaining Dutch series battles. It worked far too well, and now I love this little thing, but I certainly don't rate it enough to put it through to the Top 96 (which it was only one or two votes away from doing).
Run Away - And of all robots, Run Away concludes the upper half! For all its flaws and poor build quality, Run Away at least boasted a reasonable amount of speed, and a half-useful wedge. The spinning blades weren't good, but they would leave an impact on Series 3 armour. Sadly not enough people agreed and it somehow got knocked out by a first-round loser from Series 3.
Orac's Revenge - And here is the robot in question. Orac's Revenge has to be one of the most surprising heat winners in Ragnabot history, using only a decent top speed and the liberty of having an active weapon to ensure a place in the Top 96. I don't agree with it beating Run Away, or even Inquisitor Mk 2, but it is a nice bit of encouragement to show that even the oldest robots can occasionally get far in Ragnabot.
Tridentate - What I can say in Tridentate's favour is that it probably got robbed of a place in the second round of Series 6, being immobilised some time after Behemoth had already lost half its drive. What I can't say for Tridentate is... what it's supposed to do? It's another Bucky case where the robot's design seems completely impractical, but at least there's some decent gubbins on the inside.
Reaper NP2 - Reaper NP2 is next because, erm, it's from Series 7? It was one of the worst robots in Series 7, but I need something here.
Oblivion 2 - Oblivion 2 is next because, erm, it's from Series 4??? At least the weapon worked, and its only defeat was a bit of a fluke. There's a vague chance of some untapped potential here. Emphasis on the vague.
Inquisitor Mk 2 - Strangely, Inquisitor Mk 2 probably has one of the best weapons in this entire heat, it's just not complimented by the robot which was slow and frail. Still, if it did defeat Orac's Revenge, would people have voted for it to beat Run Away and crack the Top 96?
Golem - On appearance alone, Golem looks like it would be a contender for the Top 8, sporting some meaty tires which should have made it an effective rambot. In practice, it just trundled about aimlessly and usually just broke down in unthreatening situations. The amount of times I've now seen Golem's opening melee and Extreme 1 battle for the sake of my German Wars fandub with NJGW is unbearable.
Recyclopse - After listing fourteen entire robots, we finally arrive at the one real-world heat winner inside this heat. We didn't even get, like, a Tyke or a Sater; the only heat winners in attendance were Recyclopse and Robot the Bruce. Like Inquisitor Mk 2, Recyclopse was equipped with a decent weapon, but everything else lets it down, with Recyclopse's armour and drivetrain being even more vulnerable.
hey look guys there's actually a second good robot in this hea--
Wizard - And the wooden spoon goes to Wizard, because yep, that's a robot which won a fight in Ragnabot 3. I toyed with the idea of it beating Recyclopse in a head-to-head to put it in fifteenth place, and perhaps it would, but certainly Cassius didn't struggle with Wizard. That's my excuse and I'm running with it.
Heat Q[]
Eruption is our second-in-line to be crowned Ragnabot champion if anything untoward happens to Carbide. With Aftershock eliminated, nobody other than Carbide is capable of beating Eruption directly, so I'll predict the second-place finish.
If Carbide and Eruption are my top two predictions for the tournament, then I'm happy to call Apollo my number three. Realistically it will probably encounter Carbide or Eruption some time prior to the top four, but those are the only two primed to take it out, so it's the safest bet for bronze.
The only thing stopping The Cat from a very deep run is its questionable breakdown against Interstellar: MML. I doubt anyone would be able to pass the huge disc and hit the exposed wheels, so I'm very relieved we got to fairly knock The Cat out against Apollo instead of trying to guess when it will break down.
With Tornado not being highest-ranked robot on my list out of those who drowned in the heat, I'm not even obliged to put a picture of it here, but I'd feel strange omitting it. Tornado clutched a place in the Top 16 last Ragnabot, so a similar run wasn't impossible, but certainly the days of being a Ragnabot runner-up are long gone.
Many would argue Draven wasn't even one of the top eight in this heat, but through to the melees regardless, I think it will do OK at the next stage. It can certainly survive and contribute quite well, so Draven would need to be specifically targeted to get rid of it before the Top 64.
Delldog isn't quite the worst robot in the Top 96, but it was definitely the most unlikely. It had absolutely no business escaping one of the busiest Heat of Death routes we've ever hosted, but I'm overjoyed that it did.
Eruption - Well this is a surprise, a heat where Eruption wasn't beyond-all-doubt the best machine in the heat! I still think that the incumbent Robot Wars champion definitely was the best robot in Heat Q...
Apollo - ...But there's also a compelling case for the Series 8 champion Apollo to be the best in the heat! Apollo does boast a little more flipper power than Eruption and generally better defence against spinners, but Eruption was still tanky enough to take the likes of Ironside3, Cathadh and eventually Carbide, so I'm happy to go with the obvious. Of course we all know that Eruption has a vast winning record on Apollo in the show as well, even if they never really got a clean fight.
The Cat - Heat Q is very much a Heat of Death, but it came at just the right moment. Considering I'm putting The Cat in third place, above two Robot Wars champions and other successes, that should show how much I rate the ~140kg death machine and its lethal spinning disc. I'm very relieved to be rid of The Cat with a legitimate loss to Apollo because I dread to think A) how well it would do thanks to its OTT weaponry, or B) how much it would underperform due to reliability concerns.
Tornado - This is an odd one, as the Series 6 champion and a former Ragnabot runner-up is only fourth on my ranking here, and it was very nearly fifth! I was so close to putting Meggamouse above Tornado, but ultimately thought of a few robots Tornado defeated where I would doubt Meggamouse, such as Terrorhurtz, Firestorm and Razer. Tornado is a robot that honestly should've been outdated even by Series 7, a really pertinent example is that Tornado apparently lost to Cherub several times when we all know Cherub seemed far less impressive at Tornado's main goal on TV. Nevertheless, Tornado overcame some real adversity to win matches that I'd never think possible if it didn't actually happen. Genuinely all of Firestorm, Terrorhurtz, Gravity and X-Terminator, I would expect Tornado to lose but it never did. It would definitely lose to Eruption and Apollo though lol
Meggamouse - Next is Meggamouse, which on the surface of things seems to be somewhat below-average for reboot standards. Its armour was primarily aluminium, the wheels are exposed, the flipper was nowhere near strong enough for an OotA in this arena (even providing self-righting doubts late into a battle), and the wedge was a bit poor too. So what makes Meggamouse in fact a very strong competitor, one that even finished sixth in one of my personal Ragnabots? A huge part of that is its driver Shane Lale. I've had the "pleasure" of fighting him in the arena with The Tragic Roundabout three times now, and I can say without a doubt that his driving is first-rate. This was even more evident with Iron-Awe 6; I was part of Team Immersion for Robots Live! in Grantham and you would think that out of Iron-Awe 6 and Iron-Awe 8, the latter would be the one who beat us. Absolutely not though, Immersion beat Iron-Awe 8 quite easily but lost to Iron-Awe 6 on a Judges' decision, which was entirely down to Shane's driving. Then he went and won the UK championship with comfortable wins over Manta and Eruption, so yep, I certainly trust him behind the wheels of Meggamouse. The robot itself was nothing stellar, but it was still a nippy little reboot robot with a functional enough flipper which has gradually earned it a ton of wins on the live circuit, and if it hadn't drawn The Cat so early in the bracket, I would've had very high hopes for Meggamouse.
Kan-Opener D-spec - If I use the name D-spec then that helps to differentiate this robot from the Series 8 Kan-Opener and justifies its inclusion right? I didn't really agree with having two Kan-Openers in Ragnabot 3 as it was very plausible that they'd both escape the heats, but we narrowly avoided that thanks to a late comeback from Draven, who I have ranked below Kan-Opener due to its comparative lack of damage output and invertibility (something that didn't apply to the head-to-head between the two)
St. Agro - Oh hello Suntagro, you flew under the radar in this heat! We've had five robots in a row now within this Top 8 without actually covering any robots that escaped the heat, but the top dogs really had a vicious path on lock. Tornado fell to Eruption, Meggamouse fell to The Cat, while Apollo eliminated both The Cat and St. Agro before it. A heat winner from Series 7 with a good flipper was generally always going to rank highly, but St. Agro is left in a similar position to M2 and Raging Knightmare where it was simply overshadowed inside a Heat of Death.
Draven - Closing out the upper half, our third heat winner finally gets involved, that being Dravne. This is a robot with gimmicky offence to say the least, which hasn't really helped it in any fantasy battle to date, but it does reap the benefits of being a Series 9 competitor. Boasting titanium-esque armour and a powerful six-wheel drive, alongside an effective srimech, Draven now has the means to overpower a lot of classic series machines. That's exactly what it did against Kan-Opener, as few would deny that Kan-Opener is a stronger machine generally, but Draven's pushing power and armour completely invalidated it.
Panzer Mk2 - But unfortunately, the robot Draven invalidates the most is our fourth domestic champion of the heat, Panzer Mk2. It brings me great dismay to put it in the bottom half of the heat, but ultimately, the core concept of Panzer Mk2 is a quick, six-wheel drive pushing robot designed to tank spinning blades. Silly as it sounds, something like Draven now achieves all of that and more, and even fixes Panzer Mk2's primary flaw by having a srimech.
Robochicken - Surprise surprise, Toast hardly even gives Robochicken a space in the top ten. While boasting a good flipper, Robochicken's poor armour and intentional lack of a srimech give it a significant disadvantage that nowadays outweigh its strengths.
Delldog - This is still absolutely hilarious. Delldog's heat victory here has to go down as one of the most unlikely events in Ragnabot history; this was a heat with four domestic champions, dangerous reboot competitors, Series 7 successes, and even a few good robots lurking in Round 1 like Or Te and 8645T 2, but somehow Delldog rode the luck of the draw all the way to the Top 96. Purely by having good speed across the arena and the possibility of having a useful spinner, Delldog had enough to capitalise on the few opportunities lying around, and I can't wait to see its journey continue.
Absolut Krankhaft - If Delldog hadn't beaten Absolut Krankhaft in Round 2, I might've been tempted to put Arena Killer higher out of the two, but the majority vote in favour of Delldog plus AK's lack of a srimech is enough to determine the better robot.
Jabber - Now I may not be giving a very high slot to Jabber, finishing inside the bottom four, I do have to give it credit for knocking Unibite 2.0 out in Round 1, as I would doubtlessly rank Unibite higher on the list, at least above the two German robots. This does of course mean that Unibite 2.0 likely would have escaped the heat in Delldog's place if not for its very situational weakness to Jabber's blade, which is positioned perfectly to hurt Unibite's internals.
Berserk - Out of all the Super Heavyweight robot, Berserk feels easiest to judge due to having a direct heavyweight successor with the same weapon, with Berserk 1's forklift being similarly effective. It's just the low top speed that keeps Berserk below the German machines and Jabber.
Agent Orange - This does feel really harsh on Agent Orange, as it breaking down on one side at the end of a five-minute bout with Blade doesn't necessarily make the robot "unreliable" as some people have suggested, plus Agent Orange's axe is at least useful in exhibiting aggression. However, that front pincer was very impractical, getting in the way of it pitting even a static target in the form of Max Damage.
Phoenix (S2) - Without a doubt one of the worst heavyweight robots to win a fight in Ragnabot 3, Phoenix is not even close to anything else in this heat's top sixteen. This is particularly sad after we lost the Series 7 middleweight Phoenix under questionable circumstances only a few heats prior, how I wish we could've swapped them.
Heat R[]
Being a big fan of every Typhoon machine, it's a pity Typhoon 2 is the only one I can be positive about on this blog. Strangely Typhoon 2 has been beaten in every melee it's taken part in, be it the Annihilator, S7 melee, or the qualifiers for S6-7. Surely that won't happen in the next round though... right?
Scorpion collects a lot of praise on the wiki which it mostly deserves. I can definitely see it passing through the melees, but no further than the Top 64.
Well it's not going to repeat the success of Corkscrew Two from last time, but Corkscrew should at least take one step closer.
You know something, I really wish we got to see the modern Mantis in the reboot. I know it loses pretty much every fight it enters on the live circuit, but of course modern wedge flippers are going to beat it. Robot Wars could've been a real nice opportunity.
I think it's very likely that I'll personally be voting against Prizephita Mach II in the melees, but will the rest of the voters agree? On that, I'm not sure.
Typhoon 2 - The previous heat may have had four domestic champions, but HeateR still included another! Typhoon 2 is one of the absolute best robots from the original run, likely in the top three, so with the reboot representation of this heat restricted to only Interstellar and Chompalot, it stands to reason that Typhoon 2 is the clear best here.
Scorpion - Writing about the heat before this one somewhat set me up to expect a more threatening runner-up than Scorpion, but this is where we are. Mostly because Typhoon 2 took out Stinger in the first round.
Corkscrew - The other contender for No. 1 would be the original Corkscrew, which has finally found some Ragnabot success after all this time. I dabbled with the idea of putting it second, but Corkscrew's S6-EX2 record of 1-3 is a little overlooked in terms of how poor it is. Scorpion goes down to 1-2 itself if you include its "spirit", but I do think Scorpion is a little more versatile.
Mantis - The fourth slot here could've gone to about four different robots, who are all in and around the same level, but I've settled on Mantis who was knocked out in Round 2 by Scorpion. While vulnerable to basically every weapon type, Mantis really impressed in both of its victories, in a way that should still hold up relatively well in a Ragnabot environment.
Chompalot - My next choice is "combat victory over Pulsar", Chompalot. The beak of Chompalot is slightly less useful than Mantis' crusher and lifter, but context really helps Chompalot here. While Series 8 portrayed Chompalot as a very frail machine that got battered by Ironside3 and Gabriel, the fact that it went three minutes with Ironside3 and only got knocked out against Gabriel because of the floor flipper is something that few classic series robots can claim. Chompalot doesn't exactly fit the criteria of "reboot robot" and I've no doubt the 2016 version had existed for many years prior, but its durability does help it here.
Trax - Next we're having two front-hinged flippers from Shane Swan in a row! One is the better robot, while the other had a better driver, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out which is which. Ultimately I value Trax's better driving over Interstellar's better flipper/armour.
Interstellar: MML - Regardless of who you rate more out of Trax and Interstellar: MML, they definitely belong back-to-back.
Hard - Putting the hinges back on the other end of the flipper, Hard exhibits good control and armour, but is just let down by reliability. Still, every other robot on the list either shares reliability woes, or they lack the dominant performances that Hard twice put on in Robot Wars, so a slight vertical leap for Hard.
Mayhem - Another member of the 'One-Time Loser from Series 7 with Decent Horizontal Spinner' club, Mayhem's disc possessed reasonable stats and reach. The exposed wheels pose a very real issue to the machine, and supposedly the spin-up wasn't great, but Mayhem was quite good in principle.
Prizephita Mach II - If anyone else was doing this list, I'm sure Prizephita Mach II would be much higher on the rank, especially given that it's our fourth heat winner of the group. Unfortunately while I do like Prizephita Mach II quite a lot, I don't particularly rate it, with the 'dominance' against Thermidor II in reality being a case of the seeded machine throwing itself at an immobile robot and killing itself. The performances against The Alien and Wild Thing were good, but something many flippers could pull off, and it did still lose to Wild Thing at the end of the day. I don't think that the difference between the Series 4 and 5 versions is so great that we can write off its dreadful Fourth Wars, either.
ODT-Zero - The issues I raised with Prizephita Mach II are something I've brought up previously, namely in my vote for ODT-Zero to beat it. I really wanted ODT-Zero to make the Top 96 as it's quietly a nice all-rounder robot which deserved more than one fight, but I'll give Prizephita the edge here on proven success.
Cassius - Surprise, a third front-hinged flipper! Unfortunately, whilst Cassius is the one with the fame, adoration and success, it does have to be the weakest of the three, combining the weaker armour of Trax with the weaker driving of Interstellar: MML. Self-righting efficiency is probably the only advantage it has over the other two, speed would be another if Rex knew how to use it, bless him.
Colossus - If we rated Colossus purely on its Series 7 version where the flipper didn't work, then I'd be forced to put Colossus rock-bottom on the list, but the movement we saw from the flipper of Series 6 Colossus is enough to demonstrate that it works. The Combination Colossus isn't great even at its peak, but it can still overturn enough Series 1-4 machines for a few OHKO's.
Pika II - Somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades but master-of-nothing, Pika II boasted a wedge and vertical disc but both had their own flaws too great for Pika II to use them properly, namely the front spikes keeping the wedge off the ground, and the disc's position on the robot. Against robots with high ground clearances, Pika II would be quite effective, but clearly Marco van Hek upped his game when it comes to wedges on future machines...
Destruct-A-Bubble - I'm glad it was pointed out in this heat just how situational Destruct-A-Bubble's "breakdown" against Rick was, because that loss is something I've held against DAB for quite some time, but indeed I don't think the team would leave a sweet wrapper inside their removable link again. How did that even happen in the first place? I might even be underrating DAB a bit with this in mind, but I think it would generally lose to most machines ranked above it.
Black Widow (US2) - Put all the wooden spoon robots into a knockout bracket, and Black Widow genuinely might win. I'm quite aware that I rate this machine significantly lower than everyone else, seeing it as a moving set of exposed wheels with a bit of a rubbish wedge/cutting weapon that gets elevated to a higher status than it deserves only because it was carried to four whole combat victories by superior teammates. I think this robot might make for a good wiki rewrite if I get the time, as maybe Black Widow will do a Hammerhead 2 and reveal all the subtle attacks from its fights, but until then, Black Widow claims my most dubious wooden spoon.
Heat S[]
X-Terminator will defeat the vast majority of classic series machines, but lose to quite a lot of the reboot representation in the Top 96. Call me a pessimist but I think it's going to get unlucky within the Top 64.
Despite being second on my ranking thanks to its key strengths in winning matchups, 13BLACK is probably most at risk in the melees out of everyone from this heat. There's lots of flippers lurking, and 13BLACK is a real target for those.
Crushtacean strikes me as a robot that thrives in melees thanks to being the dominant party in the Commonwealth Carnage, but upon reflection it has suffered danger in every other melee it entered. I still think it'll get through.
I would've been quietly confident in Suicidal Tendencies' chances, this version was seen almost entirely in Tag Team fights where it was usually the single most impressive robot there. I reckon it had better odds than its assailant 13BLACK.
Leveller 2 is one of the few machines from outside Series 4 and 10 to have actually competed in a three-way melee, and it did of course win, but got shown up by Tetanus Booster in the process. The McLachlans won't be happy to learn Tetanus Booster is still in the competition, but I'm surprisingly confident that Leveller 2 will slip through.
X-Terminator (S7) - For the third heat in a row, we have a Series 7 Grand Finalist in attendance, and X-Terminator scoops up the title of best in the heat. Shout-outs to Destructive Criticism for collecting a vote against X-Terminator in its first-round defeat.
13BLACK - Joining Corkscrew from the previous heat, 13BLACK finally claims its long-awaited first heat win in Ragnabot. I'm happy to put 13BLACK in second as I think people are a little too harsh on the Series 7 version. It was hardly inspiring to see it go up in smoke during its melee, but at least that was only the srimech motor, essentially reverting it back to Extreme 2 mode. I don't doubt that Lightning and Gravity would easily beat the older versions of 13BLACK, so the Series 7 contender is A-OK to have a great Ragnabot run.
Crushtacean - Ever since 2001, it has always defied logic that Crushtacean is actually a good robot. On a first glance it looks completely impractical, and certainly not the kind of robot you would expect to beat Behemoth, Corkscrew, Twisted Metal Evo, PulverizeR and nearly Chaos 2, and yet Crushtacean almost always puts on a very convincing performance. The Crushtacean that we saw in the arena is worthy of my third place.
Suicidal Tendencies (S5) - After giving us a proper corker of a fight against 13BLACK, the best robot to fall inside the heat proved to be Suicidal Tendencies. A weakness to flippers (outside of Extreme Destruction) holds ST back in comparison to fellow grabber Crushtacean, but it's still highly deserving of praise.
Leveller 2 - Well this was straightforward, all four of the best competitors in this heat are ranked within my Top 5, unless you expand the list to include Destructive Criticism. While not outstanding in its home context, Leveller 2's logical wedge flipper design was enough for a very successful run in Ragnabot 1, and another one is on the horizon here.
Axe-Awe - I don't know what it is about Axe-Awe, but I always seem to disagree with its exit in Ragnabot. It's been knocked out by Panzer Mk4, Das Gepäck, and now Shredder Evolution, where in all cases I can see Axe-Awe winning. The loss to Panzer Mk4 is understandable, but I find the Das Gepäck one particularly egregious. The loss to Shredder Evolution isn't something my head aligns with, but certainly I was pleased in my heart, of course I'm gonna be OK with one of my favourite machines ever winning! I'm still waiting to learn what the wiki sees in Iron-Awe 2.1 that they don't see in Axe-Awe, but until then, I guess it's just me.
Apocalypse - In theory, Apocalypse should be the best robot in this heat. Boasting modern internals, strong armour and useful weaponry, there should be no reason why Apocalypse is relegated below so many robots that are over a decade older than it. Sadly, it all comes down to Apocalypse's internal packing, and I'm really unsure how the brains behind Turbulence, DB12 and more ended up building a robot so internally jam-packed that it was supposedly a moving fire hazard, but sadly Apocalypse's internal blazes suffered in both of its TV losses was an inevitability rather than a fluke. These issues have of course been remedied with the new Apocalypse which has a lot more breathing room, but the Series 10 robot is stunted by its nature as a ticking time bomb. Still good enough when working to reach the Top 8 though!
Shredder Evolution - Anyone who's taken even a quick glance at my favourite robots list will know that I absolutely adore Shredder. Its Series 6 incarnation was such a plucky and comedic little fighter on its unexpected path to what technically counts as joint thirteenth place in the Sixth Wars. Shredder Evolution didn't quite bring that charm to its Series 7 appearances, but what it did do was increase the spinner power enough for our community to actually give Shredder a fighting chance in these tournaments. Clearly it worked, as Shredder Evolution reached the Heat Final and even collected a few votes to get past Crushtacean, but sadly I couldn't back it. This will always be one of my favourite robots in the world, but you've always got to be a little more realistic with how highly you rate the abilities of your favourites.
Evil Weevil 2 - Generally we're all willing to forgive Evil Weevil's oversight in Series 4, so the machine is usually judged on its Series 3 version with an added axe, and that's a reasonably promising prospect.
Humdrum - Well this heat was quite by the books. Humdrum closes out the Top 10, which contains all of the heat finalists and heat qualifiers, with only Axe-Awe and Evil Weevil taking up the other spaces. Humdrum boasts plenty of loanerbot flaws, but does have some good hits on Spawn Again and Shunt to its advantage.
Scorpion (EXT) - Now just to sort out the rest of the heat semi-finalists, and it's hardly an intimidating line-up. Scorpion is next in line purely by virtue of having some kind of spinning disc, and presumably decent pushing power to use its wedge with.
Robo Doc - You really would expect Robo Doc and 101 to have been built the other way around, right? Robo Doc's visual design screams "more complex" and "higher budget", and a lifting arm certainly sounds more useful than an automatic spike. But for some reason, 101 was better because...??? I really don't know tbh, maybe Simon Harrison could tell us.
The Morgue - Not-mini-but-hardly-mega The Morgue narrowly slips into the bottom four here, but I could see arguments for it to go as high as tenth, this lower half of robots really are on a similar level. The Morgue's victory over Ming II was more deserved than many would suggest, but that's the main thing going for it.
Joker - The infamous Joker takes its place in this heat, alongside its prior incarnation, Humdrum! All of Joker's many appearances are represented in full here, but sadly we're all aware that the team's version of Joker was quite a bit worse than the one they borrowed. If I can see the bottom of your removable link while it's plugged in, you have a severe issue.
Prometheus (US) - Another American machine with a very severe issue, Prometheus' inability to reverse is a very large problem, one that I somehow have direct experience with, as The Tragic Roundabout can only reverse on one wheel for some reason. It's a massive handicap.
Shadow of Napalm - But the biggest issue held by any robot in this heat is lacking the basic ability to move. Shadow of Napalm could kinda shift about, but only just. It's extremely lucky to have drawn Doodlebug in Round 1, as I can see very few scenarios where Shadow of Napalm makes the second round again.
Heat T[]
The bronze medallist of Series 9 has only ever been defeated by Pulsar, Eruption and Carbide, and there aren't too many machines beyond these who would be able to knock Ironside3 out. I'm gonna predict a seventh place finish.
Well Hydra isn't exactly going to get eighth again, but it's sorted for the time being. Top 64 is what I'll stick to.
Having won a three-way melee outright on three occasions, surely Propeller-Head is the only robot to achieve this? The Ultimate Mayhem champion is clearly within its element for the Top 96, but will probably struggle from the Top 64 onwards.
Rosie the Riveter, meanwhile, lost a three-way melee to the robot directly above it, but still did very well. If any robot here is going to fall within the melees, I'd really struggle to pick one - I think they'll all make it through.
Someone who won't be making it through the melees is Sir Force A Lot, because it's already out. There's really very little point to even including it here. Padding, everybody!
Ironside3 - Fun fact, this heat is actually the one that inspired the creation of this blog. More on that later - putting Ironside3 in first place certainly had no bearing on my desire to write up the blog.
Hydra - Although a distant second place compared to Ironside3, former Ragnabot eighth place finisher Hydra still has enough merit to collect the silver medal here. We all know luck was on its side throughout Hydra's famous route to the finals all those years ago, but a big part of that is still down to Hydra being a very robust machine with good weaponry.
Propeller-Head - Three for three on heat winners, Propeller-Head was not only threatening offensively, but also quite solid defensively, shrugging off The Revolutionist's blows without sweat. It comes unstuck against robots it can't damage, but there were very few of those in its time period.
Rosie the Riveter II - And there you have it, all four of the best machines in this heat make up the four heat winners! This really does beg the question of how on earth Heat T inspired the creation of this blog, but for now, let's just say I came up with the idea before the Heat Finalists had been decided.
Sir Force A Lot - Regularly a somewhat successful machine in Ragnabot, I can once again give a respectable finish to Sir Force A Lot. There were plenty of avenues for it to escape this heat, but it fell short at the final hurdle. One interesting thing, Sir Force A Lot reached the Top 64 of Ragnabot 1 by defeating Scraptosaur - I certainly don't think it would get a majority vote there anymore.
Thor (S7) - Next up would be Thor, which would probably be able to defeat Sir Force A Lot in head-to-head combat, but would get blown up harder in more challenging matchups.
Gyrobot - Finally, something that didn't make the Heat Final! This heat largely went 'according to plan', but dropping Gyrobot at the hands of Propeller-Head maybe wasn't part of that plan.
Robo Savage - Closing out the Top 8 is Robo Savage, which probably contests for the worst flipper of the reboot era, but even a fairly poor flipper still has the opportunity to OHKO certain opponents that might otherwise be superior robots (e.g. Soldier Ant).
Ming Dienasty - So. The reason I came up with this blog idea. Was purely to determine Ming Dienasty's odds of escaping this heat. I really wanted Ming Dienasty to escape this heat, and wanted to see where it settled out of the current Top 16 in Heat T. After settling that it was exactly the eighth best, its odds were exactly 50%, and yet two days later, it was drawn against Hydra. I was a bit upset. Ming Dienasty now falls to ninth after realising the value of even subpar flippers like Robo Savage, but my attachment to this machine falls nowhere. I blame Datovidny entirely.
Terror Turtle - I think the top nine or so for this heat is fairly straightforward to figure out, but it gets tricky from here. Terror Turtle gets the nod for tenth place, as the cutting disc could at least rip up weaker opponents, and The Hatchling proved relatively useful in battle. I probably rate the Series 10 version of Terror Turtle a little more highly even if it is just the internals of The Keg moved into Terror Turtle's shell (something I can't prove but do probably believe), because the 10kg bar spinner was probably a bit more useful, but this Ragnabot did specifically use the Series 8 version of Terror Turtle.
Track-tion - Now to give some credit, I do think Track-tion would beat Terror Turtle in a head-to-head, I just think Terror Turtle would be more trustworthy against mediocre-to-bad opponents, because we at least saw it move around the arena. Track-tion even in theory seemed like it would just be OK at best, so it is disappointing that across four televised battles, we saw almost nothing from Track-tion to judge (other than the fact it didn't move much). How I wish Vulture could've wiped the floor with it.
Widow's Revenge - Although we hardly saw any offensive output from Widow's Revenge across two fights, at least it does have a combat win over a known quantity, and the rolling pin drum should be at least decent weaponry.
Demolition Man (S6) - This odd combination of Saw Point and Crippler picked up a surprise win over Sater in the first round of the heat, and I was indeed the first person to vote in favour of Demolition Man, but I really didn't want it to go that way. Sater to me is quite funny and likeable, and I would've been glad to see it in the second round but I had to go and open my big mouth!
Grim Reaper - All three of the remaining machines were built on the wrong side of the millennium for Ragnabot success, but Grim Reaper exceeds the other two thanks to its high speed and aggression. Still a notable drop from its Series 7 successor which claimed first place in one of the earlier updates here.
Cheers for the blog idea, Ming Dienasty
Loco - The final two are a nightmare to separate as they both set out to achieve the exact same purpose. Between the two 4WD pushers from Series 2-3, I'm narrowly valuing Loco higher thanks to its 10mph speed.
Robopig - Which unfortunately means that by rating Loco higher, Robopig receives the wooden spoon. I do think it was defensively more robust than Loco, and perhaps better driven too, but still nothing stellar in those regards. I'm glad it reached the second round to begin with though!
Heat U[]
So far, I've predicted that the Ragnabot Top 8 will be 1. Carbide, 2. Eruption, 3. Apollo, 4. Magnetar, 5. ???, 6. Big Nipper, 7. Ironside3 and 8. Concussion. There's one very nice space left over for RAPID, but I'm gonna say it gets unlucky with the draw and finishes ninth...
...while the actual fifth place finisher of Ragnabot 3 ends up being Gabriel 2. It should be able to beat Concussion to reach the fifth place play-off and then beat Big Nipper there, which completes my predicted Top 8. How accurate will it be? RAPID, Behemoth, TR2, Nuts 2, Cobra, Arena Cleaner and many more robots threaten to steal one of those slots, but there's only one way to see if I got it right!
Donald Thump and even Thermidor II stand as evidence that Gabriel 2 can eliminate some really good machines throughout its Ragnabot journey, and I think there will be more. Gabriel 2 getting through the melees is such a guarantee that I'd quite happily bet £50 on it. If anyone is foolish enough to waste the cost of a Nintendo Switch game, you're quite welcome to take me up on that!
Botwork marked a big change in statements from me, I said at the start of the heat that I'd be cheering for it to escape the heat, but I quite quickly betrayed it and started hoping for Red Virus' success instead. The passive nature of Botwork will likely lead to elimination in the Top 96 melees.
Ally Gator, like Orac's Revenge and Delldog, is the draw of dreams for anyone who comes across it. I think I'd also be quite happy to put fifty quid on Ally Gator going out next round.
RAPID - One of the final reboot finalists to make their Ragnabot 3 debut, there are very few machines on Robot Wars that will pose a threat to RAPID. It's a little strange really, as RAPID would probably lose to the majority of its fellow wedge flippers who compete on the live circuit. Indeed, RAPID did quite poorly at its one Robots Live! appearance, with the other flippers being equipped with better wedges and flippers that don't take so long to retract. However, with those machines largely absent from Robot Wars, RAPID is free to go on a rampage.
Gabriel 2 - Nobody has ever brought innovation to Robot Wars quite like Gabriel. It's a totally outlandish concept which feels like it should never be a competent robot, but just imagine if HDPE was more commonplace in 2003 and this thing showed up to Series 7! Barring only Typhoon 2, Storm II and perhaps Big Nipper, I really do struggle to think of any classic series machines that would have been able to beat Gabriel, and now the latter two (Storm II and Big Nipper) have evolved into machines that would or have lost to Gabriel now anyway! Much as I'd love to keep fantasising about Gabriel winning the Seventh Wars, its home environment was Series 10 where it was still an above average machine, and second only to RAPID here even though I think Gabriel 2 could possibly beat RAPID in a straight matchup.
Donald Thump - Overall, it was quite a relief to lose Donald Thump in the second round of the heat to Gabriel 2. I am truly a big fan of James Davies and his laugh-a-minute Robot Wars campaign, and I would have been very much at peace with Donald Thump making a proper go of its Series 10 campaigns. Sadly, reliability woes completely squandered its shot at the Robot Wars title, and even carried over to the live circuit immediately afterwards, leaving us with a machine that sports a fantastic weapon but very poor reliability, a real bad mix for Ragnabot. Nevertheless, its weapon is probably enough to OHKO everything else in this heat before breaking down and claim third place here, but having Donald Thump in the three-way melees is a difficult situation we've done quite well to avoid.
Roobarb - Here's a robot that performed far worse in the heat than I was expecting. Roobarb for me was the preboot entry with the best odds of escaping this heat, but they fell in a second-round upset to The Bat. I understand the logic with that one, and do agree that Roobarb is vulnerable to spinners of all kinds, but still maintain that Roobarb is a better machine overall, capable of getting good flips on what we'd generally deem to be opposition superior to both, like Mute and Twister.
Rammstein - It really is a welcome change to be relieved of Rammstein's battery life concerns. The reboot environment is great for Rammstein, with a bigger steel arena to roam around complimenting the new time limit and judging criteria which favours aggression. In fact, this is enough for me to put Rammstein in fifth for this heat - sometimes all you need is a box and a bunch of wheels.
Red Virus - I still really wish I could find this fight of Shaka fighting Son of Whyachi because I'd love to see Red Virus in a monkey costume pose an actual threat to something significantly higher than its calibre. Even without the footage though, we still saw promising signs from Red Virus, enough for me to put it slightly higher than the robot which narrowly knocked it out in the Heat Final.
Botwork - The Dutch finalist who overcame Red Virus 7-6 is still almost equally worthy of the same spot, with more prominent strengths and weaknesses. The spinning disc was great for the Dutch series standard, good for the UK classic series standard, and completely outclassed nowadays, but still good enough to pick on robots from its time period. The very ponderous movement speeds and easy defeat at the hands of Slicer also hold Botwork back, but at least it has good reach and invertibility.
The Bat - One of the pioneering "big verts" of this world, being introduced to Robot Wars only a little while after Cyclone and before 259, The Bat is another machine with great strengths and very restrictive weaknesses. The weapon of The Bat was strong indeed, taking out half of Mad Cow Bot's drive in a single hit, and seemingly being forced to spin the wrong way for safety reasons. However, breaking down in two of your three fights (and quickly losing your weapon in the other) is never a positive factor.
Killer Carrot 2 - It's always incredible to think Rob Englebright designed three of the House Robots, because his own robots always seemed to boast a large design impracticality. In the case of Series 7's carrot, it's the way Killer Carrot 2 carried out numerous flips in its first-round melee without ever turning its opponent over which counts against it. It hardly helped that the flipper then didn't work against X-Terminator, but I'm left to wonder if it could even self-right at all. Nevertheless, it was nippy and did control a Seventh Wars melee, even if it was a weak one.
Riptilion - There's definitely a reason Riptilion went 0-3 on Robot Wars, it's hardly a pillar of quality robotics, but the front blade carving through Hard's durable armour speaks enough credit for me to slip Riptilion into my top ten.
Marauder - In one of the most respectable rankings for a non-heavyweight on the list, the middleweight Marauder is good enough for 11th. For its low weight, Marauder's armour was surprisingly hard to break through. Shame its weapon wasn't so hard to break.
Ally Gator - Right. So Ally Gator made it out of this heat. This is right up there with Orac's Revenge getting through the heat earlier on in the tournament, but it somehow sounds sensible when you realise it was that or Bee-Capitator! I voted against Ally Gator twice in this heat, but have still ranked it above both of those machines, as it is the one backed up by a solid combat victory.
Bot Out Of Hell - This one is such a shame. We know for a fact that Bot Out Of Hell wrecked a machine during the qualifiers, and was riding high on its path to the Fifth Wars, but the team were unfortunately asked to disable their spinner for their televised battle against Reactor II, fearing safety issues. Considering the same thing probably happened to The Bat and it was simply allowed to spin its weapon in the other direction, I wish this could've been the case for BOOH, and I of course don't doubt that the 'Ragnabot producers' would be perfectly willing to run BOOH's weapon in the reboot arena, in which case Bot Out of Hell would probably jump up to the top six of this heat. Sadly, without the evidence of BOOH's disc in motion, we're forced to judge it as a speedy but weaponless robot which isn't too hard to topple.
Bee-Capitator - The darling of wiki fantasy tournaments, Bee-Capitator has amassed achievements like a heat victory in one tournament, and the famous vote for it to beat Tornado once upon a time. A Ragnabot heat win was nearly on the cards too, as I reckon it was quite capable of beating Ally Gator to reach the Top 96, but fortune didn't favour the bee, and it settles for a still-respectable Heat Final.
Rawbot - On design, Rawbot seems like it would be a shout for the upper half of this list, being a nicely constructed pusher which you'd expect to be quite fast. Alas, the real Rawbot was not nearly as quick as you'd expect, with the added factor of unreliability, weaknesses which simply aren't acceptable for a rambot.
Purple Predator - And at the bottom of the barrel is Purple Predator, a robot which could have been a decent Series 3 entry with just a few minor modifications. Remove the front castor wheels and the flammable fur, then suddenly you have an alright front-hinged flipper! Instead, what we got was a novelty entry far too focused on the Gauntlet, and one that is lucky simply to be here at all.
Heat V[]
I'm so pleased that we saw Cobra fight against Sabretooth with purely a plough wedge, and its crusher tucked away. This allows us to judge Cobra without its weapon affecting it too negatively, and I think hopes are very high for this Belgian machine. I see a 13th place finish ahead of it, but it's worth noting that Cobra is one of the few robots that might collect some votes against Carbide too.
Apex has crept into second place for this blog based on how quickly it could end a head-to-head against the majority of Robot Wars competitors, but it hits a huge obstacle in the melees, where several robots can disrupt its spin-up time or attempt to cause another Apexplosion. It is at least worth reminding ourselves that Apex outlasted Vulture in its Series 10 melee and thus isn't guaranteed to come dead last in the event of a technical failure, but I imagine plenty of people will be keen to get rid of Apex at the next opportunity. I won't deny that I wouldn't mind knocking it out soon.
Push to Exit may be my third place for this heat, but I don't think it would've handled the melees. People were against this machine every step of the way in its heat, never getting a single unanimous win, and the melees likely would've killed it off.
Wheely Big Cheese is an X-factor in the melees, as it famously lost almost all the melees it entered, but is still capable of instantly eliminating pretty much any machine if they let their guard down. I've not got a clue with this one.
Out of the loanerhammers in the Top 96, Bondi Titch is somewhat in the middle, being rated more highly than Hard but is less praised than Tut Tut. I think they're all finished, honestly.
Cobra (Belgian) - Perhaps the simplest robot to top the list of any heat, Cobra was quite simply a hardened box on four-wheels, with a token weapon that we can largely ignore other than the slight disadvantage it brings when inverted. I would've loved to see how well Cobra would do in something like Series 7, as it doesn't have the lowest wedge or the highest top speed, but it was very determined and good at what it does. There's a lot of potential for Cobra to go far in Ragnabot, as we've seen its effectiveness at killing spinners.
Apex - Ranking the rest of this heat is frankly an awful task, as all of next few robots making up the Top 4 and beyond suffer from some kind of reliability issue. This brings us to a strange scenario where we can somewhat disregard reliability flaws (as it's a shared weakness), and then purely rate robots on their strengths. Of the bunch, Apex probably has the biggest strength, being easily capable of cleaving through older robots and even causing significant damage to the modern ones when given the chance.
Push to Exit - The reliability concerns of Push to Exit were a key issue in its heat, as I do think they are slightly exaggerated, and that Push to Exit won't just randomly die unless there's some kind of powerful weapon involved. Indeed, I was willing to put Push to Exit through to the Top 96 at Cobra's expense, but the majority sided with the overall superior machine.
Wheely Big Cheese - Separating Push to Exit and Wheely Big Cheese was particularly tough. They both have solid armour, and in terms of reliability, Push to Exit was the one who broke down for more justifiable reasons while Wheely Big Cheese was the one to actually complete matches without breaking down. In the end I favoured Push to Exit as it's a lot more maneuverable and better controlled, but Wheely Big Cheese's ability to end any fight almost instantly is a factor that has to push it into the Top 4.
Barbaric Response - It all seemed like the Barber family were set for the Heat Final, initially amounting something like a 6-0 lead over Push to Exit in the second round, but amazingly found a way to lose from that position. As it turns out, the winner would only fight Cobra anyway, but Barbaric Response falls into a similar group to the surrounding robots as a machine with a useful weapon, but recurring unexplained breakdowns. Barbaric Response gets a bit of a boost thanks to its live circuit success, including fourth place in a UK championship and a victory over X-Terminator in 2004.
The Kegs - Let's take a quick break and show something that never broke down on the show! It still got completely blown to bits twice, but I think that's fair enough when you fight Tauron and Concussion. Being somewhat invertible is useful, and two 55kg robots with 10kg bar spinners can only be so bad, even with the reputation of Team Terror Turtle. A little bit unlucky to fall this early.
The Alien - I often forget just how powerful The Alien actually was. Seeing tens upon tens of modern vertical spinners on the likes of BattleBots and King of Bots can cause you to retroactively lose faith in Ye Olde Verts,
Double Trouble - Closing out the Top 8 would be Philipper II had it not lost in the first round, so instead we get Double Trouble, a robot which seems to be steadily creeping up in people's opinions. It's nippy, aggressive, fairly durable, and threw some serious sparks off of Kan-Opener. After noticing that Fluffy's weapon dies not long after its KO blow on Kan-Opener, I took a lot of pleasure in realising Double Trouble probably could have won that melee outright, especially after seeing it land some late rams on Fluffy. Absolutely hilarious that Double Trouble nearly knocked out Wheely Big Cheese in this heat, but it wasn't close enough for me to switch them around on this rank.
Diabolus - And now for my next trick, I shall reveal my clone! And with that, Double Trouble has become Treble Trouble! Oh, it's just Diabolus, you can stop the Trucy Wright theme music now. Although Diabolus did far, far less in its televised appearance, the two machines should in theory share the same strengths, apart from maybe speed and pushing power.
Hydrotec - You must feel sorry for Hydrotec, it was one of the two robots adversely affected by the Black Hole/Tsunami shared heat in the German Struggles. Both Hydrotec and Absolut Krankhaft were far better than Tyke and potentially better than Son of Armageddon too, but the producers' determination to give Ansgar's Revenge an easy "champion's heat" came at the cost of a good Hydrotec run.
Herbinator - I've said it for Cygnus X-1, 8645T 2, Reptirron the Second, and plenty of other machines. Having a working flipper is a fantastic way to get some cheeky wins in Ragnabot, but lacking the ability to self-right is an easy way to lose. Herbinator's inability to self-right hasn't actually been proven, but in my head it's the case, and Herbinator also takes an additional knock due to its slow speed and weak armour. Still decent when faced with machines older than itself though.
Bondi Titch - With Tut Tut and Hard already through, we were quite well-represented for stock robots with hammer/axe weapons in the Top 64, but clearly we're having another! Watch this space, JAR might be about to win Ragnabot! Bondi Titch's weaknesses are often quite overlooked, I feel. The armour was paper thin, the baseplate didn't exist, the hammer was just OK, it has an inexperienced driver, and it also can't self-right. Despite that, Bondi Titch got a very fortunate draw, and surprised us all with its qualification for the Top 64.
Sneaking in a cheeky picture of The Black Beast
The Black Beast - It's quite a challenge to rate Sater The Black Beast, because we know what its inspiration/former self was capable of, but The Black Beast itself featured only in one battle. I think it was capable of beating Bondi Titch, but without the evidence to back it up, or much support behind my vote, I'll settle for ranking Bondi Titch one space above Sater.
Fighting Torque - You know what, Fighting Torque was never intended to be good, but at least it was quick and had a weapon that could score aggression points, if nothing else. The instability factor is overexaggerated, with the weight mainly being at the base of the machine. The real question, whose "instability" is exaggerated more, Fighting Torque or Bot Out of Hell?
Paul Bunyan - Seeing Paul Bunyan get to a Heat Final is probably one of the most unexpected outcomes in all of Ragnabot 3 for me. Sure, a Heat Final now only means 97th place when it used to equal 65th place (the same finish that the losers of the three-way melees will later earn), but I don't think Paul Bunyan has ever even threatened to win a fight on the wiki before, so this is a dramatic step up.
Kater Killer - But by being the robot that lost to Paul Bunyan and sent it through to the Heat Final, Kater Killer has to finish in last place. I did actually vote for Kater Killer to win that, but everyone else believed strongly in its unreliability and went against me. While I think that breaking down against Tornado and Gemini is fair enough, I can't remember the exact circumstances of it losing mobility, so I'll trust everyone else's judgement and put it last.
Heat W[]
To say the least, the times I saw Cherub on the live circuit prior to Robot Wars hardly depicted it as a machine that we'd ever consider 'the best' in any respect, but Robot Wars unlocked its true potential as a spinner-killing block with the full support of the judges. These two factors will allow it to easily pass through the melees, but a return to 1v1s after that will start to trouble it.
I do worry for Kan-Opener in its next avenue. The Top 96 is there to trim an entire third off the current roster, and the wiki has been more critical of its removable link than I ever expected. Kan-Opener's tendency to lose main competition melees also counts against it often, but I do urge people to consider this. If the 4-way melee round of Kan-Opener's Annihilator in EX2 and S7 were both main competition fights, Kan-Opener would have still won both, with it killing off ROT&S and Major Tom in the first, and both EWE2 and Raging Knightmare in the second.
I could discuss how well Kadeena Machina would do in the remainder of the Top 96... but let's face it, it's already there.
Instead let's talk about Heavy Metal, who was so close to knocking out the heat favourite. I was one of the people who voted for Heavy Metal, but it was such an intriguing fight that I brought it up with my Robot Wars housemate Adam Hamilton, and after a long time thinking about it, he felt Cherub would win, largely down to the studs Heavy Metal kept shedding. With that, I can't say I'll be arguing the outcome we arrived at!
The Swarm vs √3 vs Nuts 2, let's do it. The melees are an odd one for the Clusterwatts, they can't swarm and outnumber their foes, but they can run away and survive. The right draw should see The Swarm through to the next stage.
Given the standard of so many robots still in the competition, I can't see Killerhurtz getting any further, but John Reid will hardly mind, Terrorhurtz is his main bid for the title!
Cherub - You know something, I 'started writing' this blog update nearly fifteen minutes ago, but not a single word written in that time has survived that final draft, because I keep changing my mind on the number one. I've had three different choices for best-in-the-heat at this point, but the one I'm settling on is Cherub. It certainly doesn't feel right, how come out of all the dangerous weapons in this heat, the best robot was the moving brick armed only with small lifting forks and a decent driver? I think the main sell here is that Cherub would probably be able to win against all the other machines in this heat. It certainly wouldn't do so without difficulty, we already saw it nearly lose to both Heavy Metal and Gemini, with other machines hidden amongst them posing a similar threat. But could I see Cherub beating everyone else here at least once, even if it lost on other attempts? Yes, definitely. Team Saint's second accidental spinner-killer gets away with this one!
Kan-Opener J-spec - Another one of the robots who briefly occupied the number one slot on the list is Kan-Opener. We all know and respect the potential of Kan-Opener in its original form, and I do genuinely believe this machine was a significant upgrade. It does bring its own downsides, being much more flippable, and the removable link KO was always likely to factor into its fights, but if a robot's main weakness is something that every single competitor on the show also shares, I think I can let it slide. Kan-Opener J-spec improves on the existing power of its predecessors' pincers, and outfits that with some solid HARDOX armour and a little bit of a wedge to compliment it. The strong performance against PP3D nearly justified its position at the top of the list, but at the end of the day, Cherub did beat PP3D outright!
Kadeena Machina - My third choice for best-in-the-heat is one who didn't even qualify out of it! Certainly if you asked me to name the best robot here before the heat actually took place, I'd immediately arrive at Kadeena Machina. Far too often are exposed wheels touted as a major weakness, and Kadeena Machina's strengths far outweigh its weak point, but I am forced to admit that the wheels are more pronounced of a weakness than I first thought. Put Kadeena Machina in the hands of Ellis Ware or even Peter Redmond and suddenly you have the runaway winner, but the fact of the matter is that Kadeena and Joah Cox's driving was amateur enough for the wheels to genuinely put Kadeena Machina at risk to robots worse than itself. Case in point, The Swarm and Disc-O-Inferno are weaker robots than Kadeena Machina in general terms, but ultimately I trusted both to get the win. I still put greater value into Kadeena Machina as it's far more capable of troubling the wider Robot Wars cast thanks to its lethal spinner, but for once I am forced to advise: don't bring wheels into the arena!
Heavy Metal - Coming in fourth is Heavy Metal, a robot I had touted to beat Cherub and most likely run away with the heat! There's a very direct comparison between Cherub and Heavy Metal, as they're both machines with the same end-goal in mind, but with more pronounced strengths and weaknesses. To Heavy Metal's favour, it was far quicker and better-driven than Cherub, being one of the best offensive wedges in Robot Wars altogether, but the way we saw the wheels shed their studs and subsequently fall off completely is a recurring issue which would stunt Heavy Metal's progression in quite a number of bouts. There's no in-between with Heavy Metal, it will dominate from start-to-finish, or it will look quite limp in failure. I wish the wedge itself was sharper and closer to the ground too.
The Swarm - Certainly with Ian Watts taking over King of Bots and BattleBots with his now-patented Clusterwatts, regularly picking up more losses than wins in all of their various campaigns, surely you'd expect even more criticism towards The Swarm, which boasted only one of the invertible bar spinners which brought mixed success to the future Clusterwatts. We're all quite happy to admit that The Swarm was made up of three fairly useless robots and one intimidating lightweight spinner, which makes up for the deadweight by being capable of winning fights entirely on its own. Blenda could damage almost any classic series machine, and even some reboot competitors, but was itself quite unreliable, and the whole gameplan of The Swarm falls apart without it. Nevertheless, the end of Robot Wars came at a time where King of Bots and BattleBots were just getting started, and while The Four Horsemen + Co. are nowadays wildly outclassed, their primitive Swarm Form was surprisingly quite far ahead of the pack in Robot Wars.
Disc-O-Inferno - Taking the sixth slot is Seventh Wars Competitor* Disc-O-Inferno. Although a machine that debuted not deep into the classic series, Disc-O-Inferno remains a fairly complete package to this day, with a weighty spinning disc travelling at good speeds, and its internals are completely covered, albeit only by polycarbonate. Whilst susceptible to a breakdown in the past, Disc-O-Inferno only suffered health-threatening gremlins in one of its four fights across Series 6-7, and the polycarb was at least quite thick. Not something to sleep on, and very unlucky to reach only the second round.
Slicer - It really is not an easy task to rank Slicer. The inaugural Dutch champion was almost completely unthreatened in its domestic campaign, and demonstrated good use of its drum spinner. But how good was Slicer compared to the other spinners of its era? Well that's the tricky part! Slicer exists only in a vacuum, where it fought only robots from Dutch Series 1. To create any kind of link between Slicer and a robot from outside Dutch Series 1, the only route I can think of is to judge its performance against DS1 Lizzard, which had a battle with Philipper 1, which finally opens up some UK robots. With both versions of Lizzard being so different, I think it's fair to say that Slicer only ever fought Dutch Series 1 competitors, but it was impressive enough to warrant a high enough ranking here.
Crank-E - You thought Slicer was hard to judge? Imagine rating Crank-E!! We saw absolutely nothing from this machine in combat, but it was in theory quite good. With a set of spinning bars firing at 6000rpm, and a unique design configured to counter horizontal spinners, there was a lot of potential in Crank-E, but it certainly wasn't built to take Aftershock. Without it being possible to rate Crank-E on its combat abilities, I can only rank it on potential, and statistically the potential was there. Needed some wedgelets, mind.
Meshuggah - Another robot that performed well inside its own context of the Dutch Battles, but has no appearances against UK series robots to base off. We at least got plenty of fights out of its opponents Lizzard and Scrap-II-Saur, but what we lack is the confidence that Meshuggah's disc or drive system will last a whole match. Meshuggah really impressed when it was on form in the Dutch series, but it seemed to be a bit of a ticking time bomb likely to eventually lose its weapon at minimum.
Gemini - I'm honestly quite amazed at my ranking of Gemini here. Let it be reminded that Gemini was one vote away from knocking Cherub out of the heat in their exciting and memorable bout, and I couldn't even disagree strongly if Gemini did overcome Cherub. Despite this, the two machines are ten spaces apart on the ranking! It goes to show how situational Gemini's potential advantage over Cherub was, because generally speaking, Gemini has a lot of weaknesses, including thin armour, targetable tyres, thin attack range, the weight disadvantage, and most notably the wheelies and subsequent wheelie-bar modification. Regardless, Gemini's strengths are still prevalent, and I imagine it would rank much higher in a heat that's a little less top-heavy.
Killerhurtz - I really had no expectation of Killerhurtz. It's well above average for a Series 4 competitor, and still competitive even in this environment, but Heat W was quite brutal all things considered, and yet Killerhurtz found a clean route to the Top 96! Killerhurtz's weak armour and comparatively dated spiked axe weapon prevent me from ranking it anywhere near the Top 4 it blagged its way into, but that by no means suggests that its heat win was undeserved.
Weld-Dor 3 - Did we all realise just how stacked this heat was? Back in Ragnabot 1, Weld-Dor 3 was able to pass through to the Top 64, but here it bottoms out in twelfth for the heat alone. Weld-Dor 3 seemed like a reasonable prospect, with good speed across the arena, and clearly quite a powerful flipper. Sadly, this is a heat full of robots that only fought machines in their own little vacuum (Slicer, Meshuggah, Anvil, Kadeena Machina), or just otherwise had untapped potential (Crank-E, Kan-Opener J-spec), so Weld-Dor 3's potential can't carry it up the list on this occasion.
Anvil - Speaking of Anvil, here it is! Just as there's a large gap between Cherub and Gemini, I've ended up with a big break between Meshuggah and the robot that knocked it out, Anvil. Certainly, Anvil fills its role as a brick wall quite well, and was respectable for its pushing ability, but boasts very very little in the way of weaponry. Tornado and Storm II would be the first to tell you that robots can succeed without weaponry, but Anvil didn't even use a wedge, or that high of a top speed. If glass cannons like 259 are your Rampardos of the world, Anvil is your Bastiodon, pure defence and little else. Good enough to win the Forces Special, good enough for consistent Heat Finals in every Ragnabot to date, but not good enough to go beyond.
Mighty Mouse - The next two robots are basically on the same level, and if I could cop out and give them a shared position, I'd have to consider it. The occasional live event fight where we actually saw Mighty Mouse exhibit some aggression will narrowly squeak it into fourteenth place here.
Major Tom (S6) - Often a subject of debate on the wiki, many people believe in the potential of Major Tom's disc, while others simply do not. What nobody will deny is that Major Tom's dodgem armour was very weak, and its unreliability woes kept cropping up even in its 'wins' as well as its losses. Good enough to carve up robots older than itself, but definitely a novelty entry with an unusual bit of bite in its own era.
Maximus - And the wooden spoon goes to the only robot in the second round of this heat that you could truly call 'bad', Maximus. Even then, it's better than the majority of the other wooden spoons, with the disc at least boasting reasonable statistics if they are to be believed, but the robot's design was wholly impractical and the armour/reliability was no better.
Heat X[]
Behemoth is our defending runner-up, which is certainly a good thing, but the only slight downside is the fact it cannot improve on this record. Even after going away since Series 8 to develop anti-spinner technology and earn a real Robot Wars third place, Behemoth isn't threatening to carry out a second run to the title fight. The Top 8 is a possibility, but I think the Top 16 will be the limit for Behemoth this time.
PP3D may have fallen, but if it had managed to keep clear of M.R. Speed Squared, it would've had a clear run to the late stages of the bracket. I'd have seen it in the Top 32.
With this being the final heat of Ragnabot 3, the Top 96 understandably got started before I could write this blog, and thus we already know M.R. Speed Squared has already reached the Top 64. I think it's got another win in the tank yet.
And the other thing we learned is that Ansgar 3 has been eliminated! The 65th place curse continues for the German team.
What a story. By the time we got to Heat X, I'd long forgotten that Cyrax was even meant to participate, and I really didn't think it would get past the Heat Final. Instead, at the time of writing, Cyrax is through to the Top 64 and still active in the bracket. Could Cyrax join the ranks of Overkill GTI, Corkscrew Two and Raging Reality, over-performing to a ridiculous extent? Or will reality rage upon Cyrax in the Top 64 as it draws something like Eruption? Go on, feed it Texas Tornado or something!
Behemoth - We arrive at the final heat of Ragnabot 3, and the best-in-attendance was Behemoth, the defending runner-up from Ragnabot 2. It managed that achievement in its Series 8 formation, and now benefits further by having its Type B plough available. Behemoth was immediately guaranteed qualification out of this heat simply by entering it.
PP3D - And certainly the robot that we thought was guaranteed a space in the Top 96 barring only a draw against Behemoth, was PP3D. In the end it suffered a close and surprising loss to M.R. Speed Squared, but while I think that outcome was correct, it's fairly easy to determine that PP3D was the superior machine of the two. You wouldn't catch M.R. Speed Squared beating Eruption, ripping off Apollo's wheel, smashing Cherub out of existence etc.
M.R. Speed Squared - But you would see it beating PP3D, so it's M.R. Speed Squared who gets to carry the Heat X representatives further into the competition. While very exploitable against other HARDOX machines, I'd struggle to think of any classic series competitors who could beat a working M.R. Speed Squared barring the blocky ones who went on to become reboot competitors anyway (Storm2, Big Nipper, Tough as Nails).
Kronic the Wedgehog - Now this is a robot which I think is unfairly punished on the wiki. Kronic the Wedgehog went all the way through Series 4-6 without a hitch in reliability, but as soon as it lost to Mighty Mouse in Series 7, it suffered irreparable reputational damage which plagues it to this day. I'll admit, Kronic's breakdown against Mighty Mouse is not a favourable point, but it really does feel like a one-off. Put that aside and you have a fairly standard wedge flipper, one that won't be getting any OotA's (not in this form anyway), but still plenty good enough to chuck robots about.
Wolverine - A big part of rating Wolverine is knowing whether or not it could self-right. Some say it can, some say it can't. Even without it, Wolverine was a very good pusher with strong defence a useful lifter. Something often spoken to its credit are the various times Wolverine beat Tornado on the live circuit, and I do think Wolverine was unlucky to stay within the realms of this heat.
Ansgar 3 - A robot known for always appearing in the final Ragnabot heat of the series, it's definitely tricky to put a marker on how good Ansgar 3 truly was. When beating up lesser foes like I Bot One Beta and Reaper NP2, it was super, but its performance against Tornado and Storm II was turtle soup-er. While the robot certainly appears to be an impressive bar spinner, a reality check reveals that the weapon weighed only 10kg (equal to one half of The Kegs' weaponry and only 40% of Carbide's bar in weight), and its breakdown against the British Rambot Force was a bit tepid. Despite this, it had excellent defence, with thick armour and no targetable wheels, with its walker bonus being used to make the robot very heavy, to the deficit of flippers and vertical spinners. I may not have ranked Ansgar 3 too highly today, but its long-awaited heat win certainly made me glad.
Hellbent - Definitely a robot I would've expected to have a Ragnabot heat victory by now, Hellbent keeps encountering UK finalists in its Ragnabot heats. On this occasion it faced Behemoth only in Round 2. Nevertheless, Hellbent was one of this heat's better machines, being a solid all-rounder that excels in nothing, but does everything you could ask of it quite well.
Sir Chromalot - Many people would argue that Sir Chromalot was deserving of the Top 32 in the last Ragnabot, after its controversial loss to Corkscrew Two inside the Top 64. I'll admit as a former Corkscrew Two voter that my mind has shifted on that fight, but inside Heat X, Sir Chromalot couldn't even push past the second round. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now gone, Sir Chromalot's time in the Ragnabot spotlight has sadly diminished.
TMHWK - While the top three of this heat was comprised of above-average reboot competitors, there were definitely some decent reboot competitors further down the heats as well. Beast was very unlucky to fight PP3D in the first round, Rusty had a somewhat debatable loss to Wolverine, and TMHWK over here got stuck fighting M.R. Speed Squared in the second round. Although TMHWK was hardly a pillar of good reliability or driving, it was functional enough in the World Series for me to give it credit, and it could certainly have its way with plenty of older machines. Indeed it did, gaining a respectable win over General Carnage 2, so that's something at least!
Cyrax - And the last of our Ragnabot 3 heat winners! Cyrax is like that one act in Britain's Got Talent whose audition is only shown in the episode where they announce the finalists, and then their live semi-final performance is just a few days later. Cyrax waited until the very last heat to appear, and went somewhat unnoticed, being far from the best robot in the heat, with no real expectation of success. Despite that, Cyrax did take the back door out of this heat, and has even passed through the melees inside the Top 96! Cyrax may only have been a part of Ragnabot 3 for no longer than a couple of weeks, but it's guaranteed at least 33rd place, so all power to it!
Bamm Bamm - Another machine I've rooted for in several Ragnabots now, I'd love to see Bamm Bamm get out of a heat some time, but a Heat Final finish within the fairly stacked Heat X might be its lifetime peak. It's a perfectly decent little machine, but luck was on its side for both of its Dutch series campaigns, and it can't seem to replicate that luck here.
Rambot - A surprisingly popular little machine, Rambot achieved a Heat Final in both of its previous Ragnabot campaigns, but this time was just too much for the plucky Fourth Wars machine. Definitely a product of its time, but a very good one for the year 2000.
Brawler - The success robots these competitors earned on the show really doesn't feel quite right. While the best machines in this heat included PP3D, Beast, M.R. Speed Squared Wolverine, Sir Chromalot and Hellbent, none of these machines were even Heat Finalists. Meanwhile, the likes of Brawler and REALI-T are real-world Heat Finalists, and we even have a two-time finalist with Bamm Bamm of all things! Brawler was a moderate machine, packing a good punch if you actually went near it, and lightning speeds when it's chasing you down, but a bit impractical at actually being offensive.
Gravedigger (S3) - We even have room for a heat winner in the bottom three! Gravedigger was right at home in Series 3, with its front-hinged flipper offering a OHKO option against the majority of the cast, but even by Series 4 it would have been completely outdated. Years later, and Gravedigger is left as a very ponderous machine with poor armour and an impractical front wedge, with little hope in Ragnabot. Should've fallen to Bluemax in Round 1, if you ask me.
A special mention to REALI-T, the weakest Heat Finalist of the tournament, but one of the most heartwarming by far. Godspeed, REALI-T.
REALI-T - Well chums, we've made it. We've found the absolute worst robot to make a Heat Final in Ragnabot 3. The only other contender would be Rohog. Distant third then goes to G.B.H. if that's important. REALI-T is a Heat Finalist in name, but a Series 1 middleweight in nature, armed only with spikes, and also managed to physically lose its wheel in the Snooker of all things. But don't let me be too negative here - REALI-T reaching the Heat Final was absolutely delightful. I can't even remember the last time a Series 1 exclusive did this well, and I certainly wouldn't have thought a middleweight would be the one to get the glory! REALI-T surpasses Recyclopse and Roadblock for the biggest achiever of the First Wars, and that's awesome.
Demon - But of course, REALI-T had to beat someone to get that far! Enter Demon, statistically the slowest wheeled robot in the history of Robot Wars. With top speeds of a blistering 2mph, and armed only with a wedge which was too steep and far off the ground to get under anything, Demon was complete cannon fodder. It genuinely might even lose to some of the second-round featherweights covered in this blog. And yet it still collected a vote over REALI-T which could have set up a Heat Final campaign!
And that's it for the heats! I have one last idea to close off this blog properly, so read on!
Redemption Bracket[]
To close off this blog properly, I'm running an idea left in the comments by CrashBash. I'd suggested that I had a plan in mind to close off this blog, which was initially just going to be a Top 24 ranking of each heat's best non-qualifier (maybe also including / separately ranking the second-best robots too), but given that these machines didn't get as many fights in Ragnabot 3 that they may have deserved, I think there's only one appropriate thing to do!
Each heat's best and second-best competitors to fall before the Top 96 will be entered into a 48-man bracket to see who could have done the best in Ragnabot 3 if not for their early exit. This has been entirely randomised, so no separation of 'best in heat' and 'second-best in heat' robots, or any kind of seeding. Random is the only way to do Ragnabot, right?
Of course, this isn't definitively the 48 best robots to fall in the heats, strong links like M2, Meggamouse and Iron-Awe 6 were only the third-best robots to fall in their heats whereas in others they'd be the best, and the big victims of Round 1 like Panic Attack and Destructive Criticism are still absent. But without further ado, let's get to the bracket!
Top 48[]
Supernova vs Gravity (S7) - Yowch! Gravity falling in the heats was bad enough, but even in the Redemption Bracket, it draws one of the hot favourites in Supernova.
Barbaric Response vs Ceros - This is a curious bout between two quite similar machines. Ceros probably has the better wedge in a head-on collision, but I think that if Ceros is flipped into a position it can't self-right from, Barbaric Response isn't going to help it out.
S.M.I.D.S.Y. vs Ripper - Another Series 7 bout, but it seems clear enough to me that Ripper would have the measure of S.M.I.D.S.Y. overall.
Bulldog Breed vs The Cat - The downside of running a bracket like this is that I have to rate robots like The Cat and Donald Thump again. The Cat could break down against Bulldog Breed, but more likely it'll just take it out as quickly as Hypno-Disc did.
Twisted Metal Evo vs Axe-Awe - I did wonder if this bracket would end up creating another match where I'd vote for Axe-Awe to win and everyone else would disagree, and sure enough, I reckon the majority of the wiki would back Twisted Metal Evo here. Still, I think Axe-Awe is plenty better than Philipper II so it should be good enough to beat Twisted Metal Evo.
Tsunami vs PulverizeR - The German runner-up overcomes the Dutch champion.
Sir Force A Lot vs Heavy Metal - This is one of the best draws Heavy Metal could ask for, and as long as the Americans don't make contact with Heavy Metal's wheels, we're in for a lot of wedging.
Lightning vs Kronic the Wedgehog - I don't want to put this down to purely reliability, but the lip of Kronic's flipper isn't all that effective, and Lightning should consistently outwedge it without even trying.
Iron-Awe 2.1 vs Donald Thump - This is more challenging than it might sound as first, for Iron-Awe 2.1 did stand up to Typhoon 2 for a very long time and might survive until Donald Thump breaks down. However, I can't overlook the possibility that Donald Thump will throw Iron-Awe 2.1 onto its back and leave it unable to self-right.
DisConstructor vs PP3D - Oh dear. This could've been a nice environment for DisConstructor, but its angled spinner is just going to get wiped out as soon as PP3D hits it. While its armour is certainly above average for Series 7 and even good to this day, it's nothing PP3D can't handle.
Crusader 2 vs Mechadroid - This is a fun one! Mechadroid was likely to be out of its depth even in the Redemption Bracket, but Crusader 2 is quite beatable. However, I think there's enough loose parts on Mechadroid for Crusader 2 to hook onto, if the Honduras rep's high ground clearance isn't enough for Crusader 2 to take over.
Cygnus X-1 vs Aftershock - Both of these machines are ranked as the best robot to fall in their heats. You wouldn't think it, considering it's a battle between one of the most feared competitors in Robot Wars history, and Cygnus X-1.
Crackers 'n' Smash vs Anarchy - Fun concept, this. Anarchy's flipper could launch the Crackers 'n' Smash twins quite some distance, but I think that Anarchy would struggle to get down from the top of Crackers or Smash if they wedged under it. The drum of Smash would also make an impact on the polycarb sides.
Raging Reality vs Push to Exit - Barring any breakdowns from either machine, this is going to draw on for quite some time. Neither can finish the other off in the early stages, but Push to Exit can keep flipping for a whole match, whereas a depleting gas tank on Raging Reality would prevent it from flipping or self-righting effectively. Onn better gas supply and greater speed across the arena, Push to Exit should edge out a close fight.
Roobarb vs Mute - Now here's a familiar match! This could be even more enjoyable than the first time these guys fought head-to-head, as Mute should be less likely to lose its flipper in the early stages. I wish I could see this!
Chompalot vs Chimera2 - Good fight, this. Chompalot has already fought the reboot's more famous HDPE thwackbot and surprised us all when it actually managed to fit its jaw around Gabriel, albeit that only resulted in it being pushed back. Chimera2's damage output certainly won't result in a LiPo fire, but I do think its wedge will be a persistent hindrance to Chompalot who will keep pulling a wheelie and end up on the wedge for a push or axe blow.
Atomic vs Suicidal Tendencies (S5) - Alongside Tornado, Atomic is the top billing of the heat second-besters competing here, and poor Suicidal Tendencies can do almost nothing to it.
Tornado vs Pulsar (S8) - Speaking of Tornado, here it is... losing again. I feel quite bad for it now.
Probophobia vs Expulsion (S10) - But while Tornado must make an early exit from the early exiters tournament, we get someone out of these two through. Expulsion could potentially win this with a few good blows, but the persistent toppling issue that Expulsion faces is actually relevant against Probophobia. I imagine they'll apply the framework used against Coyote, but this will just give the lifters more leeway to hook under Expulsion's base.
Pressure vs Thor (S7). I love Pressure and will always cheer for it in Ragnabot, and I do maintain that it was unlucky to fall within its (very weak) heat, but among the 48 robots here, it might be the single weakest in attendance. Thor to go ham in this New Blood matchup.
UFO (S7) vs Bigger Brother - Given the way Bigger Brother keeps falling in Ragnabot heats that contain very few threats other than the one guy that knocks it out, I was fully expecting Bigger Brother to get an unlucky draw here too, but it advances for now.
Dantomkia vs Kadeena Machina - Cor, I thought Kadeena Machina was destined for the top eight of this bracket, maybe even beyond that! But even though Kadeena Machina's disc would make mincemeat out of Dantomkia, I don't think anyone would assert that Kadeena Machina has what it takes to outdrive and immobilise Dantomkia if Big Nipper couldn't do it.
Rick vs Wild Thing 2 - This one is a bit of a head-scratcher. Give Rick to an expert driver and it becomes capable of winning this match, but with the fairly ordinary driving we saw from Rick in battle, I think it'll amount too much chip damage from Wild Thing who will generally dictate the pace.
Mantis vs King B Remix - And the final space goes to Mantis, who might initially struggle with the slippery King B Remix, but with Simon Harrison's dodgy chain being a persistent issue, I think it's an inevitability that Mantis will either earn a fair win through grabs and lifts, or just take advantage of a slipped chain.
Top 24[]
Chimera2 vs Wild Thing 2 - An unexpected run from Chimera2 continues into the third round, it will take absolutely no damage from Wild Thing's disc, and is quite welcome to complete a number of pushes and hits.
Heavy Metal vs Dantomkia - Another favourite is taken out by Dantomkia! Heavy Metal was hardly going to win the whole thing, but I had it pegged for one or two more wins. I wouldn't put it past John Denny Jr to win this battle, but the longer it goes on, the more traction it will lose.
Thor (S7) vs Barbaric Response - After clearing my mind of Mr. Psycho hammering Barbaric Response's back panel off by reminding myself that Thor is just a competitor robot, I think the hidden gem of the live circuit can win this with a healthy amount of flips.
PP3D vs Lightning - Oh dear. Lightning cannot do anything to PP3D without heading face-first into its own demise. A harsh exit for Laurie Calvert.
Aftershock vs Mute - I don't want this
Push to Exit vs Mantis - While I'm sure some people would try to call into question Push to Exit's reliability in any given match, I say that if it can KO Hobgoblin without breaking down, it would get the one-flip KO on Mantis nine times out of ten.
Pulsar (S8) vs Tsunami - Well Pulsar is quickly proving to be the bane of my existance inside this tournament, and considering its actual loss to Bulldog Breed in Ragnabot 3, I don't doubt that other voters would use machines like Tsunami and Tornado to knock Pulsar out early, but I can't bring myself to do it.
Crackers 'n' Smash vs Supernova - Although I'm entertained by the idea of Smash replicating Pulsar's shattering blow, the realistic outcome is Supernova causing some very expensive damage to Crackers 'n' Smash, writing off some quality machining.
Donald Thump vs Atomic - Here, I am prepared to play the reliability card on Donald Thump, especially as we don't have evidence of its self-righting capabilities. As long as Atomic avoids overflipping, it can time out Donald.
Ripper vs The Cat - I feel like one blow from The Cat would cause part of Ripper to physically disappear from this world. This could be nasty.
Crusader 2 vs Bigger Brother - Clearly the bad luck brigade is not out to get Bigger Brother after all!
Probophobia vs Axe-Awe - Surely people would agree with me on this one, Axe-Awe can cause just as much damage to Probophobia's armour as Tut Tut did, and the flipper is an extra bonus.
Top 12[]
Barbaric Response vs PP3D vs Axe-Awe - It would have made sense to run the melees in the previous round, but in all honesty I forgot I would need them! In this bout, PP3D can take out whichever foe it likes. Barbaric Response is visually the more blocky machine, but in reality it has the most prominent reliability issues, and might be more likely to challenge PP3D head-on. Axe-Awe would like to hope it stands up to Gary Cairns as long as Iron-Awe 2.1 did, but it won't. I think Axe-Awe is a slightly more inviting target to attack, so it goes here.
Supernova vs Bigger Brother vs Dantomkia - What a killer melee! If I told you before the tournament starts that this would be a melee between heat losers, while Prizephita Mach II vs Short Circuit vs Bondi Titch was a real Top 96 melee, I'd be laughed off the earth. The key player is Supernova, who can again take out whoever it wants, much like PP3D, although its opponents this time can at least withstand a few hits and make this less about who the spinner wants to OHKO. Although Supernova could kill either with enough persistence, I actually think it's Dantomkia who'd buckle first, being a slightly bigger target which historically hasn't been too hard to knock out. Bigger Brother was at least designed to resist horizontal spinners, even if it's still built to 2003 spec.
Aftershock vs Chimera2 vs The Cat - The two killer spinners have no reason to engage with each other here. The Cat will embody the spirit of its mentor Craig Danby and hide in the background while Aftershock quickly removes Chimera2 from the tournament.
Pulsar (S8) vs Push to Exit vs Atomic - Oh dear, two of the reboot's most unreliable machines come together, but weirdly I'm putting both through. We at least know that Pulsar would beat Push to Exit head-to-head, and although Atomic would maybe beat Pulsar in a pure game of survival, I think it's the more inviting target for Pulsar in a melee environment simply because it's the one not armoured in HARDOX. Analysing the way Push to Exit behaved in its melee against Magnetar, I think it's likely to avoid Pulsar and challenge Atomic, which will set up Pulsar's killer blow to the older machine.
Top 8[]
Bigger Brother vs Push to Exit - I'm quite confident that a few readers will be against Push to Exit reaching the Top 8, but its run comes to an end here, as its long sides are very exploitable for a controlled Bigger Brother performance. I do think Bigger Brother's wedge will be lower too, although I'd still hope to see some good flips from Push to Exit. Close, but backing the older machine today.
The Cat vs Barbaric Response - Having even escaped a bout with PP3D, it's finally time for Barbaric Response's reliability issues to kick in. The Cat will settle this in one blow, so even if it dies in the process, the Judges would still favour Suzi Perry's machine.
Pulsar (S8) vs Supernova - Oh no, it's the very match which sent Pulsar back to its old ways with low reliability in Series 9! Going into this bout using its Series 8 form, Pulsar is prone to a breakdown right from the outset, and this time I think it will be Supernova who comes out on top. I might be wrong on that.
PP3D vs Aftershock - Now then, this could be the shock of the tournament! Right from the very first heat, Aftershock has always stood out as the single biggest omission from the Top 96, and it might still be the best robot in this bracket, with Supernova and PP3D being the only other options in my mind. However, I'm fairly confident Aftershock is actually going out here, with PP3D picking up a big win. Aftershock simply wasn't built to withstand horizontal spinners, with Carbide easily winning both battles against it, and even Ironside3 prevailed too. PP3D's undercutting blade will draw blood before Aftershock's own blade can make contact, and although the spinners will connect straight afterwards, Aftershock will already be compromised by PP3D landing the first touch, and will take a much bigger impact. PP3D's wheels are not in danger, Aftershock gyro'd so much on turns that it can't outmaneuver the disc to reach those targets. PP3D moves on!
Supernova vs Bigger Brother - By the time we reached the Top 8, the only classic series reps were Bigger Brother and Barbaric Response. It's now time to lose the last one, with a respectable third place finish for Bigger Brother.
PP3D vs The Cat - I do genuinely think The Cat is a contender for the strongest spinning weapon in all of Robot Wars (even Carbide is intentionally dialled down for the sake of reliability), but if it has a match for power, I reckon it's PP3D. I would also estimate that PP3D has more reach, and both are unreliable so we can factor that out. I think that with Suzi behind the wheels of The Cat, PP3D might manage a wheel snipe, but even via weapon-to-weapon, I'd still back PP3D.
Supernova vs PP3D - And in the final between our two reboot spinners, I once again back PP3D. Yes it's unreliable, but Supernova wasn't difficult for Pulsar or Ironside3 to KO, so PP3D's superior reach should again provide a quick knockout. Had PP3D beaten M.R. Speed Squared in Ragnabot 3 then we would've seen an Aftershock vs Supernova final here, but instead PP3D gets the consolation prize. Now then, how do we come up with a bracket that Tornado can win a fight in?
