The Top 100 Iconic Bots - Crash's Analysis

I remember watching Series 8 of Robot Wars and recalling Jonathan Pearce mention that one of Chimera's team members could name every single robot, plus their team members, that had ever competed up to that point. Both robots and team members is frankly remarkable, but even just remembering all the robots is fairly impressive by itself. After all, just looking at our latest Ragnabot competition will reveal that there were well over 700 robots, and that's just considering the UK series competitors. At the end of the day, how many do you remember? In a sense, in order to remember a robot, it has to really stand out for one reason or another...it has to be iconic.

But what makes a robot iconic? Lots of things, as it turns out. It could be really good. It could be really bad. It could have done something spectacular, for better or for worse. It could have nothing to do with the robot and everything to do with the team. It could even simply be a meme on the internet for all I know. With such a variety of things to consider, it'd be very difficult to narrow down a definitive way to determine which robots are truly the most iconic.

Luckily, I don't have to.

Starting earlier this month, wiki member NJGW teamed up with other wiki members and well-known robot-buffs on YouTube to create a definitive, if you want to call it that, list of the 100 most iconic contestant robots Robot Wars has ever had across its ten UK series and two Extreme series. This has no doubt taken him goodness knows how long for him to create and the last thing he really needs is some rando ranting about his choices...but ranting is just something I like to do. Besides, whilst I can't really say whether his choices are right and wrong - that's just not my place here - I still have thoughts on the robots themselves. Besides, it seemed like a fun idea at the time.

Now, for clarification, I will be going through this list a little differently than usual. Instead of going through each entry one by one, I will be covering robots in blocks of ten, just like NJGW is doing. So each update will be me rambling on about ten robots and then moving on with my life, at least until the series is finished. I gotta do something to keep me sane through this lockdown, after all.

Number 100-91

Lets face it, the only reason Mace is at Number 100 is because of its Series 2 introduction.

This is how I was introduced to Robot Wars. Of course I'm going to like Mace

In all seriousness, though, I would personally consider Mace to be iconic, although in my case, it would be for far more personal reasons. Y'see, Series 3 was the first series of Robot Wars that I ever watched, barring a very small clip from one Series 2 heat (more on that later, I hope) and as such, Mace's heat was the first one I saw. Now, for a young kid at the time seeing his first taste of robot combat, of course I would be impressed with Mace. This big bulky block of a machine with a flipping arm just casually bossing around anyone it could get ahold of. But it's even more impressive in hindsight when you consider it was fighting three robots its sort of weapon would struggle with. Of course, I don't deny it's iconic beyond personal bias, what with it being the only Series 2 semi-finalist to improve on its performance in Series 3, but being the first robot I was able to latch on to helps.

Iconic loss, yes. Most iconic loss? I'm not too sure...

However, here is where I immediately have to question the choices of what makes a robot iconic. Namely by asking "does Robogeddon really deserve to be here?". I mean, don't get me wrong, the fight itself is certainly iconic. It's a personal favourite for me even years later. It showcased a level of destruction that had never quite been seen before and, of course, Jonathan Pearce's constant laughter helped. But does that make Robogeddon iconic? Well, technically, yes, it does...but then you could say that could apply to a lot of robots who lost their fights. By that same reasoning, Crocodilotron is iconic because it lost to Chaos 2, Crasha Gnasha is iconic because of its very quick explosion against Fire Storm and lets not forget poor old Axe-Awe being yeeted out of the arena by Wheely Big Cheese the way it did. I'm not saying that none of these are iconic, but as I have a suspision that Robogeddon is basically representing the "iconic because it got absolutely trounced" status that I doubt is going to repeat itself higher in the list, I just don't know if it's the absolute best pick.

I mean, really, if this never happened, Apex would never be here

That same logic also really applies to Apex, although, in all fairness, you'd be hard-pushed to find a more spectacular way to go out. Whilst I'm not entirely sure that Robogeddon had the most iconic way to go out, I don't think there's any other potential contender for most iconic way to take yourself out. Which is probably the only reason why Apex is on this list in the first place. Take away the self-destruction and what do you have? Another disappointing underwhelming spinner, otherwise no different from every other disappointing underwhelming spinner other than "it big". And trust me, there were a lot of those.

"How do I kick ball!?"

Moving on and...oh, OK, I see. Now this one has to be subjective. The status of Evil Weevil being an iconic robot purely because its heat win, which was one of the worst ever of any robot and any series BTW, has the most views on the YouTube channel of some random guy (and I mean absolutely no offence, because at the end of the day, aren't we all some random guy or girl? Or person, since I gotta cover everyone?). I had to watch its heat final, which I declared as the worst in the show's entire history, just to score it. Although to be fair that had nothing to do with Evil Weevil itself. Will say this, though...I do find Evil Weevil very memorable, both in its design and its name. It does have that going for it, and to be fair, it did perform well in its heat. Less said about its Series 4 performance and its Football run, the better. Kinda embarrassing to win a competition involving scoring a goal when you never once actually score a goal.

It's a shame to see such potential lost.

The next two robots are machines that, if we were to consider their live event performances, would clearly be much higher, but based on their performances on the TV show alone, yeah, it makes sense that they're this low. That being said, I do feel, personally, that the two robots probably should have been swapped around. I dunno, I just feel that Kronic the Wedgehog hasn't been as over-glorified. It was never strictly the strongest robot in its heat and was never likely to be, but with the exception of its Series 5 run, where it got bossed by King B Powerworks, it always put up a really solid display, even when it ran into trouble. Suffice to say, its shining moment was its first round battle of Series 6. It's just a shame for it that things went wrong for it, although obviously it is nice to see its spirit live on in Apollo.

Honestly, I feel more bad about Kronic losing

Ripper, on the other hand, is a robot that whilst I don't hate it despite what some of my recent posts may suggest, I do feel gets hyped a little too much and its inherent weaknesses get overlooked much too easily, because for what it's worth, it had a lot of them. Say how its internals are well inside all you want, doesn't change the fact its paper-thin armour is vulnerable to spinners. The team also outright admitted that it was vulnerable to being flipped, as it cannot self-right from every angle. I included Ripper as a robot that could have won a heat with a kinder draw and, to be honest, it would have needed a great deal of luck to win most of Series 7 heats - if anything, it'd come down to which robot it replaced. Heat G, for example, it could easily win, but only if it replaced Atomic. And if TR2's gauge of how capable it was is purely on the basis that it can't flip robots out of the arena, what's protecting Ripper from that same criticism? It had lower walls to deal with for one thing. But, as I said, I don't hate Ripper. Yes, its romp with the House Robots was great. Yes, it is a shame that it wasn't allowed in the reboot. Yes, I'm sure the new version would have lived up to the hype quite nicely. But I still don't see the original as being as great as some people say. I don't mean to be so critical, though, so lets move on to something more positive.

Why do I have to keep being reminded of this?

Oh, what did I JUST say!?

Contrary to popular opinion, and this may surprise you considering I mention it and its failings SO many times, I don't actually find any enjoyment talking about my distain for Foxic. That rant I gave for the reboot ranking? I honestly hoped I'd never have to do something like that ever again. For what it's worth, though, I completely agree with its inclusion and the reasoning for why it was there. It was a nightmare. A frustrating nightmare of having to watch four whole fights of a robot barely performing, including one of the worst fights ever seen, not helped by having to listen to a guy who, I get it, he was trying to be a heel, but it just didn't work. Craig Danby just ain't no Mike Onslow, y'know. Maybe if he'd had the fox outfit a series earlier, it would have worked better. I went into Series 9 really hoping that Foxic had improved because I legit didn't want to hate it...but no, it does worse. Yet for what it's worth, I have to give Foxic some credit. Technically, it is iconic. Just for all the wrong reasons.

I love being able to talk about this fight. Any excuse, really

OK, moving on to robots I'm not likely to rant about, and we get to Tiberius, which is actually a personal favourite of mine. When all is said and done, I do think I prefer its original form over the more conventional crusher form. I dunno, I just feel like the crushing spike gave it a bit more unique-ness over the crushing claw - made it stand out over other crushers at the time. If anything, though, I'm pleased to see Tiberius on this list. It's very hard for a crusher to get any recognition without immediately being forced into Razer's shadow. Heck, Tiberius could easily have been a semi-finalist both in its debut and final appearance - it was only due to a breakdown and a major turnabout respectively that stopped it short.

Sir Killalot plucks up Piece De Resistance after it loses its fight against A Pile of Barrels. A Pile of Barrels would then lose its next fight to Demolition Demon

And now what seems to be the obligatory "it's iconic because it's terrible" selection. Now, over the years, I do feel that Piece de Resistance is slightly underrated. Key word being "slightly". When you have a claim such as "Worst robot to ever compete on Robot Wars", you have an uphill battle. Yes, Piece de Resistance is a terrible machine. Yes, it looked like it'd be easily trashed in a fight. Yes, it utterly failed at the most simple task of knocking over small obstacles. And yes, it was assumed to be capable enough under the most ludicrous of reasonings. But no, it's not the worst robot to ever compete. For all its faults - and there are many of them - at least it could move. Does nobody remember Ellie's Little Pink Bot!?

The forgotten finalist in action

We finish off the first batch of ten by talking about Ironside3, the so-called "forgotten finalist". I really hope that's not the sole reason it's up here, because it's far from the only "forgotten finalist". In truth, I find the reactions immediately following its loss in Series 8 a bit of an over-reaction. It was immobilised, guys - and y'know what, if it hadn't driven into the pit whilst pitting Pulsar, it would still have been declared out. You saw this with Wheely Big Cheese vs Suicidal Tendencies, remember? Yet, I do find myself somewhat siding with the relative lowness of its positioning on this list. Yes, it was a personal pick of mine to win both of its heats, certainly in the higher ranking of my predictions list (behind only Pulsar, I believe) and it's nice it got a redemption story, but aside from an extremely ill-fated rivalry with the star-themed robot...what really makes it stand out? If it weren't for its improvement in Series 9, it'd technically fall under the same roof as Apex - another disappointing underwhelming spinner. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see Ironside did do well, don't get me wrong, but even then it wasn't the strongest heat win in existance.

Number 90-81

Sumpthing about to pierce Weld-Dor's battery so hard it explodes, thus confirming it killed Weld-Dor once and for all. Probably

Well, no doubt about the first selection of this batch of ten - Sumpthing is certainly iconic. But lets not get ahead of ourselves - the main reason Sumpthing is truly iconic was because it was ever-present across the history of the show. If Series 3 had been its only appearance, it would have been another generic rubbish robot that fell at the first hurdle and literally no one would have remembered it. I didn't remember it when I watched Series 4 for the first time until I saw the replay and I was like "Oh, right, NOW I remember". But Sumpthing continued coming back afterwards for quite some time. We got to see it fairly often, the low-tech-ness and Mr Dig's hair were a constant presence (albeit not being forced down our throats). It was the charm of Robot Wars. Dig wasn't there to win, he was just there to compete with as low-a-tech machine he could and prove it could be done. Also, just throwing this out here, the whole Sumpthing-Weld-Dor-thing...completely overblown. Yes, it was proven that Little Fly was the robot to kill Weld-Dor, but in the spur of the moment it does seem like Weld-Dor dies when Sumpthing hits it, and I don't think it's fair to judge people for not paying attention to the post-battle interviews, because come on, who pays attention to the post-battle interviews? I mean, really? Besides, Sumpthing clearly won the fight at the end of the day, as Little Fly was badly hobbling on what looked like a flat tyre. That's gotta mean something, right?

A rare moment of PP3D working properly. This ends soon afterwards

Sumpthing I feel I can't criticise for being rubbish because that was the intention. Unfortunately, I do feel I can be critical about the next entrant, PP3D. This follows on the same logic as Apex, really. What exactly does PP3D have over Apex? Beyond some actual wins to its name and a meme, actually very little. Remember how I said that Apex would just be another disappointing underwhelming spinner if it weren't for its self-destruction? Yeah, well, PP3D really toes that line. Yes, it was disappointing. Yes, it was underwhelming. Yes, OK, fair play, it managed to defeat Eruption, but it was just so self-destructive in every single one of its head-to-head battles. Including Cherub of all robots. OK, sure, Cherub is built like a brick, fair game, but we're the same community who ridicules Warhog for losing to Napalm even though there was a legit excuse in that loss. Also, the Kickstarter thing isn't exactly all that noteworthy to me, because Kickstarters are also the birthplace of certain video games like Mighty No 9...just as disappointing and underwhelming as PP3D, with an equally meme-worthy statement. I wonder if PP3D cried like an anime fan on prom night.

I mean, I guess this is the right screenshot to use? I hope there aren't any more cuts like that.

Now, some of you may remember one of the earliest lists I made was a "Top 10 Unbeatable Robots" list, to cover robots that could very well be considered "unbeatable". I listed Tsunami as number 1 in that list, based largely on the fact that the only way I saw it being beat was due to actions it took. I'm not sure if I'd still consider Tsunami the number 1 rank, as I feel "unbeatable" should now be taken with era into consideration, but I don't regret including Tsunami in the first place. In fact, if anything, I feel that Tsunami's loss in the heat final of Series 7 is probably one of the biggest losses of any robot prior to the heat final of that series, and certainly the high end of any series full-stop. That fight against X-Terminator has been consistently dubbed as one of Robot Wars' best fights, and I can't argue against that. But losing Tsunami there left a lot of unanswered questions. I would have legit liked to have seen if my "theory" was true - who could really have beaten Tsunami? Could anyone besides X-Terminator have? It feels like one of the great mysteries...in a way, it's iconic enough as is as German runner-up, but its early departure and leaving so much what-could-have-beens make me wonder how much higher it would have gotten on the list had it progressed.

This is not the last time you'll see a robot called Zeus get its robutt kicked

Speaking of German machines losing too soon, I feel there's a missed point here. Yes, it was a shame that Black Hole lost to Philipper 2 and we got denied a fight between it and Tornado...but I feel that would have been largely a fight Tornado controlled and pitted with little issue. The bigger denial was a fight between Black Hole and Razer, because that legit could have gone either way. Especially if you buy into the theory that this is what the European Championships was set-up to be - a final between Black Hole and Razer (or at the very least Tornado). Unfortunately, an amazing come-from-behind victory and a very messy set of complications denied that. Either way, from what little we saw, Black Hole certainly could have had a lot of potential...and the worst part is, it very nearly went completely unknown. Not only because its greatest success was for the longest time limited to Germany, but its appearance in the UK was cut off to a lot of people for goodness knows how long, as the European Championship was one of the "Missing Three" episodes. Thank god for the internet.

Seen - Loss two of seven. Not seen - a win

The next one I feel should have been much lower. I find it hard to hate Terror Turtle - it's just a very difficult robot to hate. It has a charm to it, certainly, but charm alone would really only be good enough, at least from my point of view, for a place in the 100-91 slot. Certainly below Sumpthing, because at least Sumpthing has a battle victory to its name. Speaking of, Terror Turtle holds the record for the worst win-to-loss ratio of any robot, with seven losses and no wins at all. Is that why it's so notable? Apparantly not because the fanbase was so desperate for it to have a win to its name, they overreacted to an already major overreaction to a tag team fight because some rules were "broken", even though that wasn't an issue at all in literally any other tag team fight - including the other three tag team fights of the very same competition. OK, I get the actual reason why Terror Turtle is notable - namely the whole Greenpeace thing and, as an animal lover and someone who wants the Earth and its ecosystems to stay healthy, I can get behind that. Unfortunately, this topic was barely ever touched upon during Terror Turtle's career until very late on, and in that aspect, I still feel it's too high here.

Next up, we're talking about one of the greatest robots that has ever entered Robot Wars, with one of the greatest flippers to ever exist and certainly THE most good-looking machi....wait, hang on, what? Has someone been editing my script? Who read this section in the countdown again? Toast? Oh, what a surprise!

I mean, I had to...

Honestly, despite the fact it reached the semi-finals, I do find the performance of Mute in Series 7 to be very underwhelming. I think it's fair to say that it was very fortunate to score the wins against Behemoth and Judge Shred it did. Yes, I do think the self-righting antics were funny...the first time. The second time it was just kinda sad. This is where Mute could have done with the whole mid-pressure things it seemed nearly all flipperbots had in the reboot. But don't think I'm disregarding Mute's success as a whole. Its performance in Extreme 2's New Blood was certainly worthy of praise, aside from that clash with Cedric Slammer (and no, its self-pitting in Round 1 doesn't count, nobody docks points for Firestorm doing that and they did that nearly every series). Obviously, its best clashes were the fight with Roobarb and the fight with Storm 2. I ranked the latter very highly in my "Top 18 Title Fights", after all - higher than many actual UK championships. Storm 2 may have won that fight, but it wouldn't have been that high were it not for Mute. Whilst it may have been too powerful for its own good, when it could keep the right way up and its wheels on the ground, Mute proved it could certainly give as good as it got, with its persistant aggression, never-give-up atitude and sleak, sexy armour that feels so tender to the touch and Goddamnit, Toast, STOP MESSING WITH MY SCRIPT!!

The moment everyone saw a House Robot being flipped for the first time. Except David Crosby

OK, with that out the way, lets move on to Recyclopse. This is a robot I never even saw my first time watching Robot Wars. I started in Series 3 if you remember and the one clip of Series 1 I saw back then didn't even show Recyclopse. But I did eventually see pictures and, yeah, I don't think Recyclopse would have been as iconic as it was if it weren't for its design. I know it was the pioneer of the flipper in the UK and also the first to kill off a House Robot in a battle setting, but what really made it stand out was its design. It could have been another generic box or wedge, but we instead got this large dome-thing. Not to mention the weapon itself. In practise, the tongue really didn't work out all that well and a design like that almost certainly wouldn't fly today, but nobody can deny it was extremely innovative. Sometimes you have to take risks and see what works and what doesn't...he arguably have Recyclopse to thank for this.

That blade managed to slice through metal. Are you SURE it's "the worst heat winner"?

Now, I've heard people claim that Mousetrap is the worst robot to ever win a heat. I don't think I could confidently name which robot I believe is the worst, but I'm positive it's not Mousetrap. I'm legit surprised it wasn't nominated for "Most Original Entry". At least it made it very memorable. But I still think it should have been more so, if only for its clash in Series 5 with S3. I've talked about this fight in length before, but it was a fight S3 was very fortunate to win, because for a large chunk of the battle, Mousetrap was winning. It managed to catch S3 early on, nearly sliced off its aerial and then managed to unintentionally but crucially entangle its "spring" into S3's disc. If Mousetrap had taken just a little less damage, the heat would have been very different. The worse part was there was a time when this particular battle was barely talked about...S3's other performances seemed to overshadow it. That fight wouldn't have been as great as it was were it not for Mousetrap. Remember that.

See? I told you it wouldn't be the last time

Here's a fun fact - I never watched Red Dwarf. As a result, the inspiration behind Scutter's Revenge, plus Craig Charles' comment on wondering what a Scutter was, went completely over little me's head when I first saw it. All I saw was "cool robot with scary face". It also happened to have a BFO plough that bossed pretty much everyone in its heat. These days, we're a lot more critical about Scutter's Revenge. It's a robot I've come to realise needed to win fights quickly because it just burnt itself out if it couldn't finish the opponent off and it was ill-suited to compete in a series where the pit was only open for two rounds. I'm torn as to whether I think Scutter's Revenge is truly "iconic", since it seems mostly to be remembered from benefitting from a disqualification, being in a rubbish game and the whole "Judgment Day" thing that was never really explored or adopted afterwards. But I still think it looks cool regardless.

Boop!

Now this is how you make an improvement to a sequel. Kinda fitting that Spawn of Scutter is right ahead of Scutter's Revenge. I personally feel that Spawn of Scutter is the best-looking out of all three Scutterbots and by far the most unique. Even in the modern day, I don't think I've seen anyone else utalise a spike as a designated flipping weapon and I certainly struggle to think of any that may have used one in the robot combat shows that would have been aired at the time. I don't want to insist it was unique, but it certainly came close. However, I also think that another reason that Spawn of Scutter was iconic was because of its team. At this point, the Essex Boys had set upon a "personality" of sorts, by basically being "The Plunderbirds but better". Heck, the whole heat looked like it was set-up for a massive grudge match between the two, until Knightmare ended that in one fell swoop and then a door ruined their chances the following year. A shame, too, it really would have been quite the sight, even if it's one Spawn of Scutter would, I feel, easily take. Spawn performed well too, easily being the most reliable of the Scutterbots (albeit that's not saying much) and I do think it's a shame the design was never explored again.

....does this mean that Spawn Again is going to be at number 80?

Number 80-71

Cerberus pits "dead" robot. Instantly best robot ever (even better than Pussycat)

Cerberus is overrated and overglorified. Moving on.

So now we're at 79 and....alright, fine!

OK, look, I don't hate Cerberus, but for the most part I feel its glories are a little unjustified or otherwise harped over just a bit too much. First of all, the design. Yes, OK, I understand, it's visually stunning to look at. It looks beautiful. However, I could name at least eight other equally visually stunning robots from Series 3 - this is the same series where Sir Chromalot (A machine I fully expect to be talking about later, mind) debuted. The clue is in the name there, people. So, why is Cerberus getting the credit for looking good? Because it has wins under its belt? Yeah, but they're hardly noteworthy. Cerberus has four wins to its name: one by accident, one by default, one off the back of a Tag Team partner and perhaps the single most situational record ever obtained. I don't see what people see so great about Cerberus pushing a "dead" Griffon into the pit. Nobody glorifies Eruption for flipping a "dead" Cherub out of the arena. Even the fact it broke the shortest fight record seems to miss how situational that was obtained. Think about it - Griffon started on the side of the arena closest to the pit, turned towards the pit, then seemingly had one of its all-too-frequent radio cut-outs long enough for Cerberus to push it into the pit with absolutely no hesitation. All I'm saying is there are far better insta-pittings and this is far from one of the most memorable fights of all time. Even the fact it got to the heat final despite having weapon issues loses its touch when Diotoir upstages it in the very next heat. If you want to give Cerberus any credit, at least give it to Theo for his blatant and delightful enthusiasm. I'm actually genuinely disappointed Cerberus didn't appear more in Extreme 1 - he was absolutely perfect for that series.

Couldn't get a shot of Berserk 2 being attacked by Shunt. But if this is the only moment that matters, why would you?

Moving on to another robot I feel is slightly overglorified, but in the case of Berserk 2, I feel it's a very unfortunate case. Look, the fact that it withstood Hypno-Disc is certainly commendable. After the flywheel-clad newcomer had just decimated its first two opponents, to see Berserk 2 actually give it a proper fight and almost completely shut down the most destructive weapon Robot Wars had at this point. The problem is ...well, I just can't overlook its frankly awful Series 4 rebuild. I legit have no idea what happened, but Series 4 Berserk 2 was just such a step-down it's almost embarrassing. I'm sure Series 3 Berserk 2 would have lost to Tornado anyway, but not as limply as that - and don't get me started on how a rematch would have gone. Heck, anyone who owned the original Robot Wars Magazine and saw its Fantasy Fight against Weld-Dor and Dominator 2 would have seen it get completely trashed by both its opponents. And this isn't just some typical comic exaggeration - note that, when they try to attack Dominator 2, nothing happens? If this had been Series 3 Berserk 2, the same thing...if anything, Weld-Dor would be the one getting trashed. There is a reason why the Series 3 model is not only more widely remembered but also consistently used more in our tournaments in The Arena...it's just a superior model and the fact that such a weak model followed really hurts its resilience-feat for me.

Yes, clearly PP3D is winning.

Speaking of robots being hurt because of certain performances overshadowing others, we come to Cherub, perhaps one of the most universally hated robots in the fandom. The worst part is that, unlike Foxic, the controversy and frustration surrounding Cherub has nothing to do with the robot itself, or the team for that matter. Lets be realistic here - if Cherub hadn't been pushed under the floor flipper, something that should never have happened in the first place, would you still disagree with it beating Behemoth? If it hadn't been knocked over by that double-KO clash, would you still disagree with it beating PP3D? The issue here is pure circumstance - both battles were very close between Cherub and its opponents, but the issue here is that in both of them, their opponents did something to completely blind the fanbase and make them think THEY deserved the win, not Cherub. This is the whole Firestorm/Morgue saga all over again - you're blinded by the fact that Firestorm is in the pit and missing the fact that The Morgue is technically pitted. Beyond that, Cherub surprised me. I never expected it to get through its first round fight, with Draven being the only robot I felt it could deal with, whilst the fair money was easily on PP3D and Push To Actually-Function-Properly-Just-Once-In-Your-Life! But Cherub proved to be quite resilient. I suggest you check out some videos of Cherub in the live circuits. It's capable of holding its own, even "mandhandling" former champion Tornado. Just try to think more objectively about its fights.

Sure, this attack looks better than it actually is, but Razer wouldn't have been able to reach high enough to do this. Think about it...

Funnily enough, we move on to another robot that seems to get a lot of hate for something that wasn't its fault. Yes, I would have prefered it if Disc-O-Inferno was the 15th seed too. But I can only assume the real reason that Ming was seeded, because it's the only option that makes the remotest bit of sense, is that its heat was originally Dominator 2's heat and, once it withdrew, Ming was legit the only robot that realistically made any sense to seed, with the possible exception of Mega Hurts, but then I think that would get even more backlash. As for the robots themselves...well, Ming the Merciless wasn't very good and Ming Dienasty made no sense, but Ming 2 and Ming 3 were actually pretty decent. Unfortunately, that's about as far as they got - even without their misfortunes, they would have lost their next fights in Series 4 and 5. They were decent robots that were capable of defeating other decent robots, but were never going to be able to hold their own against any of the "good" tier, certainly not an All-Star. Even its greatest performance in the Nickelodeon Tag Team wasn't all that good because, aside a pretty decent clamp on Bigger Brother, most of Ming's contributions were indirect - the real meat was carried out by its teammate Rick. Still, you gotta give Ming some credit much in the way of Sumpthing - it was always there, so deserves to be considered iconic. Too high? Hard to tell.

Headache!? Don't think any pills are gonna...make that one better!

From a robot that could have been good with a more forgiving line-up to a robot that...eh? It may not be Diotoir or Robochicken, but Major Tom is a robot I always enjoyed seeing. It just had so much personality to it and visually stood out from nearly everyone. It certainly had its moments, don't get me wrong, but whether the robot could win fights just wasn't what Major Tom was all about - it was about what ridiculous ways could it LOSE! Aside from a very limp breakdown in Extreme 1, every single one of Major Tom's losses was iconic for one reason or another. If you want me to rank them from worst to best, then I'd say - Extreme 1, Series 6, Series 7, Series 4, Series 5, Extreme 2. Now that might be an interesting point of discussion. Everyone, quick, make a blog ranking your favourite Major Tom losses! Including that one guy who cheers for them in Series 4! You know who you are, don't think we didn't hear you!

Notice me, SpaceManiac-senpai!

Or, here's an idea, how about we give Steg 2 some love? Because whether you think it deserves its praise or if it's highly overrated, Steg 2 just seemed to be the kind of robot that never really got the recognition it (maybe) deserved until it was gone. Maybe I'm overlooking this a little bit, but think about where Steg 2 sat in the grand scheme of things. It was the successor to the robot that placed joint third the previous year, yet was only seeded seventh. Not only was this the lowest seeding of any robot that reached the Grand Final the series prior, but this was two seeds below Firestorm 2, the other joint third finisher. OK, Firestorm deserves to be ranked higher than Steg 2, fair game, it took out the then defending champion, that's a big deal, but Steg 2 was severely shafted in favour of the previous champion and the top two World Championship competitors. Even when it does get to prove itself with an explosively powerful flipper that causes it to leave the ground when it fires (younger me loved that) and the gaul to take on the House Robots, it still feels like it's being overshadowed by the lower ranked Mortis. And then, then, in a move that makes absolutely no sense, it was drawn up against Chaos 2 as soon as possible. What makes the whole deal with 3 Stegs 2 Heaven even sadder than it already is was when Philippa Forrester stated "I don't see what was wrong with the old version myself"....yeah, TPTB didn't like it, that's what was wrong with the old version. It finally gets some recognition and it's too late.

The second best thing the CO2 jets ever did

Moving on and, really, I can't have been the only person who actually thought Ruf Ruf Dougal had a chance against Gemini, right? Sure, it's a blatant comedy robot, that much is obvious. Sure, a spike isn't really going to cut it at the era it was fighting. But what really impressed me when I first learnt of Dougal, from the original Robot Wars Magazine no less, was the stabslising flywheel. Supposedly, it was meant to prevent Dougal from getting flipped...and it actually worked. Sure, the fact Dougal had no baseplate didn't help matters, but the fact remains, Gemini was only able to flip it over once it broke down. That being said, for all the praise I give Dougal, plus its staying power and humour factor...I'd honestly rank it lower down. I feel 74 is just a bit too high.

Eh, who are we kidding, Toast and TG have already inserted their bias, Jim probably had some secret say in this. Calling it now! Moving on.

Word of advice - if TPTB let you into the show without qualifying, be wary, you'll almost certainly be set-up as cannon-fodder.

I've mentioned this before, but the switch in Robot Wars format from Trials and Fighting to pure Fighting really affected certain robots. I feel Milly-Ann Bug is one of them. It's honestly a design that was really well suited for taking on a Gauntlet-style event. Don't believe me? The only other robot I can recall to use an articulating chassis in much the same way as Milly-Ann Bug was Hammerhead - not the British or Dutch machines, but an American competitor from the third series of Robotica. It was at level pegging with its more conventional opponent Mini-Rip for the ENTIRE Gauntlet and Labyrinth and would have perfectly tied it in both events were it not for one small little obstacle right at the very end. That shows the potential of the articulating chassis in a trial-style format. Really, the issue for Milly-Ann Bug is that it's not really ideal for fighting. Even its strong performance against Bumblebot showed that its articulating domes worked just as well against it as for it in fighting. Mind you, I suppose being paired off against both Pussycat and Razer in two consequtive fights didn't help. It's nice to know Milly-Ann Bug was liked so much by TPTB to the point that it didn't even need to go through qualifying, but I do feel it would have been better suited to a trial-centric series than a battle-centric one. Thinking about it, though, I wonder how many trials it would have actually succeeded in...

"Anything you can do, I can do better!"

I've probably not mentioned this before, but my favourite Robot Wars side competition has always been the Annihilator. Explaining why can wait for another time, but know that I will always be impressed by a strong performance in an annihilator - itself something I feel I can discuss another time. Onslaught would certainly rank very high in terms of Annihilator performances. If anything else, it gave the chance for Onslaught to prove what it could do after not being able to compete in the Fourth UK Championship. The reason I think makes Onslaught's performance stand out was because on the surface, it seemed like it'd be easy for the other more successful robots (in terms of performance - you had the likes of Razer, Behemoth and Spawn of Scutter in there) to pick it off, yet not only did it keep going, it kept getting actively involved in the action as well. Whilst others were falling by the wayside, Onslaught powered on - it wouldn't be until it was left alone with Razer that it finally fell. Also, in many ways, Onslaught started a sort of mini-legacy of these plucky Annihilator competitors who would eventually become runners-up. One only has to look at the annihilators in Extreme 1 and gauge the performances of Arnold A. Terminegger and Spirit of Knightmare, both of them reaching an unexpected second place after throwing themselves into the thick of the action as often as they could. If you think about it, you have Onslaught to look back on for that - so, yeah, it deserves its ranking for this alone.

Great display. Shame this is the only time Barber-Ous did something without breaking down

We finish off today with a robot that...I'm not sure where I stand. It could be just unlucky, or it could be yet another disappointing underwhelming spinner. I will say, Barber-Ous does have a great design and it really broke up the spinner meta-game. Who else would have thought up a full-body drum? I will also say that its performance against Panic Attack is nothing to sniff at - it may have lost, but it went down fighting. It's just its other performances that make me question where it sits. For starters, I don't agree with one bit that it "upstaged" Hypno-Disc...if it truly upstaged Hypno-Disc, then why did it die in one hit to the horizontal spinner in the very same battle it was supposedly upstaging it? The absolute domination of Kat 3 was really the only battle that Barber-Ous truly proved its worth and subsequently won. Every other battle it had ended with it either getting knocked out or breaking down way too quickly. You may remember I felt its Series 6 Heat Final against Hypno-Disc was a major disappointment because, rather than the one-and-done everyone lists it as, it felt more like Barber-Ous just conking out after landing an attack. Still, for what it's worth, I will commend Barber-Ous for it being unique and it's technically still the most successful full-body drum spinner I know...the only other one I know is Axe Backwards from BattleBots, so that may not be saying much.

Eh, Space probably had a say in this. This whole list is gonna be filled with personal biasey with everyone on the wikia involved except lil' ol' me. Watch as Chopper is number one....although that would make a great fake-out.

Number 70-61

Well, this is actually a disappointing start for me. A disappointing start in what is otherwise a great line-up.

OK, fair play, this was a funny sight

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Granny's Revenge isn't iconic, and I get the reasoning behind why it would be here...but isn't that why we had Ruf Ruf Dougal literally a few entries down? Y'know, the designated "hilarious fodder-bot that's just there for a laugh"? In all honesty, the two are completely interchangable and there's really no difference between the two, except for the fact that Dougal is maybe a bit more battle-competent. Even if I had to include both, Dougal would be higher on the list than Granny's Revenge. Anyone who knows me would know I'd much prefer a joke-bot over a robot that ends up being a joke, but I'd rather pick one for that slot if at all possible.

A deserving heat win to a solid redemption run

I must admit, I'm always pleased to see a reboot robot in the countdown. It's not that nobody in the reboot deserves it, heaven forbid, but I always figure it's hard to know where to rank them exactly. I'm not sure if I think Rapid is too high or too low, but hey, it's in, so that's cool by me. If nothing else, however, it does have a great little redemption story. Not the best redemption story out there (that could be an interesting list of its own), but certainly noteworthy. I think what makes Rapid stand out above other redemption stories is the fact that its initial run was cut short through unfortunate means. Being too badly damaged at the hands of Aftershock left a lot of unanswered questions. Would Rapid have beaten Sabretooth? Would this incarnation have bested Terrorhurtz? There's no way to know now, which makes Rapid's run in Series 10 really satisfying to watch, not only scoring an OOTA in all three of its fights, not only breaking the quickest-fight record but having a masterclass clash with Terrorhurtz where it just nullified the veteran whilst barely using its weapon. It does make me wonder just how well Rapid would have done had a Series 11 gone ahead, but at least it got a chance to prove itself. The only thing it just wasn't able to do - finish its last fight of a series with the ability to fight again.

Still would have been better vs Terror-Bull, but oh well....

Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of the winners or nominations of the various Robot Wars awards held over the first six series and that in itself could make a potential future list, but I do believe Anarchy was certainly worthy of consideration at the very least for Best Engineered in Series 6. Do I think it should have won? Honestly, it's hard to see who else I would have given it to (but seriously, I missed there being shortlists). Still, Anarchy's contribution to Robot Wars is nothing to be sniffed at, as it was a walking robot that was actually good. That being said, I do feel it's a whisker overrated here. It's a shame it didn't win its heat, fair enough, but really, which heats would it have won? Almost none of them, honestly - the only seed I feel it would beat more often than not is Panic Attack. The truth is, Anarchy just wasn't the giant killer it was made out to be, but it was still great to actually see in action...now just imagine if it went as fast as Scuttle!

OK, onto number 67. Who's next?

Yes!

Australian lawyers hate him. One simple trick guarantees the future success of horizontal spinners

Honestly, I think there's something people forget here, something that's really important. Hypno-Disc may have invented the horizontal spinner in Robot Wars, but Disc-O-Inferno cemented it. What do I mean by that? Well, Disc-O-Inferno was one of three robots in Series 4 that was eager to jump on the spinner-bandwagon after the success of Hypno-Disc. All three failed miserably whilst Hypno-Disc went on a rampage. It would be very easy to simply conclude that only Hypno-Disc could be an effective horizontal spinner, but Disc-O's success in Extreme 1 effectively showed to the world that anyone could build a good horizontal flywheel weapon. I think what also gets overlooked is the fact it won the Annihilator on the back of a serious mechanical issue that almost caused it to withdraw completely - most people may not like that Annihilator, but it did end up demonstrating just how tough you needed to be to even survive in that competition. I have stated in the past that Disc-O pretty much hit a decline after Extreme 1, but if nothing else, its first round clash in Series 6 proved that it was still a capable robot. Just remember when looking back over the many spinners, you may have Hypno-Disc to thank for inventing the weapon, but you have Disc-O-Inferno to thank for proving they weren't just a one-trick pony.

Iron Awe clearly not flipping Bigger Brother out of the arena. You probably won't get that.

Moving on to a robot I've had mixed feelings about. At first, I wasn't exactly sold on Iron Awe. I liked the fact it could self-right with its axe, but the thing could barely drive. I just figured it'd be a one-and-done robot, especially after learning that the team would be competing in Series 5 with Axe Awe. Of course, it'd take until Series 7 for Iron Awe to really hit its stride when it threw Bigger Brother out of the arena in a move very few people wanted to admit happened. Reading spoiler posts was fun. It was nice to see Iron Awe then move away from their axe to focus on the flipper, resulting in the beasts that competed in the live circuit for many years. It would have been great to see one of these in the reboot series - and then it did and it became the single most frustrating thing we ever saw. Despite both its wins being legit despite what some people insist, they were both dull and uninspired, and the worst part is, without the flipper working, we just can't actively gauge how effective it would have been in the setting of Robot Wars. Long story short, Iron Awe brings on mixed emotions for me.

Question - why don't we have a screenshot of Fluffy yeeting 259?

As does Fluffy, funnily enough. You may remember I went on a whole tirade about it before in my "Top 5 Series 5 Heat Winners" list, on how it just kept throwing away wins that it had been handed on a silver-platter. I've even made it a reference to robots who continually underperform via breaking down - if they do this, they're a "Fluffy". I suppose in that aspect, it really is iconic. I will admit, I never thought about the setting-the-trend logic that got Fluffy on the list. It's a logical reasoning...but for me, Fluffy is still just frustrating. At least it proves mystrsyko was right about 101 being armed with a curse, right?

Still one of the best Annihilator wins

Speaking of frustrating and curses, I do feel sorry for Kan Opener. We know it can do well in fights - the fact it won two annihilators back-to-back proves it - yet it always seemed destined to lose in Round 1 of the UK championship no matter how hard it tried. It truly is as if Kan Opener had its own curse to deal with. Even if Series 8 had been held immediately after Series 7, a part of me still thinks that Kan-Opener would have been doomed to fail again. It probably would have won a third annihilator, though. Calling it now.

Next up....that is a tough one - who is indeed the most iconic? Is it The Morgue? Is it Mega Morg? Or is it even Mini Morg?

Oh, sod it!

This video will be removed from YouTube for showing a sheep getting burnt, won't it?

It has to be said that MiniMegaTheMorg(ue) is one of those robots and teams that you don't forget easily. Whilst largely on the same boat as many other teams in Series 4, once Extreme 1 came around, the Welsh team really went with it - suddenly you had Ninja Sheep everywhere and they were just one of those teams that were fun to have around, even though MiniMegaTheMorg(ue), lets be honest, wasn't all that good. Decent, but not really good. The singing thing felt a bit forced, and was probably the lamest excuse for a Vengeance Battle (and a lame battle anyway), but it was still nice to see the team develop. Unfortunately, I can't personally say I agree with MiniMegaTheMorg(ue) being this high. I just don't feel they quite had as much presense as some of the other teams to be this high, and when your robot isn't a world-beater, that's all you really have.

A rare case of an International robot doing well...which in retrospect is a shame.

Tough As Nails gives me a chance to talk about something I feel is severely lacking in Robot Wars, especially in comparison to BattleBots and even King of Bots - international representation. I know they've always been there, but Robot Wars has never really been kind to any international competitors. I mean, for six series, it was merely a robot or two from Ireland and even when Series 7 finally opened the gate, it felt like most of the international competitors were completely outclasssed. Compare how many international competitors did well in BattleBots (from Killerhurtz in the original to the likes on Minotaur and Death Roll in the reboot) and what does Robot Wars have? Only two - both in the same series and one of them being Tough As Nails. Still, I'm glad to see that such a unique looking robot was able to find success at least in Series 7 despite having pretty poor luck outside that series. For what was a simple yet effective tactic, it still had some strong fights, especially when it got into tug-of-war clashes when its opponent refused to be pitted so easily. Its fight with Robochicken is its best fight, because it's an impressive comeback that very few people even recognise. We may not have had great international representation in Robot Wars, but I'm glad Tough As Nails was one of them.

OK, finishing off this batch. Who's next?

Yes! Again!

Accident or otherwise, this showed how powerful Kat 3's axe was.

First up, I am so glad that Kat 3 seems to have finally gotten some recognition years after its appearances in Robot Wars. It wasn't a bad robot. Yet many people, even a few of the roboteers, always seemed to act like it was just "there", some acting like it had no right to be in the Series 7 All-Stars championship. Kat 3, however, is a robot that really developed over time - from a rather awkward machine in Series 5 to what felt like a potential heat winner with a kinder draw in Series 7, or at least one that was able to stand up to Bulldog Breed very well. Plus, any robot that could puncture Bigger Brother's armour has to mean something. If nothing else, Kat 3 was also a fun robot - and fun fact, back in the day, Team Katerkiller was the one team I would have loved to have met in person, especially Georje Williams. She in particular was just so enthusiastic.

Number 60-51

"It could even simply be a meme on the internet for all I know"

— Me

I WAS JOKING!!

No, I asked "Who would win in a fight between Panic Attack and Tornado?" STOP SAYING "ERIC"!

OK, this may be petty, but there is one reason I don't like the Eric bandwagon, and it's nothing to do with the robot itself. I mean, heck, the reason it's "iconic" has nothing to do with itself, especially when you realise that its "self-pitting" wasn't technically a self-pitting at all. No, the issue I have is how disruptive it was. I don't mind memes, but there's a time and a place for them. Until relatively recently when I just lost all interest, I did little tournaments on the Robot Wars FaceBook page and I just so happened to do it when the Eric meme was in full-swing. As a result, I would continually see people voting for Eric to win fights...in battles where Eric wasn't even involved. It completely ruined the entire flow of the competition because nobody was even trying to take it seriously. Again, time and place - what goes on the Shuntposting should STAY on the Shuntposting. So, long story short, because of childish spamming, I hate the Eric meme and I can never see it as an acceptable reason for Eric to be "iconic", or at the very least not this high. I'm legit surprised it didn't make me hate Eric itself.

But now I'm Stronger than yesterday, now it's nothing but my way, my loneliness ain't killing me no more...I. Am. Strong-Er!

So, for some reason, going into this list, I had "Stronger" by Britney Spears stuck in my head. In retrospect, it's a surprisingly fitting song for Robochicken - it certainly fits with the bonkers nature of the machine. More so than the heavy metal you'd associate with other robots. Either way, Robochicken is a robot that's pretty difficult to hate. It's a comedy 'bot at the end of the day. But it's a comedy 'bot that got better and better as the series progressed. Sure, it lost the first round of two series back-to-back, and sure, it was pretty much carried by Bulldog Breed in the Tag Team Terror, but there were always flashes of potential. That's what makes its performance in Series 7 so great - Robochicken was finally able to prove what it could do on its own merits, reaching a heat final and giving Tough As Nails a serious run for its money. This makes its subsequent annihilator performance extremely disapointing, but I've covered that in another list, so there's no point dragging it out.

How the haters want to see Killerhurtz, by pretending this is all it did

All I'll say is that it's a shame it wasn't a performance like that of Killerhurtz. Considering it got picked on for the entire duration of its own annihilator, finishing third is nothing to be sneezed at. But Killerhurtz is such an odd-ball as is. Anyone who has seen BattleBots knows it's a good robot and anyone who says it's not a good robot is in denial of this. Clearly TPTB knew it was a good robot too. So, that begs the question - why did Killerhurtz perform so badly on its home turf? I've stressed before that no two robot combat shows are the same and it's almost impossible to prepare with multiple appearances in mind. That's why Run Amok was able to win Robotica, yet Run Away was absolutely rubbish in Robot Wars. But Killerhurtz doesn't make sense. By its own design, it should do better in Robot Wars, not BattleBots. Even Razer couldn't achieve the same sort of success it would in Robot Wars. It's an enigma even to this day.

Imagine Steg-O-Saw-Us' ramming power with Steg 2's flipper and 3 Steg's invertability. Just imagine...

OK, so, I have no idea why, but for some reason, I never liked Steg-O-Saw-Us when I first watched Series 3. Or at the very least I didn't want it to win Series 3. Considering how much I love dinosaurs, that's obviously a major surprise. The only reason I can think of as to why I didn't like Steg - and this is going to come off as extremely petty - is because it didn't have a team introduction. I probably didn't like Triterobot either for the same reason. I don't know how I think! Luckily, looking back over Steg without any questionable hatrid, I've been able to see just how impressive it was, to the point of actively defending the judges' decision it had against Gravedigger. Do I agree with it? Not sure, but I can at least see the logic behind how Steg won. It is quite remarkable, if maybe a little unfortunate, that Steg's subsequent sequels seemed to downgrade in performance and quality as the series went on, despite their weapon set-ups being much more visually pleasing and I do have to wonder what Steg 2 may have been like if it had simply been an advancement of Steg-O-Saw-Us - a rammer, maybe invertible. Although, at the same time, the fact that it was a rammer does sort of explain why Steg 2 was given such a comparatively low seeding and why it never seemed to get any respect, even if it now had a proper flipper...

And in that instant...Gabriel and John decided to travel to China and build a flipper-bot named Tanshe.

Going back to the meme topic, I've never understood the support for Sabretooth. It always felt like the people who saw Sabretooth show up and fail to win every time it entered and then got behind the whole #PrayForGabe thing are the exact same people who saw a robot like Warhog show up and fail to win every time it entered and then complained about the fact that it was continually allowed to compete because "it was useless". What's the difference? Why did Sabretooth escape all the blatant criticism other continual no-win robots did? Someone please explain, I'm genuinely confused. I mean, it is nice that Sabretooth did eventually get a win and actually ended up making a fairly reasonable name for itself, but honestly I feel I would have gotten behind Sabretooth more if it had been a reboot series competitor only.

Yeah, would love to see Wheely Big Cheese try this

I've made no secret that I prefer The Big Cheese over Wheely Big Cheese. I have absolutely no doubt that Wheely Big Cheese will be in this list later on (a certain attack makes it mandatory), so I look forward to venting my grievences and upsetting a few wiki members then, but for now, know that for the most part, Big Cheese consistently impressed me more in three fights than Wheely Big Cheese did in three series. Every single one of Big Cheese's fights was impressive in some way, a feat rare for any robot, let alone a one-and-done (or one-and-sequeled, I guess). First it beats Shrapnel by holding it up in the air like it's nothing before dumping it in the pit. Next it manages to cleverly snag Anorakaphobia at just the right time to pit it. Then, whilst it loses to Chaos 2, it goes out with a bang by humiliating Sgt Bash. Unfortunately, in retrospect, I don't think the number of heats Big Cheese could have won is as high as some people would have liked. It was a robot made to utalise the pit, and with Series 3 taking it away after the first two rounds, Big Cheese will always be at a disadvantage.

I'll eat Shunt piece by piece if Suicidal Tendencies doesn't find some way to throw away potential success for once in its life!

OK, to start this next one, it's funny that the clip used for Suicidal Tendencies is Jonathan Pearce stating "I'll eat Shunt piece by piece if Suidical Tendencies doesn't get this decision". At least for me. Fun fact: for a long time, I misremembered it as Jonathan saying "I'll eat Shunt piece by piece if Suidical Tendencies doesn't go through", because Suicidal Tendencies had to withdraw before the next round - so, technically, Suicidal Tendencies didn't go through - ergo, Jonathan would have had to have eaten Shunt. An amusing thought....wait, is that why they built a new Shunt for the reboot? Did Jonathan decide to eat him anyway?

Not so amusing is that Suicidal Tendencies was another robot I recall not liking when I was younger - and again, I legit have no idea why. I can't even begin to think up an excuse. My thoughts on the robot now? A mix of disappointment and frustration. It's a robot that continually looked like it could have done better than it did, but was basically a Fluffy before Fluffy existed - something always seemed to go wrong right at the worst moment. Its Series 4 heat final loss is one of the worst - it was quite comfortably beating Wheely Big Cheese until its track locked up, but nobody pays any attention to that - they just keep ranting about "favouritism" after Wheely Big Cheese fell in the pit. Its Series 5 run is also disappointing because its withdrawal denied us of a fight we really should have gotten at some point - Razer vs another vertical crusher. This was the era where the weapon was really starting to come around and yet no one jumped at the obvious scenario. Is that way Suidical Tendencies was in Razer's heat in the first place, perhaps? Still, at least we have the Extreme 1 Tag Team Terror to watch if we really want to see how impressive Suicidal Tendencies could be without technical issues.

Crushtacean may not be a giant killer, but at least it did kill a giant

Moving on, we have Crushtacean, another example of a robot I think is hard to dislike. It's a novel design, looks cool and is surprisingly effective. Now, anyone who has seen my "Top 5 Series 5 potential heat winners" list will know that I didn't include Crushtacean. This wasn't because I didn't want to, heaven forbid. It's actually one of my favourite newcomers from Series 5. But here's the issue I have - across all four heats Crushtacean was in in the four series it fought in, plus the 41 heats it could have been in, I legit struggle to see any heat it could have actually won. Even if you replaced it with the strongest robot available, there was always another robot that could have beaten it. If anything, it was fortunate to be in the heat it was in the Dutch series, because I think it might have struggled with some of the others....and that's a shame because Crushtacean proved it was certainly capable in its own right. It was just never going to be a giant killer outside of that first clash with Behemoth.

OK, let's see who's next to...oh, thank Foxicing god!

Observe, a "bad robot" owning Carbide

I'll keep it blunt - I don't understand the distain for TR2. It seems like I always hear someone saying something implying that TR2 is a "bad robot" because it can't flip robots out of the arena (yet the same people praise Ripper, who also couldn't flip robots out of the arena until the live circuit...yeah, I don't get it either). And then there are those who think it's a terrible robot purely because its name is "TR2". We don't speak of those people. If the issue is purely that the robot isn't very flashy in terms of attacks, then that's fine, but I feel they're missing the point. TR2 just isn't like other flippers. It comes across as a machine that isn't strictly about finishing off an opponent, but more about controlling and outlasting them. TR2 worked because it was continually able to keep in its opponents' metaphorical faces, not give them a chance to breathe and score highly in both aggression and control. Its record for Series 8 was no mistake - if anything, it exceeded it through its dominant performance over Carbide. Just remember, there is more to a flipper-bot than flipping an opponent out of the arena.

I love the fact that Smash got flung so hard that, in close up, it straight-up instantly disappears from shot. It's as if it exploded!

Speaking of distain, I'm sure there were many people who dismissed Big Nipper in its first appearance as "just another fodder-bot for Razer to beat". You can't say that it was "just another fodder-bot" with the spirited performance it gave, though (it's also the closest Razer has ever come to fighting another crusher, as far as I know). That said, Big Nipper is another case of a robot I didn't like, and I think it was for petty reasons - I think I was just desperate for Kan-Opener to win a fight in Series 7 or something. Still, credit to Big Nipper - it wasn't the sort of robot to go down without a fight. It either fought to the bitter death or, as shown in both its first and last fights, powered through the pain. Now, the question I suppose you're wondering - which version do I prefer - Big Nipper with claws or Big Nipper with spinner? It's hard to say. Spinner Big Nipper has had the more memorable moments for me, but Claw Big Nipper just....looks better suited to the Big Nipper name, plus it always seems to surprise me whenever the team go for the claws rather than the spinner. Either way, I hope Big Nipper can have a nice retirement - at least it went out in a blaze of glory....literally.

Number 50-41

How does a robot put on such a commanding performance yet leave me so little to talk about?

This feels like a very awkward way to start this section, because I don't really have much to say about Splinter. It was a good robot, that much is obvious - but for what it's worth, it always felt like it was just, well...there. That feels like such a disservice towards what Splinter actually achieved, but even on the back of a fairly dominant heat victory and an Annihilator third-place finish after being one of the driving forces throuhgout said competition...it's hard to really know what to say. For all its success, Splinter just kinda struggled to stand out. Even its iconic clash with Hypno-Disc feels a whisker under the radar for me at least - I know a lot of people think it's the best, but for me the best will always be Hypno-Disc's first fights with Robogeddon and Stealth.

It was at this moment Jason knew...he Foxiced up (This is totally becoming a meme, isn't it?)

Now, I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I do really appreciate the effort given on this project to explain why the robots covered are so iconic. I can't always say I agree with them, as this little cover has made perfectly clear, but it goes quite a way to explain the reasoning. I say this because the reasoning behind why Concussion was on this list made me look back and I realised....damn. Not only was Concussion the only newcomer to win a heat in Series 9, but it was the last newcomer to win a heat in Robot Wars period! The only robot (of six need I remind you) to come close in Series 10 was Track-tion of all machines, and I use the term "close" very loosely. I'd say the reboot just wasn't kind to newcomers once everything took off...but then the reboot for BattleBots has the exact same problem (and arguably the original series did too), so who am I to judge? Building robots for combat shows is seemingly only for the big leagues now. Anyway, my thoughts on Concussion? It's a fun robot with a fun team. I know I was very critical about its heat final battles, which are quite poor, but when it got up and going, it got up and going, so all credit to it.

Product of its time. Still very impressive, though

Speaking of being critical, we move onto Killertron. I feel I must start by reminding everyone again that I started watching Robot Wars in Series 3. Therefore, my first exposure to Killertron was in Series 4. I honestly don't know whether or not how I felt about it would have changed if I had seen it in Series 1 or 2 first...but I think it's fair to say it wasn't the best first impression for me. I recall being disappointed when Maverick was eliminated from the first round. MAVERICK! Now, obviously I did eventually get around to watching Killertron's early appearances and I can safely say it was a robot well suited for those eras - if anything, it was one of the most well-rounded machines. It had a high ground clearance and wheel set-up to deal with the Gauntlet, great pace and agility to conquer any Trial and that axe to deal with the Arena. It ultimately just wasn't suited for the full-on combat the show would eventually become...although I still think it would have lost to Panic Attack.

This will never not be satisfying. Serves you right, Frostbite, going past Round 1 when you were clearly meant to have lost

Supernova is one of those robots that I really don't know what to think. I've already made my case on how I feel about underperforming spinners - and trust me, there's a massive Kan of Wyrms to open up a little later down the list - but I have a hard time deciding whether or not Supernova counts as underperforming or just slightly overrated. Its best UK championship campaign doesn't help matters, really. Looking back, I really have no reason to believe that, in a head-to-head clash, what happened against Spawn Again wouldn't have happened multiple times. In many ways Supernova was just too powerful for its own good, until it wasn't come the reboot that is. Still, its debut was at a time where horizontal flywheels were just starting to get good without being limited to Hypno-Disc, so I'll give it credit for that at least.

From lows, to highs...and maybe a bit too low again?

Now here's something we've not had since Kronic the Wedgehog and Ripper - two robots who are pretty much interchangable - and once again I find myself thinking that the lower ranked robot should be the one higher up. My reasoning? I think Atomic has the better arc overall, at least in terms of redemption. Lets not kid ourselves, Atomic....wasn't very good in Series 4. Heck, it was absolutely terrible, probably the weakest and perhaps least deserving of the heat finalists - what can you do with a robot that dies the moment it's tipped over (this isn't even a Chaos 2 thing) and breaks apart at random? Unfortunately, this stigma seemed to linger with Atomic in subsequent series, including its ill-fated clash with Hypno-Disc in Series 5 and its failure to qualify in Series 6. Yes, I totally agree for the reasons why it's in the rankdown - its performance in Series 7 was one of the greatest redemption arcs of the classic series. Heck, were it not for one small mistake, it could potentially have been the final classic series champion. I'm all for it being ranked this high....

I dunno, even comparing the two, Atomic's flip still looks more impressive...

...but I just don't think it should have been ranked below Bulldog Breed. I get it, the two have very similar back-stories, and I do again agree with Bulldog Breed's general positioning and why it was included in the first place. It's rare to see a robot that isn't one of the "absolute elite" romp a competition in the way Bulldog Breed did in the Tag Team Terror. Thing is, unlike Atomic, Bulldog Breed had already had a chance to shine. It had already made two heat finals prior and whilst it may not have been seeded in Series 5, circumstances seemed to suggest that TPTB had completely forgotten which robot was the 22nd seed (I swear that's the only thing that makes sense). In just about every way the two robots could be compared, the matter was more disappointing for Atomic than for Bulldog Breed - even in the annihilator the two robots had to withdraw from. Bulldog Breed's mayhem was one of the worst in the whole of Extreme with Bulldog Breed itself only getting one flip in the whole fight and it ultimately got replaced with Spirit of Knightmare, who ended up being surprisingly aggressive and successful in the competition. Atomic absolutely romped its Mayhem battle and put up a superb show of dominance even against the arguably favoured Mousetrap, making its subsequent withdrawal all the more disappointing and it ultimately got replaced with Fighting Torque, who was....there. This all makes Atomic's subsequent shot to stardom the far greater of the two overall, as far as I'm concerned. Basically, if these two robots' rankings are based so largely on their redemption stories, I feel Atomic should be above Bulldog Breed. Just swap them around and that'd be fine.

Reminder - 259 loses its drive belt seconds afterwards, then dies limply. True champion performance there, peoples

Soooo, you know what I said about Cerberus? Repeat it tenfold for 259. More like "Too high nine", am I right?

OK, maybe I'm being a whisker harsh, but 259 is one of those robots that I have to be critical over. No, it wasn't potential champion material. No, it shouldn't have won the Best Design award. No, it couldn't have beaten Biohazard (no, seriously, there were people saying that back in the day). And no, it shouldn't be this high up on the ranking. As flashy and sleak as it may look and with how influential it may have been with the vertical flywheel going on, it was just so poorly put together. Now, I'm a fan of games like Pokemon and Fire Emblem, games with lots of available units and inevitably, there are many glass cannons in there like 259 - extremely damaging, pitiful defenses. You know what I do if I get a Pokemon or a Fire Emblem Unit who is a glass cannon? I at least try to see if I can boost their defences. And if I can't? I get rid. It's simple as that. It's not even as if 259 was the only big vertical flywheel in Series 6 - S3 was far more secure and far more successful. At least it didn't end up immobile in all but one of its fights like 259 did - and one of those was a fight it won. It wasn't very good at being anything other than a destructive flywheel and it shouldn't be this high up. I can only hope the next robot is actually deserving of a spot this high.

YES! SUCK IT, 259!!

Well, somehow, Napalm has contrived an unbelievably high rating, without hardly doing anything! How on earth did that happen?

It isn't easy to say I have an appreciation for Napalm. I feel like that one fish in that one SpongeBob episode - you know the one. But, to quote said fish, "Uhh, I can explain". In truth, Napalm gets too much flack - it's not meant to be a serious robot. Maybe it was back in Series 2 and the team certainly took things seriously in the first two series (too seriously in Series 1 in David Crosby's case), but after that the team seemed to realise "hey, our robot is kinda tacky...let's roll with it!" They pretty much took things as seriously as Team A-Kill later would after that - they were just there to have fun. Yet for whatever reason, unlike the likes of Diotoir and Robochicken who were clearly there to have fun, Napalm just ended up getting bashed and I don't get it. Even Sumpthing doesn't seem to receive any criticism - it's equally built just for a laugh, did far worse and yet the exact same people who keep defending the fact that it was the one responsible for knocking out Weld-Dor despite the evidence otherwise are bashing Napalm and claiming it had no reason to be there. Where's the logic? Is it just because it kept winning fights it shouldn't have done? That's not Napalm's fault. It just happened to be a very durable machine...yes, I used "durable" and "Napalm" in the same sentence, but just look at how mangled it got fighting Steg-O-Saw-Us and notice that it kept going and even instigated attacks. I'm delighted to see Napalm get up this high, and if you really think it doesn't deserve to win fights, then just think and ask yourself, who should you be more angry at? Napalm? Or the robot that lost to Napalm?

Dantomkia congratulates 13 Black on its 42 rank, but is secretly smiling in the knowledge that it is ranked higher. Dantomkia is definitely on this ranking somewhere, it has to be...

So we've had a few spinners I like, and some I've found very disappointing. So, now you're probably wondering...where does 13 Black fit into this scale? Well, it was disappointing at first, but it certainly redeemed itself once Series 6 and Extreme 2 came around. Give a robot time to shine and really prove itself, and that'll boost up my general feelings towards it - usually. You may remember I was quite positive about its heat final clash with Stinger, but as a general rule of thumb, a lot of 13 Black's fights were highly enjoyable, especially in Series 6 and Extreme 2. And yes, it is a shame its srimech wasn't working in Series 7, but lets be honest, 13 Black was just too vulnerable to flippers anyway. I doubt it would have gotten too far in Series 7, especially in a heat like Gravity's, even if its srimech had been working. Still, it was a fun robot to have around. Nice to see it do better than it did in Series 5, where circumstances lead me to believe it was that heat's finalist prior to seeing the episode...the TV guides know how to handle "spoilers" better than the show, am I right?

Oh no! The mighty have fallen! They pitted Stinger and went themselves!

Finally, we meet a robot that I wonder if it's lucky to get this high, or even if it should be this high in the first place. This is meant as no disrespect to Steel Avenger at all, but as the ranks get higher and higher, the number of places gets lower and lower. Starting from now, the robots listed either need to be successful through winning heats, memorable due to their design or team antics, or both. Steel Avenger was neither quite successful enough or the most memorable compared to many of the other teams and I think it's very lucky to reach this stage - I fully expect to see S.M.I.D.S.Y. in the following video and that'll be as high as the robots in its class go. It probably doesn't help Steel Avenger that in retrospect, it really doesn't have any all-star victories to its name, with the only one I can really think of being Stinger, since Thermidor 2 seemingly broke down on its own and Tornado was taken out by King B. I don't hate Steel Avenger, just to clarify, but I do recognise that it's not really anything higher than mid-tier. Is it too high? Maybe. But it's a very difficult robot to hate and I'm glad it got a mention at least.

Number 40-31

If I'd actually have committed to that episode, I think I would have had a greater soft-spot for King Buxton than I already did

Now, I started watching Robot Wars properly in Series 3. However, I did see a really small clip from Series 2 whilst I was at a TV store (I often wandered off to watch TV in those stores). I recall seeing at least one robot which, upon actually watching the series years later, turned out to be King Buxton. So, technically, King Buxton was the first Robot Wars competitor I ever saw. So this is probably going to be another case of personal bias, because I do think King B deserves to be on here....yet I can't disagree that this feels about the right spot for it. It was a robot that was good for the early series and it was nice to see it keep coming back, but it was just simply outclassed by the 100kg era. Still, it did give us the first true Robot Wars rivalries with the robot we will be discussing next on our list...

S.M.I.D.S.Y. on its way to its third heat final loss...geesh, that sounds so negative

...wait, what? It's not 101? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? You had it right there screaming out at you! OK, fine, but 101 had better be on this list somewhere!

Anyway, to be fair, I did expect to see S.M.I.D.S.Y. and I expected to see it sooner rather than later. It certainly wouldn't have been in the top 30. Lets put it this way - at this stage, any robots left need to be either (semi-)finalists or stand out either due to their innovation or entertainment factor. Or any combination of these three. I feel rotten for saying this, but S.M.I.D.S.Y. was none of these things. It was ultimately just a simple box with lifting jaws that made three heat finals yet never won any of them. It was clearly a competent machine, no denying that, but unlike virtually everyone else on this list, it had almost nothing to make it really stand out. Is it too high on this list? If it is, it's probably down to the fact that the next ranked robot that doesn't fulfill the above categories - namely Steel Avenger - is too high itself, and really S.M.I.D.S.Y. deserves to be ranked higher than Steel Avenger at least. And again, not saying S.M.I.D.S.Y. is a bad robot - it's a machine I like seeing. But claiming it to be more iconic than its current rating would be pushing it.

Great! It's FINALLY working. IT WON'T DISAPPOINT ME THIS YEARit's going to disappoint me again, isn't it?

Is a robot considered iconic based on how disappointing and frustrating it is? Because if it was, then Pulsar would top that list comfortably. I made a whole rant about it a while ago in a list I made not long after Series 8 came out and suffice to say, my frustration with it just grew with the following two series. It just seemed to have problem after problem, to the point where it all went pointlessly viral (something I've devoted a list to as well). OK, the Supernova collision, I'll give that, but that's about it. It doesn't help that Pulsar, and by extension Magnetar, have consistently been my favourite to win each heat they've been part of. Speaking of, I really thought Magnetar had fixed all Pulsar's issues and I was really hoping for a Title Fight run....but no, faulty srimechs are a thing. Pulsar and Magnetar are clearly capable robots with frightening weapons, but they just had so much wrong. However, I will say that Magnetar easily has the single cleverest name of any robot in Robot Wars' history...it wasn't just continuing the theme, it was based on one particular moment of the previous series, when Pulsar and Supernova had that epic collision. I would never have thought of that myself - it'd be like Iron Awe 2 instead being named Sky Awe, except Magnetar is far more ingenious.

This is straight out of a Fantasy Fight. It has to be...

Moving on and we come to a robot that is virtually an all-rounder. I know the reboot didn't give out awards, but I feel that Gabriel could easily have won awards, or at the very least received nominations, for Best Design, Most Original Entry and Sportsmanship all in one. That latter one is of most importance because I am legit surprised this wasn't bought up at all in the countdown. Gabriel made its debut in a series where beating your opponent to a metalic pulp was not only encouraged but practically a requirement, and yet the team deliberately held back against Beast because they just didn't feel it would be right to attack it any more than they needed to - they were willing to throw away a place in the heat final just because attacking a dead opponent didn't feel right. In a sense, this is the modern-day Cassius. Basically, Gabriel earned serious respect from me even before that clash with Carbide.

If you listen carefully, you can actually hear Sir Chromalot whispering in Shunt's ear "You'll never be as classy as me"

And speaking of sporting, lets be honest, you can't have an iconic robots list without mentioning Sir Chromalot in a very high position. Lets be honest, if it weren't for the team, Chromalot would barely even be considered - it says a lot that a robot that was never able to get past Round 2 of any UK series it competed in is remembered so well and so fondly. It stings for me a bit because I ended up completely missing its debut heat for reasons even I don't understand and subsequently it was introduced to me as just a random robot that fell in the heats (through the semi-final recap...thank goodness the grand final recap fleshed it out). Even beyond that, though, Chromalot showed signs of competence. It wasn't a bad robot at all by Series 3 standards and was pretty decent in Series 6 too. It was just in the wrong heat in both those cases...it would have certainly been interesting to see it go further if only to see more of The Class Act's antics.

Here's the thunder, wait for the lightning! (oh geesh, that's even cheesier)

So you remember how I said that I'd be more understanding of Sabretooth if it had been a reboot-only competitor? Well...Thor is in an interesting position. Whilst it's clearly a far better machine in the reboot (three heat finals puts it on the same level as S.M.I.D.S.Y., just so you know), to ignore what it did do in the classic series would feel like a disservice. I mean, clearly the only reason Thor even made the cut is because of its performances in the reboot, because the classic series Thor really doesn't have anything to make it stand out - if you wanted to go for the funny-headwear argument, then Judge Shred should have taken priority. But Thor put on such a spirited performance in Extreme 2's New Blood that's hard to otherwise ignore, plus it just would not die to Tornado or Storm 2 despite being horrendously outclassed. Yeah, better as a reboot and would never be on here otherwise...but unlike Sabretooth, its past can't be overlooked.

Gravity performs such an impressive OOTA that the camera explodes.

I may not like Series 7 as much as some, but I do appreciate a lot of what it did. One of the things I really appreciate was the fact they let robots from mainland Europe take part, creating a truly international field. It also helped that the international robots could actually be good - a World Series in Series 7 could potentially have been much closer - and one of the stars of that field was Gravity. I'd heard random mentions of the robot in the build-up to Series 7, but if you'd told me it was Dutch, I wouldn't have believed you. Nothing against the Dutch of course, but lets be real here - by this point, international competitors...just weren't that good. The fact that the internet was in its early years, the international series could not be found and two international species never aired didn't help. So seeing Gravity blast through its heat was a great breath of fresh air. Seeing it boss the House Robots around was great...and yes, I was willing it to flip Dead Metal. Gravity remains one of my favourite classic-era robots for a reason.

They always say that the female is the deadlier of the species...

Speaking of blasting through its heat, we now move on to S3. OK, maybe not "blasting", because that would be a disservice to Mousetrap, but the fact remains, S3's first two battles were absolute classics and the heat final wasn't too bad either. I mentioned this before in my Top 105 Heat Finals list - S3 doesn't exactly cause instant damage like so many other spinners do. Her damage (yes, S3 is female, watch the team introduction) was progressive, slowly building up and getting worse and worse as the battle wore on. Just looking at her first fight against Plunderbird 5 is statement to this - she starts with ripping away a few bits of the left side and by the end of the fight, Plunderbird's entire right side has been completely destroyed, to the point where the wheels aren't even attached. And to think, this was the same team that competed with Sting. It's just a shame that S3 wasn't around all that long and that her final battle was more-or-less a formality in every sense of the word...but her short-lived run was great to see either way.

"OK, who's next? Alright, it's a Series 5-7 era robot...Edinburgh? Surely Corkscrew didn't make it....wait, what!? WHAAAAAAAT!?"

— My actual thought process, more or less

OK, I wasn't expecting to post this so early.

OK, I understand the reasoning, but I still did not expect to see a champion THIS low down. I can't even say I entirely agree with the reasoning either, because for better or for worse, Typhoon 2 ended up being hated by a good few people because of a massive misconception - namely, they were the ones behind the "Storm 2 scandal". I'm not joking - some people actually believed they were directly responsible or at the very least they played along with it. You know something is getting out of hand when the team themselves have to step in and clear things up. But then isn't the bad stuff equally as important as the good stuff when it comes to making a robot iconic? Besides, when we did learn the truth, it did help to clear Typhoon 2's name in the mind of many fans - regardless of what is true about the Storm 2 scandal, Typhoon 2 had no part in it. Still, I suppose if a champion has to be this low, I guess Typhoon makes the most sense. I would have been deeply disappointed if it had been a certain other champion...

We're big boys and we build big toys, we're handy with a screw-bit! When it all works, we go berserk and just drive into the pit!

Luckily, I do agree with the last choice. I do feel that this sort of range is about right for Plunderbird to be, as really you can't have Sir Chromalot and Plunderbird too far away from each other. They essentially filled the same role, albeit with very different styles. In that aspect, they were always going to clash. Still, Plunderbird provides an interesting case - we know Sir Chromalot had spells of being a good robot, but Plunderbird, at one point, WAS a good robot. The problem is it only ever got to show that once, and then despite putting up spirited performances, it just ended up getting outclassed once their opponents stopped playing around. But evidently performing well was only half the agenda for the International Wrecking Crew - as long as they were being entertaining, that's all that mattered, even in their shortest appearances.

It's only at 31 so you could use the credit sequence for Extreme 1 episode 6, isn't it?

Number 30-21

So, we're now in the top 30. I want to start off by basically saying that, at this point, it's obvious who are in the top thirty. I ran through all the possible robots and came up with what I feel were the only thirty that made sense, so now it's no longer a matter of who, it's a matter of where.

Poor Creature - stripped naked, thrown out and fat-shamed all for the sake of hyping Gemini

That being said, I was not expecting Gemini to be number 30. I have my thoughts on which robot I do think should have been 30th and I'll get to that eventually, but to be honest, I'm kinda stuck with thoughts on Gemini. On the one hand, yes, it is visually very iconic. You know you've done something right when all you do is move and you get an instant replay. As you can probably imagine, the novelty of a clusterbot was fascinating for younger me, so I can only imagine others would have felt the same. It says a lot when it won two (technically three) awards in one year. Unfortunately, Gemini suffered from the same problem 259 did - it was overhyped way too much. With so much talk about what would happen if it fought Chaos 2 (and I know it was never officially confirmed, but some on, the heat rearrangement is clearly suspicious), it was clear Gemini was expected to breeze through the heat and possibly even beat Chaos 2...and then we all know what happened. But even after a very clear weakness was pointed out, Gemini was still overhyped...I recall one fansite posting three separate predictions for Series 5 and in ALL THREE OF THEM, the final was Chaos 2 vs Gemini, with the latter winning two of them. Seriously? Even if Gemini did beat Reactor, can we truly say with confidence it would beat Firestorm? Either way, Gemini probably deserves to be around this region ultimately and I must give credit to the ranking team for not overhyping it too much...unlike a certain other robot who has yet to show up....

Oh wow, Spawn Again is working great! IT'S NOT GOING TO DISAPPOINT ME THIS YEARI've done this joke already, haven't I?

We talked about Plunderbird in the last part, but one thing I forgot to mention was just how inspirational the International Wreck Crew was in terms of showmanship. They were pretty much the first big showmen and they spawned quite a few imitators...you can still see hints of some very-Plunderbird-equse antics in modern robotics (Martin Mason, the guy behind Mad-Catter and Cat King, being an example of this). Amongst these imitators were Team Scutterbots, starting with Spawn of Scutter and continuing on with Spawn Again, at least for the series where Plunderbird was present. After Plunderbird's brutal last fight ending in its retirement, I guess Team Scutterbots realised there was no point in continuing the act when their rivalry would never come to anything, so just moved onto their own thing. It did admittedly flesh out the team a lot from their initial appearance with Scutter's Revenge, especially as the most memorable member of that team was exclusive to that series, so that was something. Also, I'm aware I'm talking more about the team than the robot because...well, I've expressed my disappointment for Spawn Again way too many times. I don't even think there'd be any point rewriting it here because it'd basically be a rehash of what I said for Pulsar. It's unfortunate for Spawn Again, but it is how it is...when you win a heat after doing terribly, then lose a heat after doing brilliantly, it's hard to be too positive.

HACKS!!

On the subject of robots I talked about last time, I was quite vocal about the fact that 101 wasn't ranked alongside King Buxton. I stated this was because of their rivalry and I still stick by this, because ultimately, the rivalry between these two robots made them such big household names. This isn't like Razer vs Tornado or Pulsar vs Ironside3, where all four of these robots had other things to work off of - no, the rivalry between 101 and King B ultimately made what would otherwise be two visually uninteresting yet still decent robots so memorable - they made each other memorable. That's why I was so sure they'd be ranked together.....but then I completely forgot that 101 is now a meme, so I guess that's why it's so much higher. How many other robots can you say are "armed with a curse"? Admittedly, it is funny to look back and see just how many robots were affected by 101's curse. Scutter's Revenge? Broke down. Hypno-Disc? Lost a lot of power to its disc, then just died in the final. Panic Attack? Fell down the pit. Dominator 2? No issues in the main competition, but just died in the Northern Annihilator. Firestorm? Had its first and only breakdown. Mega Morg? Blew all its speed controllers. Fluffy? Perminantly infected for the rest of its career! It's poetic, really.

How many times have I used this picture now?

This certainly feels like the right place for X-Terminator, although it wouldn't have surprised me if it had gone higher. I may have joked about bias here and there, but given how much most of the wiki loves its Series 7 heat final fight against Tsunami (myself included, mind), I may have expected it to be pushed maybe a whisker higher. Maybe. I will say, though, X-Terminator always seemed to me to be quite an out-there choice for a robot to get a toy made for it. Even by Series 4 standards, sure, it was certainly a highly respectable competitor, but it probably wouldn't have been a personal priority. Keep in mind, it was released before the likes of Panic Attack and Pussycat, not even considering a good few robots I could think of that arguably could have been made before it. Confusing priorities aside, X-Terminator is just another one of those robots that's fun to see compete. I'm glad the team were able to find their niche. The fact it was able to deal with such a flipper-heavy field is most impressive.

I love how Thermidor managed to get both Stinger and Behemoth out in roughly the same part of the arena, in a way you can see both of them together

Speaking of flippers, we have the robot officially dubbed the meanest flipper, Thermidor 2. OK, it got that title on the back of a Flipper Frenzy where everyone just ignored each other, humiliated Sgt Bash and then Matilda killed off everyone else...but it's sort of official. It's easy to think that Thermidor could have easily just stuck to the whole lobster design and focused more on the claws, but Team Lobster quickly realised the flipper was so much more effective and they went all out...yet still managed to keep the lobster look. If nothing else, it makes Thermidor stand out - again, one of those robots that's always fun to see fight. The only issue I have with Thermidor is how much of a glass cannon it was - it seemed just too easy to knock out, resulting in its hot-and-cold runs. I must admit, I had this robot down to win Series 5 at one point. Awkward.....

At least I get to post a flashy Aftershock vs Sabretooth battle this time

Remember how I said that it was obvious who the top 30 were after looking through all the available options? Initially, I wasn't sure about the last one. I got 29 easily, but the 30th was a little hard to confidently predict. I ultimately went with Aftershock because it seemed like a reasonable choice, and the fact that it got included here all but confirms what I originally suspected - the top 30 is indeed obvious now. Of course, you're probably wondering now "why doubt Aftershock?", to which I answer...I'm not really sure. Part of me was thinking, given the rather erratic nature of reboot-only robots on the list so far, that it may have already shown up, even though I knew it had given us some extremely brutal displays in Series 9, not giving anyone the time of day. Albeit a part of me does wonder how Jellyfish would have done - a repeat of Shark Setrakian vs Wajoo, perhaps?

Imagine throwing a frizbee so hard that it destroys your neighbour's house. That is how the Storm 2 do

Moving on and remember how I mentioned a "certain other robot" has yet to show up? Well, it's not going to show up in this part, so either it's too high, or Storm 2 is too low. There is a reason I'm comparing the two, but for now, all you need to know is that Storm 2 in its prime was amazing. I don't get the whole "it's boring" argument. A robot that can hit an opponent into the arena wall so hard it just yeets it out of the arena can never be "boring". And it doesn't surprise me how effective it was - considering it was built with BattleBots in mind, it was certainly made of tougher stuff than most other Robot Wars competitors. Unfortunately, by the time Series 8 rolled around, Storm 2 had pretty much been stripped of everything that made it Storm 2 - and look, I get the reasons, but it's still hard to look at it and not remember what made it so great in the first place. I've said Series 8 Storm 2 was a shell of its former self. I stand by that statement...and it's a shame we never got to see it again afterwards, to see if it may have managed to recapture the glory days.

In Soviet Robot Wars, Nuts kick you!

I have a confession to make - I was never on the Nuts bandwagon, at least not at first. For me, it was just a gimmicky robot through and through - certainly I wasn't getting behind the whole "Nuts can beat Razer" nonsense that was spamming everywhere (and no, Series 8 proves nothing - Nuts did not beat Razer, it just progressed through over Razer. There is a clear difference). Ultimately, Series 8 proved me right that Nuts was basically a gimmick-bot and nothing more - although considering the team, I didn't mind, as it was clear this was a comedy entrant primarily there to have fun first. Yet Nuts does have a distinction - it ultimately became the first "joke-bot" to win a heat in the UK series and the second overall after Conquering Clown in the US version after a serious revamp come Series 10. So what if it only ended up fighting four robots across its whole run? The whole Meltybrain thing made those flails so much more dangerous than any attempt at sit 'n' spinning could ever have made it. It's not perfect - I think any good wedged flipper would have been able to resist it and then score some good flips - but Nuts showed that just about any type of weapon could be effective. If anything, Nuts showcases one of the major reasons I prefer Robot Wars to BattleBots. Would you rather watch a competition with a whole range of legitimately good weapons, or would you rather watch eight spinners?

I just want to remind everyone that Wild Thing lost this fight. Unanimously!

From a robot who surprised everyone with its wins to a robot who consitently puts up great fights that it ends up losing. Of course Wild Thing had to make this list. I'd even maybe consider pushing it into Top 20 considering who's left. Wild Thing, even as Thing 2, almost never had a bad fight. I highlighted several of them in my Top 105 Heat Finals list, with Series 4 and 5's being very high up. Yet the thing I like most about Wild Thing is that its fights often seem to get better on rewatch. Everyone talks about Wild Thing's determined clash against Hypno-Disc and that amazing spectacle that was its fight with Chaos 2, but I seriously urge people to watch its Series 6 fight against Razer. Yes, Wild Thing 2 isn't as good as the original. Yes, Razer ends up pitting it. But just look at how hard Wild Thing actually makes Razer fight. Because it's Wild Thing, it doesn't make it easy for Razer and despite being horrendously outclassed, it continually instigates attacks and legit makes Razer have to work for its win...because that's just the sort of robot Wild Thing was.

"Oh, now if only Dominator 2 had a flipper to follow through with that attack!"

We finish off with a personal favourite of mine. Dominator 2 is just...the business. I know that's not exactly a professional thing to say, but it just is. Dominator 2 has often been stated as being the best axe-bot of the entire original run of the show and I'd honestly find it very difficult to argue with that. You obviously must be doing something right if you consistently make the top eight in every series you enter. It makes me wonder if it would have reached the top eight of Series 7 too...but if my theory is correct, then it would have been drawn against X-Terminator in the first round of the semi-finals, sooooo....that might be a tough one to call. I guess in many ways, Dominator had a lot of what-could-have-been moments. Beyond a potentially good run in Series 7, we also never did see how a fight between it and Razer would have gone (it may have been the perfect robot to neutralise Razer's crusher, but that doesn't strictly guarantee a victory) and because of 101's curse, it ended up losing an annihilator that it was dominating - pun possibly intended - from start to finish. Would it have been higher had it won? Also, personal bias, but Dominator 2 was a robot I got the opportunity to see live, in a fight against Wolverine if you're curious. It's just as deadly to see in the robotic flesh as it is on TV.

Number 20-11

This was not how everyone thought this battle would go, and that's why it's so great.

Somehow, I suspected this might be the case. For what I suspect could easily be considered one of the best, if not THE best, British robots competing right now, I had a feeling that Eruption would rank the lowest of all three reboot champions. Compared to Apollo's showmanship and Carbide's absolute dominance, Eruption just doesn't really have anything that makes it really stand out. If we were considering the live events, then obviously Eruption would be much higher purely on virtue of it being a multi-champion, and honestly, I feel kinda rotten for sounding so negative about a robot as good as it is. Especially as its championship win was perhaps the hardest earned of any robot in any series of Robot Wars, original or reboot. The only ones that come close are Panic Attack and Apollo, but they didn't go through the process of losing their heat, having to fight nine other robots at once, trying to avoid getting picked on by the House Robots once they realised they were stalling for time, barely getting through its final eliminator and THEN having to fight absolutely perfectly in the title fight against a robot that had decimated it three times prior, including earlier that same series. There is a reason why I consider that title fight to be Robot Wars' best and if this is the last we ever see of the show, then at least Eruption is a deserving last champion.

Must...resist...

The problem now is that I'm legit finding it difficult to really talk about any of these robots. I guess it's just far easier for me to rant about robots I don't like than it is to praise robots I do like. Stinger is a robot I seem to recall not liking at some point in my life, although for the life of me I can't remember why. Regardless, Stinger presents a very interesting enigma, not exclusive to itself, but one still noteworthy of pointing out - namely, why was it the only robot of its type to do well in Robot Wars? It wasn't the only torque-reaction axlebot to compete, although you'd barely know it all things considering. As a general rule of thumb, whenever a robot got successful, it inspired a legion of followers, and no, I'm not talking about Stinger's fanclub. Chaos 2 had a lot of flipper-inspirations, Hypno-Disc had three robots following its bandwagon for Series 4 and we all know the whole "Razer-equse" statements. Oddly, Stinger never seemed to get that sort of a following. Is it because no one wanted to try to copy its design? Were they simply unable to? I will admit it would be hard to make a "Stinger-clone" without making it blatantly obvious that it is a Stinger-clone, as there is little one can do to differentiate it. It's just that we got at least four come around for Series 3, all did poorly, then only Stinger returned thereafter, yet even after it came third, nothing more came from that design until essentially Gabriel.

Career-ending high right there, although the actual KO was nicer to watch

By contrast, we seemed to get quite a few designs based on or maybe inspried by Mortis in later series, all the way up to Series 7. Considering the team retired it after Series 4, BattleBots 2.0 notwithstanding, that's actually quite impressive. Mind you, I do remember times when everyone hated Mortis for one reason or another, continually insisting it was overrated. I will confess to being one of those people, but I think we've since come to understand what would really be classed as "overrated". Looking back, I think it may have been exaggerations on the fanbases part rather than strictly anything that was said in the show. It's much like how the whole Pinball scandal has been blown out the window in the past, and I've already dedicated an entire section to that so there's no need to go through that again - check out my Top 5 Controversies that made no difference list for that. And beyond all that, we still gotta give Mortis some credit. How many other robots can say they left Robot Wars on the back of winning a tournament? Against an American legend, no less?

I know this looks basic, but Roadblock "basic"-ally dominated the early wars

Please don't take this comment as a sign of being ungrateful. I am absolutely delighted to see that Roadblock made it so high on this list, yet somehow it still doesn't feel high enough. As was discussed in the list itself, Roadblock was synonymous with the word "first", and that was something I really hoped would be taken into consideration on the list itself. I'm not suggesting it should have been the number one most iconic robot itself, heaven forbid, but I'm still leaning to thinking it could have gotten away with being in the top ten. I want to delve into one of those firsts for a moment...as the first ever competitor to appear on the show, Roadblock was the first robot we, the viewers, saw outside the House Robots, and as such it was effectively a standard setter. We see this robot, we get interested and we want to see it do well. Then it performs well and we, the viewers, begin to route for it. This is helped by the fact that Roadblock is arguably the best robot to compete from the first two series, almost without question. Its one loss to Cassius was due to a driving error in a fight it was otherwise dominating comfortably (and there's no question in my mind it would have beaten Panic Attack). If the first robot introduced to us was something like Barry or Shogun then it would have been seriously disappointing. Killertron or Nemesis would obviously have been better, but Roadblock was the perfect choice, really.

"You think you're so flashy? Let's see how YOU like it!" - Dantomkia (probably)

Dantomkia was one of the first robots I ever saw live, as a fun little tidbit. I know that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, but I kinda had to throw it out there anyway. Anyway, does Dantomkia deserve a spot this high up? Of course it does. Its heat debut was nearly completely flawless...something very few robots can boast (not even Hypno-Disc can make that claim when you consider what Berserk 2 did) and it finished with one of the most iconic moments of all time - giving Chaos 2 a taste of its own medicene. Dantomkia had one of the shortest runs of the classic series and yet within just a few years was able to make a name for itself to the point that it got a toy made. Given how no actual newcomer had won a heat since Heat F of Series 4, a whole 24 heats and two series earlier, that says a lot. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Series 5 was terrible for newcomers.

"They'll push Tornado very hard, provided Tornado doesn't just push it into the pit within the first twenty seconds"

Not neccessarily for new robots from returning teams, mind, although in the case of Terrorhurtz, that would have to wait for Series 6. There were clearly flashes in the pan in Series 5, but Terrorhurtz quickly proved just how capable it was the following series, quickly becoming what everyone previously thought Killerhurtz would and should have been. Obviously Terrorhurtz would have gotten high on this list from its Series 6 run alone. The fact it's the highest ranked axe-robot on this list (but not the highest ranked robot that has had an axe, but that's different) says all there needs to be, especially in an era where they just weren't as effective as they used to be. But in many ways, Terrorhurtz is a bit of a sad state, because despite its experience, it...and by extension John Reid...is essentially a one-war wonder. Series 6 was pretty much its only flash in the pan and, even if you ignore its blink-and-you'll-miss-it disqualification in Series 7, it just never did as well as it could have done in future series. I consistently had it as the favourite to win all three of its reboot heats too...the fact it was able to defeat Carbide proved it was still capable (think about it, if Series 8 had a standard heat, Carbide would have been knocked out in Round 2!), but it always seemed to have something go wrong just as much as its opponents just being better. Shame, really.

It was called a bunny-hop, but isn't it more a rabbit-punch? Which, BTW, is illegal in boxing

I love the fact that three of this batch of ten are real classic classic era robots. First Mortis, then Roadblock, and now it's only fair we finish the batch with Cassius. I'm not sure how I'd order these three robots, personally. If we were going on battle capability, then I'd have certainly put Roadblock on top - it was only through a driving error that Cassius was able to win. Even Mortis seemed to be on top of it in the brief moment the two could actually fight. But there's no denying how influential Cassius, and the late great Rex Garrod, was to the sport. I doubt that the srimech would never have been invented - Cassius was one of three that had one in Series 2 - but considering both Chaos and Ivanhoe's srimechs failed to work, obviously Cassius successfully using its flipping arm to throw itself back over is going to be an important moment. Plus, it was always fun to see in action. You all know I don't like Series 2 and even I enjoy Cassius' battles, with the exception of its fight with Haardvark because House Robot interference as usual. So, yeah, I can see why Cassius is this high and it probably deserves it.

How many times has this been used on a RW wiki blog now? I forget...

I suspect that Bigger Brother was always going to appear on this list somewhere even without its spectacular Series 5 campaign, albeit far lower down. Having one of the most precious teams in the entire competition helps a ton. We'd had kid-based teams before, but Team Big Brother took it up a notch, if in part to the sheer focus the team received. But lets face it, its massive underdog run - probably the single best of any robot ever - catapulted it up here with ease. It went from a robot that had occassional flashes of decent to defeating two Robot Wars giants back-to-back - one of which was the double reigning champion, the other of which had torn it limp from limp before Bigger Brother secured a major come-from-behind pitting - and only fell to the third giant after an admittedly valient effort. When all that was said and done, there was no way that Bigger Brother wasn't making this list. It's just a shame that subsequent appearances were so hot and cold - no disrespect to Terrorhurtz or Firestorm, but I feel it should have been able to beat Dominator and it was just flat-out unfortunate in Series 7 as a whole. Maybe if it had had that little extra push...

Wheely Big Cheese is basically like a celebrity - you do something one time and everyone acts like that's ALL you do

Wheely Big Cheese is too high. MUCH too high. That's all that needs to be said.

But it's obvious you're not going to let me get away with saying just that, so I'll continue. If 259 and Cerberus had gotten the silver and bronze in regards to how overrated and overglorified they were, then Wheely Big Cheese easily takes the gold. Yes, it achieved a monumental flip on Axe Awe. Yes, I agree that this was perhaps one of the single best knockouts in Robot Wars' history. But here's the thing - Wheely Big Cheese only did that once. Like how Storm 2 only bodyslammed a robot out of the arena, an equally remarkable KO, once...and it was ranked over ten places further down. Surely by that reasoning, Wheely Big Cheese should be ranked closer to Storm 2's positioning? And there's another problem I have with Wheely Big Cheese - it was overhyped, maybe more so than any other robot with nothing to back it up aside from some fantastic flips. Are people just forgetting that its Series 4 campaign was overall terrible, not only failing to achieve its much-publisized revenge on Sir Killalot but barely making it through the heat after the vastly superior Suicidal Tendencies randomly broke down? And why was it always seen as a legitimate threat against better robots? It was seen as a match for the likes of Chaos 2, Firestorm and Hypno-Disc (what, Wheely Big Cheese was a threat to Hypno-Disc but Pussycat, who had already beaten it once, wasn't?) and yet it lost to them all with ease, not once getting a flip on any of them. It says a lot that Wheely Big Cheese failed to defeat any legitimately good robot. If Chaos 2 was Goku, Razer was Vegeta and Carbide was frickin' Beerus, then Wheely Big Cheese was Mr Satan - hyped to hell yet severely outclassed against actual opponents. No centre-of-the-arena-and-out flip is going to change that.

Two down, two to go...and in this case, 90 down, 10 to go.

Just missing out on the top ten is Apollo and, honestly, I'm not sure if this is to be expected or a surprise. I'm going to say a surprise because there is one robot I thought it would outrank, and don't worry, I'll explain when I get to that. For now, there's no harm going over the robot I accidentally called out as the Series 8 champion before we even knew the full roster. Even in the top ten I had invisioned at that point, I still thought Apollo might be at the lower end. It's hard to say why - we know Apollo is a highly capable robot, killing off three of the reboot's House Robots and coming fairly close to getting the fourth. I love how, in its fight with Diotoir, "Cease" was called and the music was stopped, but the moment Apollo turned its attention to Killalot, they immediately re-engaged the music because they knew the battle wasn't over. Plus, the team were very likable and fun too. The only problem that I think holds Apollo back here is the fact that it was ultimately a failure as a Robot Wars champion, which feels harsh to say, but it was the only British champion to never win another heat after its successful run. Maybe that's why it's not quite in the top ten?

Number 10-1

Great robot, surprise package, photobomber apparently

You know how I said that I was surprised that one robot had made the top ten? Surprise surprise, it's this very robot, and that's through no fault at all of Pussycat, don't get me wrong. It feels awful saying that to such a great machine, but honestly, I feel Pussycat's time on the show was something of a tragedy - and no, I'm not simply refering to the death of David Gribble. For every single bit of rightful praise it got, there always seemed to be a rather negative discussion right behind it. Claims that we'd yet to see the best of it in Series 4 even though it had ravaged every one of its opponents up to that point. Not being considered a favourite or even a threat in the Extreme 1 annihilator when it had already beaten both the actual favourites. Its contributions in the Series 7 All-Stars completely ignored. For a robot as capable and as impressive as Pussycat...that just feels wrong. Especially with such a legacy behind it, what with five tournament wins including the big three side-tournies under its belt. Still, at least its final appearance was a high. An underappreciated high, but a high nonetheless.

Would still love this as a gif

Speaking of going out on a high, if Series 10 is truly the last time we'll ever see Robot Wars, then at least Behemoth can be pleased with what it achieved. It feels like only a while ago that I concluded that its unexpected win over Apollo was the best heat final the entire series ever had. I still stand by that. In part because it allowed Behemoth to finally break its demons - if that hadn't happened, it would still have been on this list, and certainly in the very high ends of it, but for the most terribly wrong reasons. I legit felt that, after the mental breakdown of Series 9, that that was it - that Behemoth would never be able to return to Robot Wars ever again. I will say, though, that I did like how Series 10 handled the response and noted how easy it was to misinterpret those sorts of things, so...kudos to them. It's hard to know what else to say about Behemoth, because I've talked about it many times before, and even just going into the reboot, I expressed my disappointment as to how far it had fallen from grace and that I'd had at least some hope that it could get another heat win so it didn't just have the win of a "toy bulldozer" to fall back on. So, to paraphrase Toast, "Good on ya, Behemoth".

I don't know whether to be impressed with the person who named this picture for making the pun, or annoyed because they got Diotoir's name wrong

I love how quick the comments were to point out the "8th seed curse", in that the robot that was ranked 8th on this list was the only one in the top ten to not win a heat. I am partly surprised to see Diotoir this high, but honestly, I can't be upset. It's hard to be upset with a machine like those built or operated by Team Nemesis. It just feels like the robotic personification (robotification?) of the old "This is fine" meme. Y'know, the one with the dog in the burning house, except that Diotoir is the dog AND the burning house at the same time. Still, give credit to Diotoir, for a team that was more about having fun and being helpful, clearly not meant to be taken seriously, it was still fairly competent when it wanted to be. Obviously its most memorable win is its clash with Tornado, but I feel its final clash in the Extreme 1 Tag Team has more significance for me, considering it was pretty much able to turn the tide when its much-more fancied teammate was struggling (and let me remind you, its teammate was PUSSYCAT!). Don't turn your back on the silly ones - they're called lethal jokebots for a reason.

Still so satisfying

Sooo, I guess the toy deal fell through? I'm not surprised, but still a little disappointed. I feel it'd be quite simple to make a perfectly workable toy for Apollo and Eruption even without the official material, but Carbide might be a bit difficult. Does Carbide deserve to be ranked higher than Apollo and Eruption? Yes. Yes it does. There's absolutely no denying this. It's a machine that toes the very border of being "unbeatable", although obviously it isn't, since no robot is truly unbeatable. But you know you're doing something big when TPTB bring in a rule specifically to hinder you. But really, Carbide is what the show needed. The flipper may forever be the number one weapon here in the UK, but after their ban for many years, it was hard to know just how effective spinners would be. What better way to test them in an arena specifically designed to handle them? Well, as it turned out, Carbide was so powerful that the arena COULDN'T handle them (or the arena was just poorly put together, take your pick). Basically, Carbide undid any doubts about the return of spinners in the UK scene.

Razer is clearly cheating, that hook should be illegal!!

Of course Tornado had to be up here. Heck, even the butthurt Razer fanboys who still can't accept the fact that it didn't cheat pretty much guaranteed it'd be up here. If having interchangable weapons designed specifically to counter one robot is considered cheating, they'd have an aneurysm at the reboot of Robot Wars and BattleBots. I will confess, though, there was a time I didn't like Tornado...and this was back in Series 4. This was almost certainly an over-reaction on my part due to it beating Gemini who was supposed to fight and beat Chaos 2, since that's what the episode was building up to. In retrospect, Chaos 2 would have beaten Gemini quite easily anyway. Luckily, by the time Extreme 1 came around, I'd gained more of a respect for Tornado and found myself quite enjoying its fights. I was never really on the whole "rambots are boring" bandwagon - Tornado usually found a way to make its fights interesting, and being able to beat Chaos 2 and Pussycat, the top two robots at the time, twice each is obviously nothing to be sniffed at. There's actually little to talk about regarding the interchangable weapons - Tornado may be the most famous user of them, but it's not like it invented them. And even with the anti-crusher frame, it was still almost never as one-sided as it looked - in all three battles they had, Razer was able to counter the frame. So, yeah...even if it could be considered cheating, it's hardly unbreakable.

Be honest...who saw this coming first time of watching?

Bigger Brother may have been the greatest underdog story Robot Wars ever had. Nuts 2 may have been one of the most unexpected. But lets not forget the original - Panic Attack. This is a robot from a team that went in looking to raise money for charity and went away as champions. How does that even work? Well, it certainly worked for Panic Attack and it ultimately became one of the biggest names in Robot Wars history with a very simple yet effective design and strategy. It wasn't strictly flashly, but it didn't need to be. To be honest, I feel I've spoken about Panic Attack too much at length before, namely in my "Top 10 Robots with Bad Declines" list, so it's hard to know what to talk about, but I will say it's a hard robot to hate, and its team captain is hard to hate either - Kim Davies just always came across as a genuinely nice person, soft-spoken and humble...even in Extreme 1 when everyone was encouraged to be more trash-talky, he remained quite pleasant with only the slightest bit of artificial cockiness, because that's just the kind of guy he was.

See? Even the clip at the end shows Firestorm 4, not Firestorm 5!

OK, guys, I love your series, but you made a BIG mess-up with Firestorm. It's ranked 4th, and you therefore had the perfect opportunity to use an intro for Firestorm 4, yet instead you use one for Firestorm 5. Really? And you can't use the "it's the latest one" excuse because you used Ming 3 instead of Ming Dienasty. But enough about that, you want to hear whether I agree with how Firestorm is ranked, right? Well, let me remind you that Firestorm is my favourite robot of the classic series, of course I'm happy with it being up this high! Duh! But it's not like Firestorm doesn't deserve it. Five semi-finals and three third-place finishes says all that needs to be said. I'm honestly amazed at how consistent it was throughout five series and how it was continually able to keep up with everyone around it. When nearly everyone else was beginning to faulter or show signs of weakness, Firestorm just kept going. Is it really any wonder why it's my favourite classic series robot?

BTW, before I continue, I should point out two things.

• I am not covering the honourable mentions. I just don't have the time to do all that.
• The top three couldn't have been any other three. Regardless of order, these were the three Robot Wars pushed to the front every chance they could, so putting any lower than three would be a major disservice.

Need any further proof that the two should have been swapped?

But do I agree with the order? Not entirely. It's close, but I feel the 3rd and 2nd spaces should have been switched around. The reason I say that is because not only did Chaos 2 have more success, it's ultimately been the far bigger influence on the robot combat scene. Many of the robots following on from Series 3 ended up being built or redesigned with srimechs and invertability in mind, including three of the teams that Chaos 2 had beaten so comfortably in Series 3 for that matter. Chaos 2 was flat-out unbeatable in the 80kg weight limit era - you had to be either Razer or gang up on it to defeat it. Very little even seemed to trouble it. Even those that did were rarely able to finish it off before Chaos 2 came back strong, such as with Killerhurtz or Stinger. Yes, I know, I've been critical about its Series 6 performances, but given for how long Chaos 2 managed to stay on top for is something not even the likes of Tornado or Carbide can boast. Back-to-back championship wins are something very few robots in the UK can ever boast, even the live-event legends. So, yeah, I do feel Chaos 2 should have been ahead of the number two spot.

Splinter suffering a mild technical fault. Hypno-Disc just happens to be nearby (yes, I thought TVTropes was funny)

This is no disservice to Hypno-Disc, though. Again, I am aware that it's a robot I've been critical of later in its career. In part because there used to be a point where certain people - not naming anybody - were disrespecting other spinning weapons and basically just saying "Hypno-Disc is the only good spinner" by making frankly ridiculous comparisons. Luckily, most of those people seem to have seen a bit more sense these days, so I don't have to worry about that. Obviously, Hypno-Disc is a robot that is always fun to watch when it's working at its absolute best. Just the sight of it ripping through its opponents' armour like it was wrapping paper is spectacular, punctuated by Jonathan Pearce's classic comments. No wonder machines like Robogeddon and Splinter are still remembered if ONLY because they got trashed by Hypno-Disc. It almost seems unfair. So, yeah, Hypno-Disc is spectacular. It's a pioneer. It was the first contestant to get a toy made. But I do still think it should have been below Chaos 2. Hypno-Disc made armour a requirement, but Chaos 2 influenced full designs. The flipper still proved to be far more popular than the spinner...and really, Hypno-Disc never ultimately won anything aside from an award that had nothing to do with fighting (something Chaos 2 has also won by the way). So, yeah, Hypno-Disc clearly deserves to be in the top three, but Chaos 2 should have been higher.

The UK champion, the All-Star champion, the undisputed champion of the world, makes its dramatic debut

But was there ever really ANY doubt? Alternating between who should have been second and third between Chaos 2 and Hypno-Disc clearly doesn't mean anything when it should have been clear from the get-go that Razer HAD to be number 1. Why? Because ultimately it provided Robot Wars with the perfect package. What do I mean by the "perfect package"? A blend of visual appeal, innovation and success. Very few robots can boast all three of these, basically putting Razer in an exclusive minority...a minority it deserves. Lets break it down for a moment. Success? They weren't kidding when they said Razer had won "just about everything". We're talking a UK championship, two All-Stars and two World Championships as the main ones, as well as a few side ones such as the Pinball and Annihilator. All of this was topped off with OVER FORTY wins to its name...most robots would be lucky to see half that number. Innovation? Razer didn't just invent the vertical crusher - it was the vertical crusher. It was like nothing Robot Wars had ever had before and even in its unreliable infancy, it was influencing robots even as early as the series following its debut, albeit it would take until the 100kg weight era for the other crushers to be more effective. Visual appeal? For those asking about this, have you SEEN Razer? It just looks visually stunning with the claw and the wings and everything - there's a reason it kept winning the Best Design award. But that was also down to the fact that very few robots were able to counter it - if you're making the likes of Chaos 2 and Firestorm look weak, you've done something right, and if you're forcing robots to think to the absolute limits of outside the box in order to beat you....well, that just proves my point. And BTW, all those people who say that Razer fights are boring? I respectfully disagree. If there's one thing I can definitely give Razer credit for, it's that they often found time to MAKE their battles fun. Even if an opponent was hopelessly outclassed, Razer would just find the time to take on the House Robots...and often it would give them real trouble, with Shunt, Matilda and even Sir Killalot getting the short end of the stick. Basically, Razer is iconic because it is everything Robot Wars could have been all packed into one machine. It defines Robot Wars through its entire existance. The show couldn't have asked for a better robot.

I've been Crash, and if we've learned anything from this list, it's that there's lots of ways a robot can be iconic. It can be really good like Chaos 2 and Hypno-Disc. It can be really fun like Diotoir or Nuts. It could have an interesting design like Milly-Ann Bug or Gabriel. Heck, it could be down here for the ways it went out like Apex and Robogeddon, or it might even be iconic for all the wrong reasons, such as Eric or Foxic. But it takes a special kind of robot to become the single most iconic robot in the history of the show, and even robot combat in general. Finding one of the most dominant robots in the sport is actually quite easy - from Roadblock to Chaos 2 to Carbide, they're all there. Even in other combat shows, you'll find them. K2 dominated Bugglebots with ease, and both Biohazard and Bite Force were almost untouchable in the original and rebooted series of BattleBots, respectively. You'll always find robots like these...but we will never ever find another Razer.

Spectre from King of Bots came so tantalisingly close though....