The Robot Wars Thread

[Benji]

Meet the house robots for the new series! I've not got to watch it yet so someone give me a summary.

[Lineker]

Shunt, Dead Metal, Matilda and Sir Killalot are all back, but all upgraded to various degrees.

[Noah]

No Craig Charles.

[Benji]

8 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Shunt, Dead Metal, Matilda and Sir Killalot are all back, but all upgraded to various degrees.

Wonderful, they got rid of all those shitty extras they added and dropped the forgettable Sgt Bash too.

[Noah]

[Chris2K]

I always liked Sgt. Bash when I was younger but soon realised its weaponry was pretty useless. The flame pits were far more damaging than a flamethrower from above/the side.

Really looking forward to the new series, it's a shame that it's only a small competition but if it's anything like before the success of this series will catapult it into a much bigger competition next time around.

[Benji]

Yeah, the flamethrower was visually awesome but not at all effective.

I really hope they go into more of the technical aspects of the bots this series. I always thought how devastating it must be to put all this work into building a robot, let alone one for fighting, only for it to be crushed by a house robot. You get a little bit of the emotional upset, but the task of actually dealing with and fixing the damage always seemed to go amiss in coverage.

[Katsuya]

It's an hour long now, which I want to say is longer than it used to be? Though it looks like that might be more to do with the fact there'll probably be more battles, so dunno whether it'll feature more technical stuff after all. The new series of Battlebots in the US does the technical aspect a lot better.

Speaking of the rules, here's how it'll work apparently:

Five heats with eight robots in each. First round of each heat is a 4 robot melee, with two robots surviving from each melee. Those four robots then face each other in a round robin group stage, and the two who come out best from that face each other in the heat final. Five heat winners and one wildcard from the heats face off in the Grand Final.

Spoilers for old robots returning and competing:

Razer, Behemoth, Terrorhurtz, Thermidor, Dantomkia, Storm 2, Kan Opener, King B, Big Nipper

[Benji]

24 minutes ago, Katsuya loves Oslo said:

It's an hour long now, which I want to say is longer than it used to be?

Was 30 for season one, 45 for every other season except the last, so yeah, longer than the ones anyone bothered to watch

Just read that Noel Sharkey is returning as one of the judges. Wonderful, he's lovely.

[Chris2K]

37 minutes ago, Katsuya loves Oslo said:

Spoilers for old robots returning and competing:

  Reveal hidden contents

Razer, Behemoth, Terrorhurtz, Thermidor, Dantomkia, Storm 2, Kan Opener, King B, Big Nipper

 

Spoiler

Can't wait for Terrorhurtz to drive around at 25mph for 30 seconds, pound the crap out of everything with its awesome axe and then drive straight into a pit.

I always thought that they tried to shy away from showing the emotional aspect of the destruction because it was theoretically aimed at kids as well as adults and they didn't want to upset any children watching. I remember seeing Joe from Bigger Brother crying when they lost and it was heartbreaking.

By the way, Ian Watts (Joe's dad) is in the 2016 series with a robot called Or Te, he has other family members with him this time but not Joe or Ellie.

[Bobfoc]

I miss the Gauntlet round at the beginning, along with the gimmick round they used to do after that. Robot snooker was probably my favourite.

[Adam]

When does this start? I absolutely loved it when I was a kid and seeing some familiar names involved is encouraging.

I can still remember a lot of the old competitors now...Panic Attack, Firestorm, Chaos 2, Razer, PussyCat and my absolute favourite Hypno-Disc.

I also seem to remember one series being won by...Tornado?...because they stuck this weird frame around the robot meaning no opponents could really get near the actual thing to damage it

[Benji]

"Autumn 2016" is the only date so far.

5 minutes ago, Adam said:

I also seem to remember one series being won by...Tornado?...because they stuck this weird frame around the robot meaning no opponents could really get near the actual thing to damage it

I totally forgot about that!

[Katsuya]

It starts next Sunday at 8pm 

[Benji]

Oh shit, really? That seems to have come around awful quick.

[Cymbols]

No Wheely Big Cheese no party. 

[MDK]

No Roadblock, no me.

[Noah]

I'll watch, even if just because I hope Razer loses and I'm watching it happening. 

[TheWho87]

No Diotoir in the new series, now who will they set on fire.

[Chris2K]

Of course if anyone wants some retro episodes the BBC has them all up on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/BBCRobotwarsUK

And the Channel 5 series for good measure:

https://www.youtube.com/user/FiveRobotWarsUK