Top 10 Robot Wars Series 6 Competitors
Series 6 was the first series of Razer's title defence, and it had a lot of good fights, along with solid competitors, and some controversy here and there.Same as before. Bots ranked on design and performance. Also Spoilers.
Razer returned after finally winning the UK title. Its title defense got off to a good start, with the only real scare being when it got flipped by Cyrax, and even then it could self-right. It powered through its heat and Semi-Final, beating Terrorhurtz in the Grand Final, before fighting Tornado for the title.
However, Tornado had adapted itself to take on Razer, and with its innovative anti-Razer cage, Tornado kept itself safe from Razer's crusher. Razer almost got Tornado into the pit but couldn't quite get all the wheels over the pit.
Personally, I felt Razer should've got the decision, but it went Tornado's way, and Razer finished a respectable 2nd.
The most promising newcomer in Series 4 may have crashed out early in Series 5, but got the 12th seed here, and the team returned with some new enhancements to the bot. The most notable upgrade has to be the interchangeable weapons. The bot can have a spinning disc, a lance, a scoop, or (we'll get to that), depending on the opponent.
Combine that with the machine's strong drives, and it powered through the competition, beating seeds much higher than it, like Hypno-Disc and Firestorm. In the Grand Final, it faced Razer, where it used an Anti-Crusher Web. This prevented Razer from doing major damage to it and, as a byproduct, kept it out of the pit. It won the title on a judges' decision, making for quite the shock of the lowest seed defeating the highest seed.
The third-place finishers from the previous series return in hopes of going one step further. In its heat, it got through without struggle (though it did comically drive into the pit after beating all its opponents in the first melee).
It took out two fearsome spinner-bots in the Semi-Finals and then fought Tornado. Unfortunately, Firestorm lost the ground game as Tornado's wedge was lower. Using its superior pushing power, Tornado pushed Firestorm into the pit.
Firestorm then fought for 3rd place (again) against Terrorhurtz. Despite getting a few good whacks from Terrorhurtz's axe, Firestorm outlasted its opponent and took 3rd place (again).
Performance-wise, Firestorm is consistent to a fault, and it would've been lovely to see it take home a UK title at least once. Oh well.
John Reid had been in several previous series but had little to no success with Killerhurtz. Even Terrorhurtz's debut in Series 5 saw it get taken out by a very impressive Fluffy. But in Series 6, it returned with a surprisingly powerful axe. Instead of relying on a spike to punch holes in armor, it used a heavier bladed head to bludgeon robots to death. The fast, repetitive nature of the blows was strong enough to shake loose electronics in bots but also caused the robot to go a bit haywire.
It battered robots like Panic Attack and Bigger Brother but then lost to Razer in the Grand Final and was beaten by Firestorm in the 3rd place play-off.
I think it's safe to say Terrorhurtz won over a lot of new fans in this series.
A newcomer to the show, Dantomkia made waves in its first appearance. It was a sleek and fast flipper bot that had good drives and a flipper powerful enough to chuck robots out of the arena.
When it fought Chaos 2 in the heat final, everyone thought the more experienced team would take these newcomers to the cleaners. But in a shocking turn of events, Chaos 2's flipper lost power, was unable to self-right, and Dantomkia flipped it clean out of the arena.
Then it lost an underwhelming fight with S3 but made a strong comeback, beating Wild Thing and 13 Black. It ultimately lost to Razer, but for a new team to come in, defeat a former champion, and make it to the top 8, that's some good going.
It also won the Most Promising Newcomer award.
After nearly going all the way in the previous series, the Bigger Brother team returned as the #2 seed. In its heat, it got through fairly comfortably. Its only real challenging fight was against Behemoth, which it won by pitting.
In the Semi-Finals, however, it had problems against Dominator 2 and lost. It then beat Hypno-Disc and Spawn Again in the Loser's Melee before getting absolutely battered by Terrorhurtz.
The machine was still driven well, and the flipper was as powerful as ever, but by this point, the armor needed improving if it was going to hold up to the stronger weapons that were coming in.
A machine similar to Hypno-Disc, except instead of one big flywheel, it had two. As there was one on either side, this was an intuitive design as it could attack from the front and back.
It faced a fairly tough heat, with robots like Thermidor II, Stinger, and Fluffy. It managed to win the heat, even beating Stinger. But in the Semi-Finals, it fell afoul to Firestorm and then lost to Dantomkia in the Loser's Melee. It's a bot that doesn't like being flipped, though using the spinners to try and crab-walk was a creative way to show controlled movement.
After an impressive showing in the previous series, S3 returns again. The vertical flywheel is as strong as ever, though the robot's shape did make maneuverability tricky at times.
It still caused some good damage, especially against Shredder (part of that robot got stuck on the ceiling), and it got a surprise win over Dantomkia. However, when it faced Firestorm, it was flipped up against the wall and was in such a weird angle that the bot's center of gravity was higher than the wall, and it just ended up toppling over and out of the arena.
Good at tearing up bots with weak armor, but struggles against a good flipper. The team never returned after this series.
Hypno-Disc returns once more. This time, the competition is much better equipped for dealing with Hypno-Disc's attacks. Its flywheel still had that knockout power, as demonstrated in its heat where it beat bots like Bulldog Breed and Barberous II fairly quickly.
When it got to the Semi-Finals, however, it became evident that the bots wouldn't get knocked out so easily. It lost to Tornado after getting pushed all around the arena, and in the loser's melee, it was the first bot to go.
This was definitely Hypno-Disc's worst-performing series. Still, the fact that in four consecutive series it had never failed to win a heat, that's some pretty good going right there.
Long-standing roboteer Adam Clark had been ever-present throughout Robot Wars but had never won a battle until this point. Then he brought 259, a bot similar to Nightmare of Battlebots, with a giant vertical flywheel that had great speed and torque. It could toss robots all over the place.
It was massively impressive in its first-round melee, taking on everyone. Then, in its fight against Wild Thing, it started strong. Then disaster struck. The weapon belt came off, and the spinner stopped working. Without a main weapon, there was very little it could do. Later, it lost drive completely, and Wild Thing took the judges' decision.
When it worked, it was capable of great damage but was very much a glass cannon. 259 will remain a "What could've been" scenario. Actually, I stand corrected. It wouldn't have stood a chance against Razer.
It also won the award for Best Design.