Hi! There are oh so many spoilers in what follows. So. Many. Spoilers. Pretty much “Oops, All Spoilers!” Don’t read any more if you haven’t seen the episode yet and plan to.
So, hi! Welcome to my first recap of the first episode of Battlebots Season 8 (or Season 7…Amazon lists it as season 8, so that’s what I’m going with). If you like watching people pit two 250 lb. machines against each other, you’ll probably like Battlebots. No other sport comes close for sheer destruction. It’s great; it’s all about brains until you get your robot in the box, and then it’s just sheer power.
The new season looks like it’ll be played by largely the same rules as the last one, and in a very similar battlebox. There are kill saws (that don’t kill), screws (that just tangle your robot up sometimes), hammers (that don’t do anything), and an “upper deck” for…reasons? I don’t know.
It’s easy to forget just how heavy these things are when they’re tossing each other 20 feet in the air (and yes, they most definitely do that). These things are scary. They can hurt you. I know, because the legendary Ray Billings suffered an injury working on his equally legendary Tombstone and won’t be able to participate this year. That a huge loss for the sport, but mostly, I just hope Ray’s OK whether he ever participates again or not.
So, here’s my breakdown of the first week’s fights. The bots have 3 minutes to fight. If they knock out the other bot, then they win. If both bots are still standing after 3 minutes, then it goes to the judges. You do NOT want it to go to the judges because the judging is inscrutable. No scruting these judges. Every bot will fight four times, and then at the end of the regular season, 16 (or 17?) will be selected to enter the championship tournament. If you want to know more, here’s the official site. Now, on to the fights!
Witch Doctor v. Ribbot
Heck of a way to start the new season: Two powerful vertical spinners and (mostly) durable four-wheel body configurations. Both of these bots are likely to make the tournament, so this was a good test for both of ’em. With two such evenly matched robots, the strategies were likewise similar. They went face to face like two bulls and tried to get an angle that would allow them to hit their opponent without getting hit. Michael Gellatly, Witch Doctor’s driver, won the driving battle and got the first big hit on Ribbot. The little froggy flew through the air and Witch Doctor was there each time to smack Ribbot again.
At the risk of spoiling my spoilers, this fight demonstrated two themes: The fight was very one-sided and ended quickly, and both sides tried to be more “aggressive” than last year. Gellatly said that they’d increased the spin rate of Witch Doctor’s weapon to the maximum-allowable 250 mph at the potential cost of reliability. If these trends keep up, we’re going to see a lot of very short fights.
Quantum v. Captain Shrederator
This would not be one of those “short fights,” which probably already tells you which bot won. Quantum is a terrifying control bot with piercing teeth while the Captain is a full body spinner that looks frightening but almost never wins because it tends to…stop working entirely. I commented before the fight that this could be a tough fight for Quantum, a big spinning bot that can’t even control itself can be a toughie to control.
Wow, was I ever wrong about that one. Quantum scooted across the box immediately and got a grip on Shrederator before it had time to spin up. The English control bot carried the Captain around the box like a cat carrying its favorite toy for the entire fight, biting through the top armor, and then releasing briefly as required by the rules. Lather/rinse/repeat. It didn’t quite go the distance, as one of the bites found the spinner’s batteries and that was that.
HUGE v. Shatter
Two of the more innovative bots around squared off in what was always likely to be a one-sided affair. Shatter’s a really interesting hammer bot with great durability and mobility, but there are some bots that simply don’t have an answer for HUGE and they’re one of ’em. Shatter put a long, serrated hammer on in place of their normal affair, but it made no difference at all as HUGE was able to approach without fear and keep whacking that hammer bot with its terrifying vertical spinner.
What was interesting was not that HUGE won, but how HUGE won. The maneuverability and driving skill were both way beyond anything we’ve seen from them in the past. Captain Jonathan Schultz said he “wanted to be more aggressive” and he certainly was. There was a sense last year that Huge had peaked, but if this fight was any indication, that ain’t the case.
Glitch v. Riptide
The two rookies of the year from last season, Glitch and Riptide are both vertical egg-beater spinners who hit really, really hard. The similarities end there, as Riptide is a fast, conventional four-wheeler that reminds me a little of Yeti in that it’s fearless and (here comes that word again) aggressive. Glitch, on the other hand, is the most accurately-named bot in the business. It’s prone to all sorts of fiddly mechanical issues, it’s absurdly low to the ground, and it beat the #$@#$ out of Hydra last year. It too has four wheels, but they’re the slidy wheels like on Shatter and they don’t always work.
Both teams predicted a quick fight and kudos to them. The Glitch folks wanted to go weapon-to-weapon, which would have served them better than what actually happened. Riptide got around to their side, flipped ’em, and it was game over. Well, it could have been, as Glitch was never going to self-right. They took a few more shots to try to flip Glitch back over, but instead knocked it upside down onto the upper-deck. Game over.
Free Shipping v. Gigabyte
The big news here is that Gary Ginn and Free Shipping have a weapon this year. He’s gotten away from the marvelously entertaining but hopelessly outclassed gimmick bots and made what amounts to “Duck with a little spinner on the front.” The big news for Gigabyte, the ne plus ultra of full body spinners, is that the bot is being driven by a couple of youngsters this year. They added some new teeth and something resembling a wedge, but mostly, it’s Gigabyte. There’s not much you can do with that design.
Right from the start, Gigabyte had difficulty maneuvering. It was putting itself into the wall without Free Shipping needing to assists. It’s always fun when a full body spinner gets in a tight space, because it’s going to look like a pinball caught between two bumpers and heaven help anything nearby. They got a couple of shots in, but Free Shipping played it safe and let Gigabyte do the job of destroying itself. The self-righting bar broke, and the bot flipped over and spun around the arena like a top for a while before coming to rest and getting counted out.
Gruff v. Ripperoni
When a super high-tech rookie meets a durable veteran, it’s probably going to go badly for the rook. Ripperoni is really interesting. It’s a giant vertical disc spinner that attempts to offset the torque by using a counter-rotating flywheel and asymmetric wheel shapes. Gruff is a brick. I mean, it’s a lifter and a flamethrower, but mostly, it’s a brick.
The early exchanges were interesting, as Ripperoni’s weapon was working really, really well, and it looked like it would be a good fight. However, something went wrong with the new bot’s balance, so it spent most of the fight bouncing on it’s weapon while Gruff shoved it around for grins. The pizza bot lasted the full three minutes and it’s obviously a fascinating design, but it’s not quite there year. Gruff, being a brick, is dialed in and won the decision.
Minotaur v. Tantrum
Tantrum, the little meme-bot that won it all, got to see the championship banner unfurled before the fight. This was a great touch, and it’s fun seeing all the legendary bots on banners over the battlebox. Tantrum’s a weird, compact bot that’s 90% armor, but it has a vertical spinner mounted on rails that can be retracted. The original idea was that it would launch the spinner forward like a punch, but I think that’s largely been abandoned. Minotaur…well, if you know Battlebots, you know Minotaur. It’s second only to Tombstone in terms of reputation for destruction. It has a giant vertical drum and not much else, but that drum is 70 lbs. of pants-soiling terror.
I wish I could say it was a good fight, but it wasn’t. Minotaur just mauled the champ. You don’t see Tantrum knocked out very often, but Minotaur will do that to ya. Tantrum tried to box rush to keep that drum from spinning up, but they just missed, and they never really had a chance after that.
That was fun, even though the fights weren’t especially good. There were some pretty severe mismatches as well as several fights where the bots hit so hard that a single hit was gonna end it. These bots are definitely more powerful than they were in the past and so I expect to see more knockouts and shorter fights.
Favorite Fight:
Let’s go with Gruff vs. Ripperoni. Not only did it last longer, but there was (briefly) some doubt as to which bot would prevail. Ripperoni is a genuinely innovative bot that, if they can dial it in, will be copied en masse. Like any bot with a flamethrower, Gruff is great fun to watch and it’s a royal pain in the rear to fight.
Most Impressive Bot:
You’d probably expect me to say “Minotaur” give the way it dismantled the champ, but the one that really opened my eyes was HUGE. The driving, the tactics, and the ability to maneuver what has always been an unwieldy bot are much improved over last year. Given the strengths and weakness of HUGE, I don’t think it’s a contender for the title, but it bears watching and it’ll be interesting to see how they handle opponents with more dangerous weapons.