Rather than go over every competitor (as I said, 40 robots) I’m going to go over important ones, famous names that you may have heard of and are returning to the fray.

Behemoth: Competing in Robot Wars from Series 2 onward, Behemoth has always been a stalwart robot with strong armor and a front-mounted scoop to lift and flip. Unfortunately, they also have the most Robot Wars losses of all time (with 14, but they do have 20 wins), and rarely got out of the Heat stage, only reaching the Semi-Finals in their Series 2 debut. They nearly won the First World Championship and had their opponent on the run in the final, flipping it and having it pinned on the flame pit before it was nudged off to be able to self-right by Dead Metal, and only losing via split decision due to late damage taken. The team also built Radioactive from last year’s BattleBots, but that wasn’t exactly their best work.

Carbide: The original robot by the team who built Cobalt, which beat Overhaul in the BattleBots prelims and will take on Bombshell next week. The bar spinner weighs 25 kg and spins at 2300 rpm, making it more powerful than any spinner previously on Robot Wars. Brits don’t do spinners often, so their armor is often lighter, so even if it isn’t Minotaur/Tombstone numbers in terms of the energy from a strike, Carbide can probably do some damage.

Razer: The king has returned. This crusher sporting 3 metric tons of pressure at its tip is the greatest competitor in Robot Wars history, winning pretty much every title that existed, and the only British robot unanimously named to the Combat Robot Hall of Fame, which is a thing that exists. An International League champion, a two-time world champion, a two-time All-Stars champion, an Annihilator winner (an annihilator is a Robot Wars competition where six robots enter and through five fights are eliminated one by one until the champion remains), champion of the Fifth Wars, runner-up of the Sixth in one of the most controversial fights in robot history (fucking Tornado). 41-6 in all Robot Wars competitions. AND it was a solid competitor in the pre-TV days of BattleBots, even winning a heavyweight rumble (3-3 in BB 1v1 fights). Razer’s the robot that destroyed Matilda (even if it was with permission) and crumpled Shunt’s rear scoop. And like his younger brother Warhead (on tonight), he is gorgeous; as announcer Jonathan Pierce put it thanks to that eye in Razer’s beak, it’s part bird, part reptile, the rest machine.

Terrorhurtz: Another one of those very famous British bots, and you know its brothers, Killerhurtz and BETA. That double-headed axe does what it does, which is go back and forth with abandon and really hurt anything that it hits. Terrorhurtz finished 4th in the Sixth Wars, losing to defending champion Razer in the Grand Final Eliminator.

Thor: A fair to good robot in the last two seasons of Robot Wars, Thor’s got, well, a big hammer. And it’s fast (top speed of 30 mph). The first robot shown in the first teaser trailer (which I can’t see because BBC restrictions), it gets a nice exchange going with Shunt, so that’s always fun! Thor has won some events on the live circuit, which are traveling robot competitions around the U.K., so they’ve got to be considered some kind of threat.

Tough as Nails: This Dutch robot (the only foreign team in this competition) competed in the Seventh (and final, until now) Wars and made it into the Series Semi-Final. A strong horizontal crusher/grabber with a lot of torque, its most popular tactic was to grab its opponent, hit the pit release button, and drive its opponent straight into the pit for the victory. Maybe it was a bit cheap, but it worked (until Storm 2 gave it a taste of its own medicine in the Third World Championship).

Dantomkia: Named after the builder’s three chil… Wait that’s not Michael Lambert! Apparently Michael Lambert sold this version to a new team, a two-time Series Semifinalist and brief holder of the quickest Robot Wars victory in history (flipping IG-88 out of the arena in eight seconds), until being on the receiving end of the quickest victory in history (being flipped out of the arena by Gravity in six seconds). It’s got a powerful flipper and the chisel points at the front of the robot, combined with its quick ability to turn, means it can do a little bit of damage that way in a pinch.

Supernova: Runner-up in the Third World Championship to Storm 2, Supernova’s powerful disc never did too great in the main competition due to something breaking down. The robots it lost to however were all brand names: Behemoth, Spawn Again, and Storm 2. I can see it being a sleeper, although by staying at 94 kg it leaves a lot of weight out there that they could have added to armor or, more likely, the disc.

Kan-Opener: Kan-Opener, a big horizontal crusher claiming 12 metric tons of crushing force, has had a weird RW history. On the one hand, it has never gotten out of the first round of the Heats in its three seasons of competition (5, 6, and 7). On the other hand, it’s won two Annihilators (Extreme 2 and Series 7). So I’m not sure what to expect from it, especially now with the new round-robin setup in each heat after the opening-round melees. Maybe its main series will finally catch up to its Annihilator prowess?

Storm 2: The runner-up of the Seventh Wars because the producers cheated them out of the title. (Read up on it.) Defending Robot Wars world champions because there hasn’t been a world championship because there hasn’t been a Robot Wars competition. They made the robot slower for this competition for greater control, from 23 mph down to 18. It was built as a stronger, faster version of Tornado and the student overtook the master, ending Tornado’s reign in the Grand Finals of the Seventh Wars before that fight against Typhoon 2. It threw a robot out of the arena basically by ramming it into the wall, the only competitor to do it without use of a weapon (and one of only two to pull it off without a flipper). They’re also the team that built Photon Storm, which got badly damaged by Minotaur in the BattleBots prelims.

Ironside 3: A veteran team with Mighty Mouse and Velocirippa (decent enough bots), Ironside 3 has a big spinning bar. It’s 35 kg, which is as much as Matilda’s flywheel weighs, and apparently starts dancing from the gyroscopic tendencies because look at the length of that bar compared to the rest of the robot. I’d be worried about that though, it is nice to have a stable spinner that won’t possibly hit the arena floor which could lead to self-inflicted damage.

Thermidor 2: The lobster is back! Competing in every competition since Series 3, Thermidor may not look impressive, but they stated that its flipper now sports the ability to flip 2300 kg. They made the Series Semis twice (4 and 7) and was the first robot to flip two opponents out of the arena in the same fight (Behemoth and Stinger, Mayhem/Annihilator Qualifier, Extreme 2).

So there’s twelve to watch, whether they’re successful or not.  I’d bet that many other robots are from veteran teams I don’t recall and if you said “Oh, they built this robot” I’d go “Oh, okay” and remember. It seems like once you get into fighting robots you’re hooked and keep getting into fighting robots as you see what you can do with the technology.

…Uh, so who here knows how to weld? I kid, I kid. I think.