Welcome back to the Beat! Last time out, Yeti made Redshirt sad, Bronco went retro, and HyperShock still couldn’t beat Bite Force. That’s okay, nobody else currently in the field can! This has been your reminder that the only robot to beat Bite Force in 3+ seasons is Chomp with the chain snipe. What’s on the docket tonight? Teams with their third, or in the case of many their fourth fight. Which means after this some may be sitting quietly to await their fate. Before that, Friday afternoon Discovery posted a fight onto their Facebook page which wasn’t one of the fights from tonight’s episode. Maybe a future Science Channel bonus fight or something? We’re not sure, but let’s do that one first. Onto the unexpected bonus fight!

Shatter! vs. Kingpin
Shatter!: 1-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Witch Doctor; W, JD 3-0 vs. Wan Hoo)
Kingpin: 1-0 (W, ? vs. ?)

There was no party in Brooklyn for this one, in case you’re wondering. Just the omniwheeled hammer bot taking on a bowling-themed horizontal bar. I have no idea if the bowling pin shape of the bar gives it more structural integrity but I’d doubt it. But if you have a cape and a crown, and the crown has bowling pins attached to the tines, you’d better go whole hog. And hell, the bot’s won a fight so here’s a chance to go 2-0 and prove top some people that it merits some type of discussion.

Probably the gyroscopic force of the bar led to Kingpin doing a 180 and going straight into the screws at the word go. That’s probably bad. The small wheels probably don’t help with combatting that.

Hey, Girardi gave us memes too!

Anyway, also bad was that Kingpin was barely moving, even if the weapon was, meaning hitting the screws knocked out the drive. Honestly at that point it was just live fire target practice for Shatter!, though it did come a little too far from the side rather than the rear on one hit and lost a piece of the plastic because of it. But they did also aim true and break off a wheel because, hell with it, sure. Nothing really to write home about during the fight, until Adam Wrigley’s post-fight report mentioned that all the energy from the spinner went into Kingpin’s frame thanks to that hit and fried everything. Well damn. Shatter! wins by KO in 56 seconds and moves to 2-1, but as far as KOs under a minute where the winning robot dominated the entire fight, it’s not exactly the greatest one. Thanks to photos of the last couple episodes, we know their fourth fight: Minotaur.

Onto the regularly scheduled fights!

DUCK! vs. Quantum
DUCK!: 2-1 (W, KO 0:52 vs. Bombshell; W, KO 2:18 vs. Cobalt; L, JD 3-0 vs. Lock Jaw)
Quantum: 1-2 (W, JD 3-0 in 2:16 vs. Blacksmith; L, KO 1:19 vs. Lock Jaw; L, KO 1:19 vs. DeathRoll)

Man, who’d Hal Rucker kill to get this schedule? Let’s give both representatives of the King of Bots winners, which happen to be two very destructive bots. And also a semifinalist driven by Donald Hutson who had enough wherewithal to do some damage but let it go to the decision and if he tried to do any more probably would’ve smoked it. And Bombshell which was technically a quarterfinalist last year! It counts!

Meanwhile for Team Robo Challenge, you’d better believe they are ecstatic to not have to deal with another goddamned vertical spinner (official name of this kind of robot at this point), because after breaking time and space and logic in the shortened fight against Blacksmith, they got two, and masterful driving by Donald Hutson meant they never got the squeeze on Lock-Jaw, and they just missed against Death Roll and didn’t get a second chance. No vertical disks to deal with this time for the resident king of crush, and a win could start the debate on who actually gets into the Last Chance Rumble, assuming it happens. They’re advertising some sort of twist in the last episode before the championship tournament starts. Quantum was now sporting a stronger, more robust wedge that they probably wish they had from the get-go. Meanwhile Hal Rucker determined DUCK! was going to get bitten at some point, so he was planning on using the pointed portion of DUCK!’s plow to push Quantum away when it came to that.

They had a chance to try it very quickly. Quantum got a bite and could fairly easily pierce the top of DUCK’s armor. And yes, there was a frenzied DUCK!. And it worked eventually to get them off, and also to nearly overbalance Quantum, which tipped even though it never fell. Apart from that though, since the plow was rarely in front due to DUCK!’s Breaker Box-style dance the bites kept coming, and yes, you could see the marks on top of DUCK!. It looked like it was going to get dangerous as Quantum had DUCK! cornered, and got not just the pierce, but the lift, then trying to take DUCK! up on top or over the screws. It looked helpless. Kind of adorably so.

And Quantum could actually lift it enough to get them onto the top of the screws. After causing a fire to something inside DUCK!, probably one of the four drive motors, which is part of what makes it so hard to kill—each wheel has its independent system, as does the weapon. Which is why it looked like the screws might be what would have to do it, except they reversed and spat DUCK! back out to get bitten one more time as time ticked away. Chris Rose counted five, but I counted six or seven pierces into that top armor. Props to DUCK! for surviving that onslaught but that would be one of the easier decisions this episode the judges would make (hint hint). Quantum wins by unanimous decision and goes to 2-2. As does DUCK!, but to be honest, its 2-2 isn’t as impressive considering one of those wins was thanks to the floor saving it so it’s more likely to be outside looking in in my eyes, but it’s cute and a fan favorite so that should get it into a Last Chance Rumble scenario to right last season’s wrongs.

Blacksmith vs. Captain Shrederator
Blacksmith: 1-2 (L, JD 3-0 in 2:16 vs. Quantum; W, JD 2-1 vs. Kraken; L, JD 2-1 vs. SawBlaze)
Captain Shrederator: 0-3 (L, KO 1:49 vs. Wan Hoo; L, KO 1:10 vs. Witch Doctor; L, KO 1:18  vs. Black Dragon–Desperado QF)

Ah yes, arguably the second-sturdiest bot vs. the very glassy cannon and the cannon hasn’t shown that it’s powerful enough to warrant the glassiness. Either way this might be the first fight that Blacksmith might actually be favored in that isn’t Al Kindle’s Big Time Hammer©®™£ against two middleweights. Hell, a win here would be a very representative 2-2, and a whole lot of people on the interwebs thought Blacksmith should have won the fight against SawBlaze it could be 2-1 and looking at a shot at a tournament spot. It probably wouldn’t have gotten this fight though.

It has not been the greatest season for the Naves. The last-minute replacement for we think Chomp, Captain Shrederator is basically the same bot from last year, since Team Logicom was working on Shrederator Tiger Claw for King of Bots. Except now they have two teeth bolted upwards to take on the hammer! It’s a dehammerator! Okay, name needs some work. Blacksmith has on its heavy wedge instead of the forks, respecting Shrederator’s power. I mean we’ve seen that it has some power considering it did do damage to Wan Hoo. For the Captain it’ll be a big question if it can just survive the three minutes. And Blacksmith will go the three minutes. We know that.

Shrederator, as you’d expect, had the first couple hits, hitting Blacksmith the right way to send it spinning multiple times. And there was only minor hockey pucking and pinging back into the wall! So things were going kinda to plan. Blacksmith’s hammer wasn’t going to fire against a spinning shell, because that would be an easy way to lose it. Until Shrederator stopped spinning. (Damn it, not again, someone probably thought.) And Blacksmith brought the hammer down. It didn’t have much pop (Al Kindle noted that the weapon speed controller had an issue) but it could still come down and make life difficult, because a round robot like Captain Shrederator is not going to win a pushing battle against Blacksmith. So clampbot Blacksmith took Shrederator to the pulverizer for twice the hammering. Yes, phrasing. And the screws, and the walls, and anywhere else to push the spinless Shrederator around, get some points with the hammer, repeat.

Repeat until Shrederator drove up the wedge enough that the hammer in the back position worked as a lifter a la the Kraken fight and flipped Shrederator over onto the screws, which couldn’t flip Shrederator back over. It’s a dark day…

Blacksmith wins by KO in 2:55 and goes to 2-2. For Captain Shrederator, 0-4, 4 losses by KO.

Bombshell vs. Lock Jaw
Bombshell: 0-3 (L, KO 0:52 vs. DUCK!; L, KO 0:57 vs. RotatoR; L, KO 1:03 vs. Cobalt)
Lock Jaw: 2-1 (L, KO 0:48 vs. Tombstone; W, KO 1:19 vs. Quantum; W, JD 3-0 vs. DUCK!)

We go from one 0-3 bot trying to avoid the ignominy to another. Bombshell still can’t get out of its own way, hasn’t won a fight outside of the tournament bracket ever (remember, it was a wild card during its Season 2 run after being roasted by Complete Control), and will not get saved by the Last Chance Rumble this time around. Or it will and there will be rioting on the robot combat corners of the Internet we haven’t seen since last week with the whole YouTube pinging videos for animal cruelty thing. But Boat Mode is back and they say the invertibility issues have been solved.

For some reason it’s Round 3 between these bots after Lock Jaw won both the fight card match and the quarterfinal fight between them last year. Lock Jaw has everything to lose, as it should be in from a win putting it at 3-1 with the only loss to Tombstone, but 2-2 and a loss to Bombshell would probably prove fatal for Donald Hutson’s hopes to get back on top of the mountain.

Lock Jaw went wide, but it didn’t work. There were some drive issues from the get-go, either by floor or by electronics, and it immediately cost them because Bombshell got maybe its first clear advantageous hit of the season hitting Lock Jaw by the rear right. And Lock-Jaw was struggling. But so was Bombshell, who after a weapon to weapon shot on Lock Jaw was having its own drive difficulties. Namely, it was driving in reverse as if forward gear was stuck. But Lock-Jaw was smoking, and both bots were in some peril.

The smoke subsided and Lock-Jaw got just enough to get one more hit on Bombshell which flipped, the disk hit the floor and popped Bombshell back onto its wheels. But it wasn’t moving and that is a slight issue as it started to get counted out. And in the nick of time too for Lock Jaw, as the smoke came back. Lock Jaw wins by KO in 1:34 and moves to 3-1, but there’s work to be done in the pits. Bombshell drops to that same 0-4 with all four losses by KO as Captain Shrederator.

Tombstone vs. Gruff
Tombstone: 2-1 (W, KO 0:48 vs. Lock Jaw; W, KO 1:42 vs. SawBlaze; L, KO 2:59 vs. RotatoR)
Gruff: 1-2 (W, JD 3-0-0 vs. Gemini and Marvin; L, JD 2-1 vs. Copperhead; L, KO 2:59 vs. End Game–Desperado QF)

Well this screams “trap fight,” doesn’t it? For Tombstone it’s another fight against a tenacious wedge, after basically everything was written off in the RotatoR fight. According to Ray Billings the electronics short of the drive motors were totaled, and because everything had to be cleaned up and redone and Tombstone actually shortens from the force of its hits nothing fit right when they put it back together, so it’s on a backup frame. It’s essentially a brand new Tombstone, rebuilt in a day or so. A grueling day, where it’s possible to make silly mistakes and then—so yes, Ray is worried. What happens in the case of a 2-2 Tombstone?

Meanwhile, Gruff is coming off a tough loss to End Game where they got screwed by not the floor, but the killsaws! Which I’m surprised didn’t come up and push them out, damn algorithm. And its loss to Copperhead was close. And through it, yes, the forks have been beaten up but it is one tough bot. Remember, I mentioned they finished 3rd at RoboGames 2018: The Last RoboGame (working title). Last Rites didn’t compete in 2018 but Gruff did beat Rick Russ’s Swamp Thing, so call it a rare moment where it’s Hardcore Robotics looking for revenge. Also, Faruq gets points for Tombstone’s Ezekiel 25:17 line. So a point for the Raytheists (yes, that’s the “fanclub’s” name).

Did Gruff go for a box rush? Of course it did, you have to, especially if you have that kind of tough bot. So Tombstone went somersaulting again, but held up and kept spinning. It did take out a killsaw port, so sorry about your floor again, but Gruff gets revenge on the killsaws for last time! But it meant that Gruff could try and continue to press, forks up to try and clamp down on Tombstone and use the BattleBox to its advantage, provided that at the end of the three minutes there’s a BattleBox left. It’s been taking a beating.

Not taking an extensive beating? Gruff actually, using that clamp to work and push. Tombstone was getting its hits in, spinning away and turning on a dime with that Ray Billings strategy, but Gruff forged on ahead, keeping Tombstone from getting a lengthy run of shots, partially because Tombstone sent itself towards the screws, where it escaped, but was inverted. Which isn’t the worst thing for Tombstone in a fight like this, where the higher bar height can hit closer to the forks and possibly hit a weak spot. That’s how it beat BETA after all, and that fight was a bit similar to this one. The damage was a little bit more visible for Gruff since its patented flamethrower was toast and the forks were bent, but not broken as late in the fight it finally got a lift on Tombstone, hooking it between the forks, a huge show. And Tombstone responded in kind with a couple more hits, but the buzzer sounded and if you asked me who won, I was seriously not sure. Gruff was stuck on a screw that also made it look like it was having drive issues at the end.

It went to the judges, who all went 4-3, meaning it was surprisingly unanimous… for Tombstone. That is surprising. Not that Tombstone won. If you think Tombstone won, I’m not gonna argue it. If you think Gruff won, I’m not gonna argue it either, it was a coin flip if you ask me. My own card shows that, and just to double-check I rewatched the fight. I’d like to see your scoring, so I invite everyone to watch the fight. You can find it. Use Rule 7.6.1 of the BattleBots Tournament Rules to help with your points allocation if you so choose.

Damage is simple, 3-0 for Tombstone—destroyed flamethrower and bent primary weapon, meanwhile Tombstone showed no ill effects in either drive or weapon function from the recoil, although apparently one of the batteries was starting to swell and it’s a good thing the fight wasn’t 3:30.
Control, I had 2-0 Gruff. It was using the arena effectively and controlled the pace of the fight.
Aggression I was going back and forth between it being 1-1 and 2-0 Gruff. In my mind Gruff was more of the aggressor, which the control stat shows. There looked like some moments where Tombstone had its back turned to Gruff but that looked like a strategic move for the spin move. In the last minute and change Tombstone picked it up. So I’m gonna say 1-1.

Derek Young had the points like I had it, and at least one of the other judges had the control and aggression flipped from that, with aggression 2-0 Gruff and control split 1-1. But if you gave all four to Gruff I’d get it, as they get screwed yet again falling to 1-3. Tombstone is 3-1 by the skin of its bar, but that will definitely get it into the tournament on account of it’s motherfucking Tombstone.

This is a Fight of the Year nominee. Just going to say it now. I think a 5-3-3 or 7-5-5 scoring that BattleBots is thinking of going to in the future still goes to Tombstone, since in a 5-3-3 they’d probably get 4-1-1, or 6-5 Tombstone, and in a 7-5-5 I’d go 5 (or 6)-2-2, so minimum of 9-8. Close, but it would be more the testament of Tombstone not breaking apart this time as it did against RotatoR.

End Game vs. Cobalt
End Game: 1-3 (L, KO 1:35 vs. DeathRoll; L, KO 2:01 vs. Ribbot; W, KO 2:59 vs. Gruff–Desperado QF; L, KO 2:36 vs. Minotaur–Desperado SF)
Cobalt: 2-1 (W, KO 1:08 vs. SubZero; L, KO 2:18 vs. DUCK!; W, KO 1:03 vs. Bombshell)

A battle of Chinese champions, because Quantum was already fighting DUCK!. End Game’s older brother Death Toll won the Fighting My Bots! championship in 2018, beating Diotoir, which still sounds crazy on account of Sgt. Bash wasn’t there to set it on fire again. Meanwhile, Tungsten was Team Carbide’s This is Fighting Robots winner, although due to reasons did not get a chance to win the true King of Bots title.

We totally should’ve gotten Quantum vs. Cobalt, but we get this instead.

Cobalt’s the one with something to lose here, since a 3-1 Cobalt is a shoo-in, but a 2-2 not so much. Blame the floor and all. To combat the floor, which Cobalt has gotten stuck on twice (including the Bombshell fight to an extent), Cobalt has slightly larger wheels which could change its angles. Especially because the wedge had to be redone due to it taking damage in that Bombshell fight. End Game has its hinged wedgelets back on and it’ll be a battle of which wedge is supreme at the beginning.

It was End Game, except for it gyroing here and there. The hinge got under the magnet-assisted, and then it definitely did after End Game sheared Cobalt’s front wedgelet off and into the ceiling. (Nightmare approves of this near breach.) And now Cobalt was gyroing too, and having what looked like traction problems from those new tires. With the two bots dancing about from the gyroscopic force of their weapons it became a bit of a cat and mouse game and we were all waiting to see if anyone would get caught.

Well we finally got something, as End Game caught Cobalt and sent it off the Lexan 8 feet high. And for an added bonus, got a second hit flipping the British bot over and flipping by projections upside-down. And that’s all she wrote, End Game wins by KO in 1:42. I think a 2-3 End Game is still well on the outside looking in, but it’s definitely in much better shape now than it was earlier in the season. As for Cobalt it’s 2-2, but probably the best of the 2-2 bots by way of the floor loss. Depends on how many 3-1 bots there are.

Ribbot vs. SawBlaze
Ribbot: 2-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. Kraken; W, KO 2:01 vs. End Game; W, 2:26 vs. Falcon)
SawBlaze: 2-1 (W, JD 3-0 vs. RotatoR; L, KO 1:42 vs. Tombstone; W, JD 2-1 vs. Blacksmith)

We didn’t get SawBlaze vs. Valkyrie, which would be this year’s Battle of MIT or at least Boston since Overhaul and Brutus aren’t competing, but failing that we get a Battle of Massachusetts when Team WPI, from WPI, and Ribbot take on SawBlaze and, uh, Team SawBlaze. Well, thanks for making it easier Jamison. Speaking of, when they filmed this fight it was Jamison Go, and Chris and Kenny were bribing him with a victory cupcake. As in, win the fight and get the cupcake.

Ribbot has new black and green foam (power move!) and once again its vertical spinner configuration. So between the two notable vertical/horizontal interchangeable bots (Bombshell and Ribbot) we have seen eight combined fights with the vertical config and zero with the horizontal. So that tells you where everyone stands there. Meanwhile SawBlaze has its signature forks for the vertical spinner.

Ribbot was a perfect fit for SawBlaze as they scooped the frog bot from the start, over and over again. Maybe to prevent the foam from destroying the saw SawBlaze just went for box rushes, which I think is unfortunate. Even if the saw didn’t spin the opportunity for roasting the frog and going full Diotoir was right there. (It’s always Diotoir that you think of. YouTube Diotoir.) But the rushes meant that the foam started to fall off, revealing the extremely normal boxy-looking robot below.

SawBlaze kept slamming, and hammering with that saw, which wasn’t spinning, but it wasn’t mattering too much because the battering had broken Ribbot’s front forks and because of all that they were basically driving, or dancing, on one wheel. So SawBlaze continued, taking off a tire from a slam, sending Ribbot to two different pulverizers and a killsaw, and the wall, because. Mercifully the buzzer sounded, because Ribbot was in poor shape but still technically alive. This judges’ decision was not as difficult as Tombstone–Gruff. SawBlaze wins by unanimous decision and goes to 3-1, Jamison Go gets his cupcake (well, half, because Chris had some which I’m assuming he cut), and Kenny Florian tried to sing “Happy Birthday.” A bit pitchy, dawg.

SawBlaze is pretty much definitely in. Ribbot is 2-2 and in that amorphous blob.

Main Event: RotatoR vs. DeathRoll
RotatoR: 2-1 (L, JD 3-0 vs. SawBlaze; W, KO 0:57 vs. Bombshell; W, KO 2:59 vs. Tombstone)
DeathRoll: 3-0 (W, KO 1:35 vs. End Game; W, KO 0:53 vs. Foxtrot; W, KO 1:19 vs. Quantum)

RotatoR being 2-1 is not a surprise. RotatoR being 2-1 with a win over Tombstone is, and Rotator being 2-1 without once actually going into its twin spinner configuration that it’s named for is extremely surprising. Because you’d think after four fights we would’ve seen in once. Because we don’t see it in this one, instead going with the horizontal bar on the lower weapon and the forks that we saw earlier in the season on the upper portion.

DeathRoll being 3-0 is a surprise, as is a 3-0 DeathRoll with 3 KOs, including a little bit of KoB chest-puffery. See, captain Steven Martin had a robot in Season 1 of King of Bots and in This is Fighting Robots called Great White, a robot similar to DeathRoll (yes, now one connected word according to the site) except great white-themed instead of crocodile-themed. Great White made the quarterfinals of the KoB competition before losing to drum spinner Chiyung Jinlun. The reason it lost, however, was a rule infraction. Each team had a team-operated floor flipper which they could use after 90 seconds had elapsed in the fight. Great White used the flipper on their opponent 77 seconds into the fight (so 13 seconds too early, thanks math) and as a result had points deducted which cost them the fight. That, in my eyes, is a failure of the arena builder, who should have made it so that the floor flippers would not be operational until 90 seconds in the fight. It’s obviously possible, since the killsaws aren’t activated until the last minute.

Back to BattleBots, both bots have damage that they’ve needed to work on. In RotatoR’s case, it’s frame and motor hub damage, both from that opening test failure and the Tombstone fight, because those were some shots until Tombstone lit itself on fire. Meanwhile, DeathRoll had a crack somewhere in the frame, probably from the End Game fight, so it had extra armor up front because that’s bad and all.

Victor Soto, respecting the power of DeathRoll’s spinning australium Australian-shaped disk, strategized for a box rush. Understandable. It also did not work at all, because RotatoR went right up Death Roll and landed the other way around, making the undercutter an overcutter, losing leverage. And then after another hit it lost half of the overcutter, with the killer croc looking for the other half.

Obviously yes, the other half came off, and shards of metal were coming off of RotatoR. Not only that but after the first hit it was spinning into the path of DeathRoll’s disk and taking more hits. I am a little surprised it was more spins and somersaults, rather than flips and great heights. And RotatoR was still keeping itself mobile and in the fight, even if it had to take the DUCK! approach of “let it wail until it dies.”

It almost worked since DeathRoll flipped itself over from a hit, but the beefy arm did what Strong Bad would have intended it to do and self-righted the bot to keep it up. So this didn’t seem like it was going to be a Skorpios vs. Icewave fight. It was not. DeathRoll wins by unanimous decision and becomes the first bot to go 4-0. Yeah, I know. RotatoR goes to 2-2, but its losses are to SawBlaze and DeathRoll and it has a win against Tombstone. So that’ll count for some things. It’ll be interesting.

So far for next week we know we will get Shatter! vs. Minotaur and what looks like Witch Doctor vs. Gigabyte. Bronco is also supposedly fight HUGE, which does not sound like a good matchup for the already desperate flipper, which also has The Flipper Fight with Hydra planned (that’s supposed to be the Episode 13 main event).

Due to time and space constraints (this is already an uncomfortable number of words), next week we’ll delve a little bit deeper into the contenders and try and see if we can sort some of this out. So, see you next week!