#Battlebots Season 6 Episode 1 Review (TV Series, 2022)
Editorial note: these Battlebots reviews will feature spoilers.
I’ve loved Battlebots and combat robotics since Comedy Central started airing the original Battlebots series in 2000. I collected all the original toys, joined the official message boards, and even competed in local events with a few different robots. I should have at least an antweight if not a beetleweight competing by the end of the year. A new antweight league just started up by me and the NHRL (Norwalk Havoc Robot League) beetleweight tournaments are a short drive away. This is fun for me.
The series shift to Discovery channel (after two seasons on ABC) is the best thing to happen to the show. The production values are high, the competition is treated seriously, and the focus on just the heavyweight division allows for clearer narratives to be built from the tournament.
If you’re not familiar, Battlebots is a robot combat competition. Teams from all around the world build 250lb robots with active weapons. Each fight is three minutes long, but the only way to guarantee a win is to knockout your opponent. The teams participate in a play-in season, leading to a Top 32 single elimination tournament. Each robot gets three to four fights to show what they can do, and the out rounds are determined by record and potential.
The first fight of the 2022 season is Sawblaze, a robot with a hammer saw—a saw on a mechanical arm, against Minotaur, a drum spinner. These are both excellent robots with great records. The drivers are among the strongest in the field. Sawblaze has a dustpan design, catching robots in the front forks so they can line up their hammer saw shots. Minotaur is fast and strong with great maneuverability. That spinning drum can easily knock a robot out with one shot if it hits the right spot.
This fight is particularly explosive, with both robots taking huge hits from each other. It’s clear why this fight opened up the season. The new Upper Deck hazard—a raised platform that stands as the new out of arena area—plays a major part in the battle. The Pulverizers—giant hammers at each corner controlled by the competitors—are also used quite a bit. Minotaur flips Sawblaze early on and even breaks Sawblaze’s weapon chain, but Sawblaze makes great use of the Upper Deck and Screws—giant spinning screws that can push robots up onto the Upper Deck—and causes Minotaur to catch fire.
The fight goes to a judges’ decision with Sawblaze winning 3-0. Both robots did great, but Sawblaze took control once Minotaur caught fire.
The judges are very qualified for their spots. Derek Young, Lisa Winter, and Jason Bardis have all competed in Battlebots and other tournaments for years, consistently bringing their robots to the quarterfinals or higher in their preferred weight class. The judges have the final say if a fight lasts the full three minutes, and they do a consistent job following the rules.
The second fight is Uppercut, an asymmetrical vertical spinner with a punching theme, versus Gigabyte, a full body spinner. Vertical versus horizontal spinner fights are always going to be an interesting battle of physics. They come down to the stability of the design. Which robot’s weapon can survive the first big impact against perpendicular forces? Which spinner has the right angle to hit the other robot’s weak spot? How the fight goes one time is not necessarily how it will go a second time, especially when Battlebots allows the robots to be adjusted and modified based on opponents and constantly repaired and changed throughout the tournament.
This time, Uppercut comes out on top. Gigabyte looks so much sturdier than previous seasons, with the self-righting arm on top working efficiently and the frame staying closer to the ground on impact. Unfortunately, Gigabyte gets trapped in the corner by the new Upper Deck and doesn’t have the space to get up to speed. Uppercut uses the new arena hazard to its advantage and stops Gigabyte from moving before the clock runs out.
The third fight brings us the first new robot of season 6. Switchback features a pretty remarkable design for a drum spinner. The variable drum can be rotated 180 degrees across the top of the robot to adjust its height and angle for different opponents. It can also attack from above like the more popular hammer saw designs. I’m excited to see how this team adapts to the realities of the arena as the season goes on. If the arm is sturdy enough to survive impacts from the other robots, this weapon could be bad news for its opponents.
Switchback faces Gruff, a lifter/control bot with a flamethrower. Gruff also has a very adaptable design that’s been tested in two previous runs on the Discovery Channel seasons. The goal for them is durability. Keep pushing the other robot around the arena, hitting it with flames and waiting for the opponent to fall apart or stop moving.
Both robots perform well in this fight. Switchback’s drum spins up fast and kicks up a lot of sparks against Gruff. Gruff has a faster drive train and easily moves around to the sides and back of Switchback for control. Ultimately, Switchback is unable to self-right after some nasty blows from the Pulverizer straight to the weapon arm while being controlled by Gruff. I will not be surprised to see both of these robots do well in the tournament. Gruff is reliable, fast, and has great driving. Switchback’s precision with that drum on a moving arm and aggression is going to be a challenge for its opponents to face.
Next up is my most anticipated fight of the night. I love it when the long-running veterans go head to head in the new Battlebots. Captain Shrederator versus Tombstone fits that nicely. Both Brian Nave and Ray Billings have been competing with iterations of these robots since the early days of Battlebots. Captain Shrederator is a low profile full body spinner and Tombstone is the deadliest horizontal spinner in the tournament. Their fights are always fun to watch as their matches usually end in knockouts. These are win or lose robots, rarely judges’ decision robots.
The fight delivers exactly that. The two spinners both get up to full speed and start exchanging blows. Tombstone actually loses a tooth on its blade in an early impact, effecting its balance. Shrederator stops spinning entirely, but Tombstone catches on fire and stops spinning soon after. Tombstone stops moving about halfway through the match, giving the win to Captain Shrederator.
Season 6 is going to see the return of some fan favorite bots who didn’t make it to the tournament last season. Al Kindle and Gary Gin return with Blacksmith and Free Shipping. These two builders have also been competing since the early days of Battlebots and aren’t afraid to try out new ideas. Blacksmith, the flaming hammer bot, is now Blacksmith, a power hammer robot—essentially a hammer saw with flames. Free Shipping is still a flaming control bot with a forklift-style lifter, but is returning for a third time with a third new body design.
This is a fun fight to watch. Blacksmith and Free Shipping are very reliable robots, so it’s not a surprise that they last the full three minutes in the match. Both teams are aggressive, unafraid to run into each other head on and lead with their weapons. Blacksmith gets in some great hits with their power saw and Free Shipping gets some great flips in with their lifter. If you want to talk about aggression, both robots come out with their flames fully blazing and use up their fuel within the first minute of the fight.
The fight goes to the judges’ decision and Blacksmith lands on top. The glimpse we got shows a 6-5 decision on each scorecard for Blacksmith. I agree that Blacksmith won for the simple reason that Battlebots’ rules favor damage and aggression from an active weapon. Free Shipping lost control of their lifter before the end of the fight, but Blacksmith could use their power hammer the entire match even if the saw stopped spinning.
Let Nelly the Ellybot be great. Nelly for S7.
The next fight sees the return of Deep Six, the glass cannon of Battlebots. This is a giant vertical spinner that has a stabilizing frame around it. The blade is four feet long and can easily knockout another robot with the right hit. It can also send itself careening around the arena or cause itself to stop working. Deep Six does not have the greatest maneuverability, but it doesn’t need to if the weapon gets up to speed and lands the hit. In its fight against Nelly the Ellybot (justice for Nelly!) in season 4, it broke a light and ripped off Nelly’s secondary weapon before dying in a simultaneous KO when Nelly rammed into it; Deep Six still won a judge’s decision because of the damage it delivered in two hits.
Side bar: if you want to see more content from Nelly the Ellybot creator Sarah Maylan, you can watch her beetlweight tournament YouTube series Bugglebots. It’s so much fun and you might recognize a few competitors from Battlebots and Robot Wars along the way.
Deep Six is facing Pain Train, a drum spinner. I’m glad that Battlebots acknowledged how successful Pain Train captain Evan Arias is in the 3lb beetleweight division. I follow the NHRL tournaments, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, and Arias’ bots consistently make it to the final stretch of tournaments that start at 9AM and end past midnight. Quite a few Battlebots builders bring their smaller weight class robots to this series of tournaments held every other month leading up to an invitation-only finals in December. These include Jamison Go of Sawblaze, Bunny Sauriel of Malice, Joe Fabiana of Smee, Brandon Zalinsky of P1, and seemingly the entire Yankauskas family from Slapbox each competing with their own robots, among many others. The point here is Battlebots is the most visible tournament in the United States, not the only tournament, and many of these competitors dominate weight classes ranging from 150 gram fairyweights to the 250lb heavyweights outside of televised robot combat.
The Deep Six versus Pain Train fight is quick but extremely memorable. The first contact breaks off part of Pain Train’s wheel, limiting its mobility and effecting its balance with the gyroscopic forces of the powerful spinning drum. The second contact sends Deep Six flying into the screws. Deep Six recovers and strips the top armor off of Pain Train before sending it flying into the screws and setting it on fire. Deep Six wins in a knockout and proves that the glass cannon of Battlebots is more reliable than ever before.
The final battle of the episode is Hydra, a flipper, versus End Game, a vertical spinner and the reigning champion. Both of these robots can be extremely dangerous. Forget about the weapons. These two teams know how to change their strategy to best handle their opponents and are excellent drivers. The robots in Battlebots are getting powerful enough that it seems inevitable that one of these bots is going to be launched into the ceiling of the arena this season. Hydra is one of the flippers powerful enough to do it.
Hydra versus End Game is an interesting fight to discuss. Something is wrong with Hydra right away. It starts smoking as soon as the match begins. It gets a great flip on End Game on its first try, but the flipper arm gets stuck in the upright position. If Hydra was fully functional, it had the advantage here. End Game added on series of long, flexible forks to keep Hydra away, but the forks stop its weapon from reaching most of Hydra’s frame. They find the right angle about halfway through the match and win by knockout.
Battlebots is going to include a bonus fight each week on their YouTube channel and the paid Facebook group. If you’re a member already, you can watch Deadlift versus Jackpot. The fight will be available on the Battlebots YouTube channel on Sunday.
I’m excited for the sixth season of Battlebots and look forward to walking you through the whole tournament.
Battlebots premieres new episodes at 8PM EST on Thursdays Nights on Discovery Channel. Discovery+ releases the episodes earlier in the day.
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