Robot Wars (TV series)/Characters

Sir Killalot

 * The Big Bad: Until Mr. Psycho's arrival.
 * Blood Knight: Take a look at him, he's like some cybernetically revived evil knight.
 * Crush! Kill! Destroy!: Ironic, considering his claw was fashioned from the "Jaws of Life", used to cut people free from wreckages.
 * Humiliation Conga: Both the giver and taker of this trope, shared with the other House Robots.
 * Jousting Lance: Used to pick up robots and drop them in the Pit.
 * The Juggernaut
 * Knight in Shining Armour: With glowing red eyes and a crushing claw.
 * Mighty Glacier: Was until The Sixth Wars the heaviest House Robot, clocking in at 520 Kilos. He was also very slow too, at just 5mph.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast
 * Red Baron: The Undisputed Titan of Mechanizaed Warfare.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning
 * Shout-Out: To Sir Lancelot of the King Arthur legends.
 * Tin Tyrant
 * Took a Level in Badass: When Sir Killalot was brought back in 2016 for the reboot, he was more heavily armoured, weighed 230kg more than he did a decade ago, and his top speed was doubled. He has the weight of Mr. Psycho, with the speed of Tornado.

Dead Metal

 * Awesome but Impractical: The saw was originally on a ferocious-looking swinging arm, but didn't actually work. In series 3 it was revamped so it did work, and the saw mechanism was now far more compact.
 * Frankenstein's Monster: Chris Reynolds, who built the original House Robots, suggested Dead Metal was created when a bunch of junk parts came to life and fused together.
 * Sword Sparks: Saw sparks, more accurately
 * Scary Scorpions

Shunt

 * An Axe to Grind
 * The Brute
 * Construction Is Awesome
 * Lightning Bruiser: At first. When the weight limit was increased to 100kg, Shunt lost a lot of his pushing power. They fixed this by amping the power of his axe Up to Eleven. He still had a great deal of power for his size, despite being the smallest house robot. Even after he was rebuild for the revival in 2016, he remained the lightest of the House Robots weighing in at a still burly 327kg. He also reaches speeds of 11mph, which is roughly the same top speed as Terrorhurtz.
 * Ramming Always Works
 * Ship Tease: Jonathan Pearce implied that Shunt and Matilda might of been intimate.

Matilda

 * Chainsaw Good: In the first 2 wars, that is. Afterward, with more robots gaining thicker armour, Matilda's chainsaw became useless. It was replaced in series 5 with a 27kg Flywheel. It was much more destructive.
 * The Chew Toy: Matilda was the first house robot to be flipped (by Recyclops in Series 1), may have been flipped or otherwise attacked by competitors more than any other house robot, and on one spectacular occasion, literally ended up as a chew toy for Razer.
 * The Dark Chick
 * Red Baron: The Matriarch of Mayhem.
 * Took a Level in Badass / Everything's Better with Spinning: The aforementioned flywheel.
 * Even more so in 2016, Matilda can now reach 14mph top speeds, is 3 time heavier at 350kg, while her flywheel bottom weighs 35kg and is made from HARDOX, and her tusks (now the whole head) operate with 800psi of lift.

Sgt. Bash

 * Drill Sergeant Nasty
 * Kill It with Fire
 * Military Mashup Machine

Mr. Psycho

 * Drop the Hammer: Had possibly the biggest one in robot combat.
 * Expy: Meant to be an Expy of Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist.
 * Mighty Glacier: Was more than 200 Kilograms heavier than Killalot. Peculiarly, Psycho was actually faster.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast
 * Off with His Head: In one series 7 battle, Psycho goes into combat with his fibreglass head obviously not attached properly (it is visibly wobbling). Eventually it falls off, and Hilarity Ensues.

Growler

 * Angry Guard Dog
 * Canine Companion: To Mr. Psycho
 * Expy: Of Bill Sykes' dog Bullseye.
 * Lightning Bruiser: one of the heaviest and fastest house robots.

Cassius Chrome

 * Drunken Boxing: His movements and rapid punches make it look like he is trying out this trope.
 * Good Old Fisticuffs

Refbot

 * Combat Referee
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin

Roadblock (Series 1 Champion, Series 2 3rd Place, Series 3 Semi-Finalist)

 * Determinator: Effortlessly cleared the gauntlet, defeated a house robot (albeit in a suicide attempt), and easily won both it's battles to reach the grand final. Upon getting there, it purged the arena, defeating all but 2 of the 5 opponents (who immobilised each other). All this while being a simple wedge with a top speed of 5 miles per hour.
 * Ramming Always Works: Won it's battles through pushing power and tipping over others with it's wedge, and was still a force to be reckoned with in the Third Wars, where it reached the second round of the semi finals (round 5 out of 7).
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The team actually entered series 3 with "The Beast of Bodmin", which was identical except for the paintjob, moving eyes and the addition of a flipping tusk.
 * Weak but Skilled: Not exactly weak, per se, but had inferior weaponry to a lot of other robots in series 3 (as Beast Of Bodmin) and still mopped the floor with them.

Panic Attack (Series 2 Champion, Series 3, 4, 5 Semi-Finalist)

 * Boring but Practical: In series 2, it was a box with ineffective lifting forks. It curbstomped most of it's foes through pushing power and Kim Davies's driving skill.
 * Dark Horse Victory: In series 2, it was expected for Cassius to fight Mortis in the grand final in a rematch from series 1 (which Recyclopse, Cassius's predecessor had won). Panic Attack beat both of them (Mortis in the semis's, Cassius in the grand final).
 * Weak but Skilled: See Boring But Practical.

Chaos 2 (Series 3 & 4 Champion, Series 5 Semi-Finalist)

 * The Ace: Defeated nearly every opponent it faced in series 3 and 4 almost effortlessly, and again for much of Series 5, before falling to Bigger Brother.
 * Awesome but Practical: Could throw 250 kilos with it's flipper, was the only robot in the shows run to retain the title, and innovated the "Out Of The Arena" flip.
 * Can't Catch Up: Because George Francis was self-employed at the time, he didn't have the time or money to make the necessary upgrades to Chaos 2; as a result, the robot started to become obsolete, and had a much more difficult time dealing with lesser opposition, while everyone else was taking advantage of the new technology and rule changes.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: Chaos 2's last appearance in the main competition saw it flipped it out of the arena by newcomer Dantomkia.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Zipped around at 20mph and threw robots straight over the wall.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast

Razer (Series 5 Champion, Series 6 Runner-Up, 2 time World Champion)

 * Awesome but Practical: Razer was incredibly easy on the eyes, and crushed a lot of it's foes with 9 tonnes of squeezability, winning pretty much every title it was eligible for.
 * Dark Horse Victory: Sort of. In Series 2 through 4, it was a popular competitor and had won many side competitions, but was prey to mechanical issues and had never got beyond the heat final. It was expected to repeat this pattern in Series 5, but it went on to destroy all foes easily and become the champion.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: Lost in Series 3 to the laughable Aggrobot, as its self-righting mechanism accidentally activated whilst it was on its wheels and got jammed, leaving all four wheels off the arena floor.
 * Lightning Bruiser
 * Meaningful Name: Jonathan Pearce thought Razer was named after then West Ham footballer Neil "Razor" Ruddock. The spelling should've tipped him off that this was not the case. Razer's name is simply an extension of the word Raze.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: And Raze it did.

Tornado (Series 4 Semi-Finalist, Series 6 Champion, Series 7 Third Place, 2 time Challenge Belt Champion)

 * Boring but Practical: YMMV, but many people feel this way, as it generally won by ramming others into submission.
 * Dark Horse Victory: In Series 6. To much controversy.
 * Jack of All Stats (Not Lightning Bruiser. At 10 MPH its speed is around average, but it is notable for having interchangable weapons.)
 * Ramming Always Works: Although many people consider Tornado boring for this reason, it was an undeniably effective attack strategy. It took Chaos 2 to stop Tornado in Series 4 (although Tornado would later defeat Chaos 2), and Razer in the 2nd World Championship. It lost out in Series 7 to a superior rammer, Storm 2.

Typhoon 2 (Series 7 Champion)

 * Everything's Better with Spinning: A very destructive full body spinner.
 * Executive Meddling: How it won the title, as the executives hated runner up Storm 2 (A hard hitting, high impact rambot). Why? They thought Storm 2 was boring. Nearly everyone except the Typhoon team themselves (and the rest of their Air Cadets detachment) consider Storm 2 to be the true champion of series 7, and the crowd (except the Air Cadets) was so unhappy that Storm 2 lost that they unanimously booed the house down, causing the executives to edit in cheers.

Apollo
(Series 8 champion, Wildcard in Series 9, 2nd in Series 10's 10 Robot Rumble)


 * Determinator: The second time it faced Carbide in Series 8, Apollo dug in deep to withstand everything Carbide threw at it, with the bar spinner eventually grinding to a halt. Even after its own weapon was damaged, Apollo kept flipping and pushing Carbide around the arena and into House Robots until the time elapsed. The aggression and control were more than enough to crown Apollo the first Robot Wars champions since 2004.
 * Meaningful Name: Named after the space shuttle of the same name, and the team refer to the flipper as a "launcher" to tie in the theme of the famous space shuttle.
 * One-Hit Wonder: Series 8 was Apollo's only impressive performance, after which it could not replicate the success. It is the only former champion to not win a heat final after winning the title.

Carbide
(Series 9 Champion, Runner-Up in Series 8 & 10)


 * Achille's Heel: Carbide's biggest flaw is reliability; if its opponent can weather the blows this robot delivers, Carbide will either break down, or lose its weapon. This contributed to its 3 losses in Series 8; against Terrorhurtz, Carbide lost drive, and against TR2 and Apollo, both shrugged off hits until the blade stopped working. In Series 9, these issues were ironed out, allowing it to smash everything in its path, and claim the title.
 * In Series 10 however, not only did the reliability issues creep back in, but another weakness emerged: the drive chain powering Carbide's weapon is vulnerable to precise attacks from long reaching weapons. As Nuts 2 demonstrated, striking the drive chain will disable Carbide's one method of attacking.
 * And Now for Something Completely Different: Sam Smith is no stranger to Robot Wars; he previously entered the original series with the Tiberius series of robots, which bare no resemblance to Carbide whatsoever.
 * Crippling Overspecialization: Carbide's main source of damage and attack power is in the 2,500rpm bar spinner at the front. If that gets disabled for whatever reason, then Carbide will have no other means of doing serious damage, and it doesn't exactly have great pushing power, so that won't work either. 3 of its 5 losses are a result of its weapon being disabled.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Dealt one these to almost every single opponent it faced; it was actually on the receiving end of one in its second battle, where Terrorhurtz manhandled it like it was nobody's business. It was Carbide's only defeat by knockout.
 * The Dreaded: Almost everyone is afraid to face this beast of a machine, especially after its flawless climb on the top in Series 9.
 * Flawless Victory: Carbide won every single fight it entered in Series 9 by straight-up knockout. It became the first robot since Chaos 2 way back in the 3rd Wars to win the championship without requiring a judges' decision, and the third overall to do so, after Panic Attack and Chaos 2. Carbide also carries the unbeatable record of 10 victories in a single championship.
 * Fourth is Death: Managed to cleanly defeat Eruption on three consecutive attempts; Carbide couldn't beat them a fourth time though.
 * The Hell Is That Noise?: The infamous "Death Hum" of the 2,500rpm bar spinner. When you heard that sound, prepare for a world of hurt!

Firestorm (Previously entered Groundhog in Series 2)
(Grand Finalist Series 3, 5 and 6, Semi-Finalist Series 4 and 7; Seeded 5th in Series 4, 7th Series 5, 3rd in Series 6, 2nd in Series 7)

Win Record: 34 victories, 11 defeats (plus 1 defeat as Groundhog)


 * Curb Stomp Battle: Dished them out on several occasions, but wasn't immune to them either. Was greatly outclassed by Chaos 2 in series 3, resulting in the first "Out Of The Arena" flip. Was also beaten with ease by Razer on 2 occasions, though it took it to a real nail biter in their final fight.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Incredibly fast, but was able to survive being perforated by Razer and defeated Hypno-Disc while its flipper wasn't working.
 * Numbered Sequels: From Firestorm all the way up to Firestorm V.

Diotoir (Heat Finalist Series 3/5, Tag Team Terror Champion w/ Pussycat; Seeded 21st in Series 4)
Win Record;


 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: An obvious joke entry, covered in highly flammable fur with a rather ineffective weapon. But its predecessor Nemesis (which had an even less effective weapon, defeated a house robot and went toe to toe with a future champion, Diotoir itself reached 2 heat finals, reached the semis of the First World Championship, made the final of the International championship, the finals of the Celebrity Special, won the Tag Team Terror and defeated the mighty Tornado in Series 5 (Team Tornado called it the most powerful 2WD pusher they'd ever seen.)
 * Incendiary Exponent: Diotoir caught fire in every single fight it had. And it was glorious.
 * Intentionally taken to its extreme in one of the exhibition matches at the end of series 2. The lineup was Sgt. Bash, Diotoir and a similarily flammable sacrifical robot built for the occasion. The latter two were sprayed with paraffin before the fight. At the beginning, Bash fired the flamethrower once. Hilarity Ensued.
 * Legacy Character: Its full name in its first appearance was Diotoir, Son of Nemesis.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Doubles up as Meaningful Name. It may not sound threatening at first, but check what it means in Gaelic. Diotoir translates as "Annihilator"

Storm 2 (Runner Up Series 7, 3rd World Champion, New Blood Champion, Heat Finalist in 2016; Seeded 16th in Series 7)

 * Executive Meddling: Why it didn't win the title. See the Storm 2/Controversy article to see why. The higher ups hated Storm 2.
 * Lightning Bruiser: As mentioned, threw Steel Avenger out of the arena without using its weapon, curbstomped the previous champion, and fought Typhoon 2 (which had demolished most of its previous opponents) while taking only superficial damage).
 * Nice Guys/Gal: The team were actually really good sports, and took their defeat to Apollo in the heat final of Series 8 with grace. More notably, the team have no resentment towards Gary Cairns, the former captain of Typhoon 2, even being among the first to contribute to his crowdfunding project to upgrade PP3D.

Hypno-Disc (Grand Finalist Series 3-5, Semi-Finalist Series 6; Seeded 2nd in Series 4, 3rd in Series 5, 4th in Series 6)

 * Curb Stomp Battle: Its battle against Splinter in the Fourth Wars semi final. This legendary fight has gone down as quite possible the most brutal battle in Robot Wars history.
 * Took it a step further in its Extreme Mayhem battle with Ming 3 and Wheely Big Cheese. Hypno-Disc, who usually struggled with more than one opponent, absolutely dominated the fight by knocking both wheels off of Ming 3, and broke the welding on one of Wheely Big Cheese's axles.
 * Everything's Better with Spinning: The forerunner of the horizontal spinning disc.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: The main reason Hypno-Disc wasn't entered into Series 7. The Rose family had work commitments they couldn't avoid, while Derek became a father, which understandably ate up even more of his time.
 * The Worf Effect: An example of being Over-Worfed. Everyone said they were terrified to go up against Hypno-Disc, but in a 3-or-more-way melee, it was very easy to beat Hypno-Disc by ganging up on it. Hypno-Disc's final three battles were all melees (all of which it lost), and the other robots barely touched each other until Hypno-Disc had been taken care of.
 * What Could Have Been: Fans voted to see Hypno-Disc fight Razer in Robot Wars Extreme, but the battle never took place, as both teams felt it would be too damaging to each others machines.
 * According to Robot Wars magazine, Hypno-Disc apparently would have been seeded 9th had it entered the Seventh Wars.

Team Scutterbots (Semi-Finalist Series 3-6, Heat Finalist Series 7; Seeded 10th in Series 4/6, 13th in Series 5, 6th in Series 7)

 * Actor Allusion: The teams first robot, Scutter's Revenge, was named after the robots from Red Dwarf, in which the shows host Craig Charles had starred.
 * The Alleged Car: Especially Spawn Again; it was fast and powerful when it worked, but it was horrifically unreliable.
 * Critical Failure: Failed to reach its series 7 semi-final because the ram operating its flipper exploded when the end-cap blew off.
 * Irony: The one time in which Spawn Again was fully functional with no traces of reliability issue, it lost its heat because of the above incident.

Bigger Brother
(Series 5 Runner-Up, Series 6 Semi-Finalist, Seeded 14th in Series 4, 2nd in Series, 4th in Series 7)

Win Record: 20 victories, 11 defeats


 * Cheerful Child: Two of them in fact: brother and sister, Joe and Ellie Watts. Their dad, Ian Watts, later returned for Series 8 and 10 with another child, Sam Watts.
 * Determinator: Part of the reason it was able to overcome Hypno-Disc in the Series 5 grand final; it took severe damage, but mechanically, it kept motoring away long enough to pit Hypno-Disc.
 * Made of Iron: Best demonstrated by its battle with Hypno-Disc. Hypno-Disc ripped off its flipper and destroyed its armour, and Bigger Brother still beat it. The only time it ever lost a fight through damage was in the Sixth Wars semifinal when Terrorhurtz pummelled it into oblivion.
 * Averted though with its successor, Or Te, who was KO'ed by Supernova in five seconds when its safety link was dislodged.
 * Shocking Elimination: Was thrown out of the arena in Round 2 of the 7th Wars in Iron Awe 2.1, becoming the highest seeded robot to be defeated in this manner.

Pussycat (Series 3 Heat Finalist, Series 4 Runner Up, Series 5 Semi-Finalist, All Stars Champion)

 * Defeating the Undefeatable: Tore Razer apart on two separate occasions. One of, if not the only robot to defeat it cleanly.
 * Meaningful Name: Always lands on its feet.

Jeremy Clarkson (Series 1 Presenter)

 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Jerkass: "How long did that take to build? I reckon it took 2 months to go 2 yards." And his infamous: "That is the worst robot I've ever seen in my life. And it crossed the finish line twice."
 * Unperson: He isn't mentioned in any tie-in media, and all footage of him was removed from "The First Great War", a VHS release of highlights from the first series. Just as well, really. He didn't exactly hold the show in high regard.

Craig Charles (Series 2 onwards Presenter)
"Craig: So, why did you call your robot Inquisitor? Inquisitor team: Red Dwarf. Craig: Never heard of it!"
 * Actor Allusion: The robot Scutter's Revenge was a reference to his role on Red Dwarf. Also, this:


 * Catch Phrase: "LET THE WARS BEGIN!"
 * Ending every episode with a four-line poem ending in "on Robot Wars".
 * "[Robot] GOES MARCHING ON!"
 * Large Ham

Jonathan Pearce (Commentator)

 * Did Not Do the Research: Sometimes, he would get facts about competitors and their history wrong (for example, referring to Terror-Bull as newcomers during Series 6 when they had fought in Series 4). Also, he referred to Killertron as a former Grand Finalist when it arrived in series 2, when it previously reached the heat final. He didn't correct this mistake as far as three years later, where he referred to it as a two time Grand Finalist in its final fight. Also called Tornado's 'Anti-Crusher Web' an 'Anti-Pit Device', making Tornado's Series 6 championship win a lot more controversial.
 * The Hyena: He was well-known for his occasional laughing fits during matches. Especially obvious when Diotoir caught fire or when Firestorm became the first robot thrown out of the arena.
 * Large Ham: Oh, yeah.
 * Motor Mouth: Sometimes, especially his commentary here.