History Characters / RobotWarsHeatFinalists

* AnimalMotifs: Based on a hedgehog (specifically, ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'').

* ShoutOut: Obviously to ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog.''

* JokeCharacter: Hippobotamus couldn't have been anything but. It was built from a plastic child's sandpit, [[http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/robotwars/images/f/f1/Hippobotamus.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090414120623 looked utterly ridiculous]], and was utterly trashed in both of its fights.
* MidSeasonUpgrade: Fighting Torque was abruptly replaced with Hippobotamus midway through Extreme. That being said, calling it an "upgrade" is being quite generous.

* IconicItem: They originally took to the warzone with a rainbow-coloured feather duster on the back of the robot ("to clean up the mess") and Diotoir swiped it after beating them in the 3rd Wars, but they removed it permanently after the 5th Wars.

* LongRunner: Admittedly not one of the longest (it only appeared in the first 4 series, when the record is 7 series and both Extremes), but Dreadnaut was still one of only three robots that fought in both the 1st Wars and 4th Wars with more or less the same design (the others being Killertron, which had skipped the 3rd Wars, and Mortis, which had received constant upgrades).

* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Often prone to appearing on the battle or statistics boards as "Dreadnought" or "Dreadnaught".

** Thirdly, its Series 4 melee against Darke Destroyer 2 and Warhog. It did try and attack, but its only real contribution was taking several blows from Warhog that left it damaged, but also caused Warhog to knock itself out in the process.

* BornLucky: While some would consider them to also be BornUnlucky (like Diotoir, they have a section on their wiki page [[http://robotwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cerberus#Misfortune dedicated to their misfortune]]), most of the "bad luck" there was due to their own mistakes, and the robot got a LOT of lucky breaks, from Killerhurtz's careless suicide, to Griffon breaking down (allowing Cerberus to pit them so quickly they would hold the "fastest battle" record all the way up to Series 7), to their first opponent in the 1st World Championship (the monstrous American spinner Mauler) being disqualified for health and safety reasons, to being knocked out by emergency reserves V-Max in their first-round melee in Series 4. Why was being beaten by V-Max lucky? Because V-Max went on to be ''[[CurbStompBattle disemboweled]]'' by Hypno-Disc in the next round!

* WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing: Literally "won" its first round battle in the First World Championship [[ExaggeratedTrope just by showing up at the studio and without even having to enter the arena]] when its opponent was disqualified for health & safety reasons.
** Its first battle in Series 3 was similar; Killerhurtz hit it once with its axe, putting a nasty hole in its armour and puncturing one of the batteries, then spun away, raced across the arena floor and [[EpicFail crashed into the pit]]. It won its second round battle against Griffon by doing ALMOST nothing, as Griffon broke down as soon as the battle started and didn't move, meaning Cerberus simply had to drive up to it and shove it down the pit (and even doing that much was not strictly necessary, as Griffon would have been counted out and trashed by the House Robots anyway).

The robot behind one of ''Robot Wars''' most unique and heartwarming incidents when, after defeating Big Brother (the debut incarnation of later stars Bigger Brother) on a close and controversial judges' decision, the team went to meet their opponents in TheStinger and conceded their place in the series semifinals to them instead, since they believed the judges' decision was wrong. [[labelnote:Also...]]Ian Watts of Team Big Brother [[https://www.reddit.com/r/robotwars/comments/7ayq0f/ask_ian_watts_the_swarm_anything/dpdwerl/?context=3 confirmed in a recent Reddit AMA]] that the Ultor team weren't able to make the filming for the semis, so they decided to concede their place to Big Brother instead. Doesn't make it any less heartwarming.[[/labelnote]]

* TheBusCameBack: Missed out on Series 6 but returned for Extreme II and the final series.

* AnimalMotifs: Based on a hedgehog (specifcally, ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'').

** After Kronic 3 was purchased by Team MAD, they used its design as the basis for [[Characters/RobotWarsChampionsAndGrandFinalists Apollo]], which went on to ''win Series 8!'' Unsurprisingly, it did this by being the only robot to beat Storm II- twice.

* InformedAbility: Averted; it was her interview with Vader that ended with Philippa's iconic quote "If I had a penny for every time a bloke said to me "I've got a magnificent weapon", I would be ''rich'' by now!", but Vader's weapon actually lived up to their boasts.

* {{Mascot}}: An inflatable sheep the team called a "Ninja Sheep". Most famously, during Mega Morg's (rather dull) battle with Plunderbird 5, Shunt hit the sheep with it axe.

* {{Mascot}}: An inflatable sheep the team called a "Ninja Sheep".

* AnAxeToGrind: In Series 4.

* AnAxeToGrind: It was really rather weak, but it got them through.

* AnAxeToGrind: Far from the best in the warzone, but it could do some decent damage on occasion.

%% * AnimalMotifs: Guess.

* TheAllegedCar: Of the three wars it entered, its spinning motors burnt out before entering the arena in two of the series.

* AnAxeToGrind: Similar to Dominator 2's; not as good, of course, but not too bad.

* TheBusCameBack: Returning for Series 9 after being forced to miss Series 8 when the filming schedule conflicted with now-grown Dominic's university timetable. It was rumored that the robot had changed hands, but it is in fact still owned and driven by the Visser family.

* [[SheIsAllGrownUp He Is All Grown Up]]: Dominic Visser, now 23 years old and going through university, is the first well-known CheerfulChild from the original series to return to the rebooted show as an adult[[note]]The team of Mr Speed Squared, who drove Trouble & Strife/ROTAS in the original series, were first, but Dominic Visser was the first one of note - Joe and Ellie Watts were not involved in the Orte or Swarm team[[/note]].

* AnAxeToGrind: Fluffy's weapon was a spinning bar with a triangular axe head at either end, giving them far more concentrated hitting power than a traditional flywheel.

* AnAxeToGrind: Quite a decent one; it took part in the Series 7 Axe Attack event and almost won.

** In Series 9, The weapon was far more powerful and sturdy but it tended to deal terminal damage to itself at the same time.

* SpectacularSpinning: The last of the 4 great horizontal spinners to fight on ''Robot Wars'', after Hypno-Disc, 13 Black and Disc-o-Inferno. Supernova had the least success, but was still a feared robot for the damage it could potentially inflict. It's also the only one still competing as of Series 9.

* AnAxeToGrind: Their "poultry pecker".

* AnAxeToGrind: The first two versions had a rear-mounted axe, although the first one was so tiny and pathetic that the wiki refers to it as just "a spike at the back for extra grip" and Judge Shred 2 was overweight, forcing the team to remove 2 of their weapon motors and rendering the axe almost powerless (they'd intended to use it as a srimech but after removing the motors it lacked the power to turn them over, which proved pivotal in their subsequent loss to Behemoth).

* SpiritualSuccessor: Series 9 entrant High-5 was essentially S.M.I.D.S.Y. 2, and was built by the team who owned SMIDSY at the time.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To Stinger, another torque-reaction thwackbot[[note]]although Gabriel isn't ''entirely'' dependent on torque reaction to attack[[/note]] that was a master of ConfusionFu and was NighInvulnerable because of its unique construction.

* CluckingFunny: Between the robot's appearance and the team's antics, there's plenty of laughs to go around when Robochicken is involved.

[[caption-width-right:200:"[[BadassBoast We're here to kick arse and chew bubblegum, and we're all outta gum!]]"]]

* FragileSpeedster: All of the team's machines. All Torque and Small Torque both ran at 20mph, but the former had very weak armour and the latter had unreliable motors that ended up catching fire. (Small Torque even had a special cooling system designed to combat this, but it didn't work.) Hippobotamus was slightly slower at 16mph but dialled the "fragile" part UpToEleven.

** It went UpToEleven on several occasions, such as an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVBNR6JqIo0 Extreme 1 melee]] when Diotoir ''and'' its two opponents entered the arena clad in the fur, or the First World Championship where most of the non-England competitors had the fur somewhere on them, like attached to the antenna.

* JokeItem: Its flipper was positively ''tiny'' compared to most robots, and in Series 4 it was likened by Jonathan Pearce to a dessert spoon. It didn't help that one of the other robots in its Series 4 melee was [[UpToEleven Wheely Big Cheese]]. [[LethalJokeItem Averted]] in Series 5 as while the flipper was still comparatively small, it was enough to take out Thermidor 2 and The Alien and ''almost'' enough to take out ''Wild Thing''.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The team were planning on making a successor named Shredder [=REvolutionS=] that would have had ''[[UpToEleven four]]'' spinning discs. However, it proved to be a completely impractical and unworkable design, and was presumably shelved.

* BornLucky: In Series 4, for a given definition of "lucky". It only survived the melee because The Predator took more damage, it only won its 2nd round match after Terror-Bull decided to [[WhatAnIdiot set itself on fire]], and while it was barely working at all by the heat final and stood no chance of winning, it was one of the few robots Hypno-Disc ever showed mercy to.

* CurbStompBattle: On the receiving end of ''two'' from Hypno-Disc in Series 4. It barely survived the first encounter - unlike The Predator - but was so badly damaged that in the heat final it never stood a chance.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: Over the course of four series and Extreme 1, the team entered ''six'' different robots - and if you count Bot Out of Hell, created independently by one of the team members and entered into Series 5, then they entered ''seven''. The three incarnations of All Torque all looked fairly similar, but after that each machine was wildly different to the one before it.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: The first Aggrobot was a bulky box-wedge, the second was a flat invertible machine, while the third and fourth were more conventional wedges. Their weaponry also varied, with the only constant being the blue paintjob, angry expression, and ''some'' kind of front wedge.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: They built an entirely new robot for each of their three appearances, with Tetanus Booster bearing no resemblance to its predecessors aside from the rusty DieselPunk aesthetic. None of the Tetanus robots bore even the ''slightest'' resemblance to their first attempt, Flip Flop Fly, either.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: As well as Ripper, John Findlay (as a member of Team Butcher) had previously entered Series 5 with T-Bone, a weirdly-shaped yellow... [[BuffySpeak thing]] with a spinning blade on it that was rapidly forgotten after losing its first and only battle. They also entered 2 different featherweight contests, the Extreme 2 tournament with Neoteric, a featherweight walker which used its extra weight allowance to equip a powerful saw blade, and the Series 7 tournament with Rip, literally a featherweight version of Ripper (so not ''completely'' different in that case). The team also failed to qualify for the main series 3 other times: with [[PunnyName Banana-R Armour]] in Series 4, the original [[FunWithAcronyms R.I.P.P.E.R]] in Series 5, and Ripper 2 in Series 6.

** Played straight in the Southern Annihilator final against Razer. Razer were unable to penetrate Onslaught's tough armor, so instead they went for the exposed wheels, shredding the tyres and reducing Onslaught's grip levels.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eric.jpg]]

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler: Diotoir was long retired, rusted and woefully outdated for Series 10, so they were instead given a stock robot (Kadeena Machina) to decorate with the iconic fur and eyes.]]

* TropeOverdosed: Because of how popular and colourful the team is, Diotoir and Nemesis have ''a lot'' of applicable tropes, especially when compared to other robots.

* TheJudge: Their theme, obviously. The team often dressed the part and sometimes wielded gavels. After their Series 4 loss to Behemoth, Craig borrowed and wore one of their huge wigs during the post-battle interview.
-->'''Craig:''' Well you've brought some sartorial elegance to proceedings, but unfortunately... that's about all you brought, really.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Gabriel was the final heat finalist of Series 8, and the only one that wasn't a veteran - the others had all previous reached at least the semi-finals of a major televised tournament. [[note]]Behemoth reached the Series 2 semi-final, Dantomkia reached the Series 6 & 7 semi-finals, Storm 2 & Thor reached the New Blood Grand Final, with the former winning that and reaching the Series 7 Grand Final[[/note]].