first things first i apologies for the lack of pictures, i was too stressed the whole day to think about then and although i have video footage its not the best quality anyway
coming into this event it was an all new dolos. after a bit of a pasting at last dojo i needed to replace the hammer motor and remake the arm as well as making a spare frame, naturally i left this till the week before the event to do
the main changes was getting rid of old reliable aka my og hammer motor which had served me well since champs last year, something like 20+ fights before being smashed by mo problems, so replaced with at first a black and decker cordless screwdriver which promptly burnt up after self righting, i replaced this with a “guild” brand screwdriver from argos which worked really nicely, ill do a bit of a build/modding guide on these at some point as they require a bit of work to get into a combat ready state
with this alongside the rebuild dolos was ready for fighting
first fight
Boom Zoom vs dolos
boom zoom is a 4wd lifter/wedge and my plan was to try and get a pin, hit something important and get him down the pit
going into this fight i had decided to meme robs colour scheme a little and paint dolos’s forks green and yellow as well as christen the set-up “doom zoom” going in i knew it was going to be a tough fight, robs a great driver and his machine is very nimble, hed also stuck extra top armour ontop and well as remove his wheel guards to remove catch points, the first part of the fight was going to plan got a few solid pins as well as a nice hit with the hammer saw, and then he lost a wheel, feeling confident and went for a pin and push to the pit, with no power? annoyingly. like an idiot. id forgotten how much juice a 4s high voltage battery takes and so put it in with like half charge, so spent the rest of the fight being bullied as dolos slowed to a crawl, losing the jd quite rightly, i dont think the full battery would of changed things i was being outdriven and even when i had a decent charge he managed some good grabs, but would of been nice to of had a full charge haha, still im more than happy to of lost to rob, hes a good mate and went on to smash out the rest of his heat getting to the top 16 again without a spinner, madlad
going back to the pits i started to prep for my next fight with digestive, digestive is a 4wd vertical spinner with a large front plow, same stratergy as boom zoom
annoyingly i found one of my 22mm motors had died for no real reason, so had a wonderful fight replacing that as id left some of my allen keys at home and the ones i did have rounded the central bolt, so i had to bend the tpu wheel out the way and undo the grub screws on the hub instead, big thanks to ari for lending me some of his bits to help dig the wheel off, with that removed i replaced it and everything was running. until the arm decided to die and then had to solder that back up too as it had spun in its mounting, joy, so had to throw a couple additional screws in to hold it in place
as a result of this i had to push the fight back which was annoying, anyway with that fixed and pretty flustered from the unexpected repairs i swapped back to my normal 4s to prevent cooking anymore motors and fitted the all important tea cup since i was fighting a biscuit in digestive , this did technically put me 1 gram over the weight limit but rob was gracious to let me run it
going into the fight i jumped the gun, never done it before, must of been the last minute fixes clouding me, anyway after the fight started proper i managed to get a couple good pins, and smashed a real wheel off which was a great start, this however seemed to get digestive to drive better and he managed to get a few licks in himself, bending some of my forks up, after a while of tussing i got the pit release open and and then persuaded him over to the pit for a ko, dolos was back on form taking out the compact 4wd verts it was meant to fight
next and final fight of my group stages was data breach
data breach is a very cool 6wd hammer or lifter as its modular a very cool bot that i was looking forward to fighting, i ran the same set-up as before with slightly reduced fight forks to allow weight for the “fire wall” to prevent him smacking the hammer motor
fight started and i managed to get a good pin with the forks and bring the saw down sticking it deep into data breaches upright, meaning i ended up with my second strike out of 3 (first one for the false start) slightly mithed by this as im pretty sure i could of shaken data breach loose, but it was ruled as the forks got stuck first, not gunna go too deep into this but i was allowed 1 more stick with my forks before i was dq for the event, loverly
anyway fight restarted data breach got a good pin out the gate before i was able to turn it around and get another solid pitting
this put me second in the group and requiring a place in rumble to get through, i was not exactly looking forward to this, dolos is not build for rumbles and it seemed like it was going to be brutal, ultra violence a 2wd egg beater and chilli daddy a cool undercutter/overcutter which had recently done amazing at norwalk
luckily for me UV had to drop out meaning i could focus on running the anti horizontal wedge however it required me to swap to a lighter bar, i was going to put the disc style weapon on by my partner made the wonderful suggestion of the bar incase i need to go weapon to weapon which gave me enough weight to run one of my two wheel guards, fight starts and any hope of the tpu wedge getting under was smashed and i find myself pinned to a wall a few times as he tried to snipe my wheels, luckily dolos is such a weird shape he cant, it turns into a bit of a driving battle as i try and engage and weapon side vs the forks, eventually i manage a pin and go weapon to weapon, which for like the first time ever doesnt result in dolos’s weapon coming flying off thanks to the bushings vs the bearings i used to run which would explode at a moments notice, anyway after this hit the fight seemed to turn in my favour, chilly daddy’s weapon didnt seem quite as potent and later appeared to loose a side of drive, and despite me nearly taking a trip down the pit i wont the judges decision by a split decision, would of happily had this one go either way, probably one of my favourite back and forth fights ive had
after this fight damage was fairly minimal, replaced the weapon belts and cut a few of the slightly stabby hdpe chunks off
next up was night fury
this was a fight id been dreading, after seeing what night fury had done to its heat and knowing what its been capable of in other comps i was not exactly thrilled about fighting it, since prior to the chilly daddy fight dolos had went 2-4 against working horizontals with those 2 wins being against a crippled baby dead bod and mo problems. so i left the big anti horizontal plow on and sent it, this went amazingly, managed to bully night fury on every engagement picking it up 3 times by stabbing my spinner in it and nearly pitting it twice, amusingly getting stuck 10 seconds into a restart after a seperation, i was so amazed id managed to pull it off, had no confidence in coming out in one piece, night furys driver was very kind after the fight remaking i could of won without the weapon, dolos finally proved it can hang with the big boys
next fight was baby dead bod, me and thomas have a bit of a history of fights, he knocked me out in the semi final of burgh and went on to win and id recently bullied him at dojo, so we were 1-1 going into the fight, i wasnt sure what to expect as bdb appeared to be getting stronger throughout the day after exploding sir lance a frog in its previos fight, this was worrying the frog is a serios tank and to do that is impressive, i was confident my front plow could take it but slowing bdb down enough to land a killing blow was going to be a struggle, luckily he had very minimal top armour so if i could get the pin chances are id hit something critical, prior to the fight we had made an agreement that if i was lined up over the battery he’d be given time to tap or id hit him, saves a nasty rebuild and me feeling like an arse for totalling a mates machine
this was a high energy fight, i was managing to get the better of the opening engagements using my wedge to slam bdb into walls and the floor all the while it never appeared to slow down, once that spinner gets going its really going, i finally manage to get a half decent pin after slamming into the walls 3 times in a row, and bring the weapon down… into the thickest part of his frame, doh, half an inch to the left or right and i may of been able to do something, or if id of swapped to the disc i may of get through, allas he escaped and i had to try and chase him down again the pit gets depressed and the fight ends up near it, and depsite bdb trying to go vert mode and land ontop of me he slams into the floor and on the short side of the pit, i sit there and wait, knowing if i want after him i could eaisly fall down too, and in what can only be described as an amazing bit of driving, thomas revs the wepaon down which turns the bot slams forward and catching the very edge of my plow, catching a wheel and throwing me over the pit with the one functioning wheel left danging over the pit, what a fight, in hindsight i should of either backed all the way off and reset or went in for the kill proper, sitting on the edge was not the play, still it was a great fight and to go out to the 3rd placed bot in a close match is not bad
after this match the damage was pretty bad, he’d killed 3 of the 4 motors on dolos, the hammer, the saw and the left hand side drive all smashed in as well as nearly cutting all the way through the 25mm thick top of my tpu wedge, well time to fix it again haha
but overall what an event, dolos may not of placed in the top 4 (which until now it had never failed to do) but top 8 was my goal for this years rapture and to secure a decent seed for next time, so goals achieved, i also now know dolos can take on some of the best horizontals in the uk back to back and nearly come out on top, this not being a matchup that normally goes well this was great news. combined with weapon being a true threat now i was overall pleased, upgrades are to always check batteries are fully charged and to take my weapon options into account as well as forks for every fight, i will also be experimenting with a geared system to the weapon to prevent belts flying off as thats the reason it stopped in the chilly daddy fight, also getting some proper top armour packages as the number of hammer saws is growing and i cant relly on not facing them anymore
overall had an real blast this event as draining as 2 day events are its great to spend time with a bunch of like minded people and talk shit about robots all day, watch great fights and fight (and mostly loose) to friends
