S3E1 - The 2026 Kickoff: Fantasy League Updates & What’s Ahead

Summary

The Havoc Rundown – S3E1: The 2026 Kickoff: Fantasy League Updates & What’s Ahead
January 23, 2026
Host: Justin (Hunter Bro Studios)
Guests: The Havoc Rundown Crew – Ryan (“The House” & Game Master), Ashley (Community Connection), Thomas (Chaos Conduit), Tony (Webmaster/Creative Lead)

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Episode Overview

The Havoc Rundown launches its highly anticipated third season with a lively, behind-the-scenes crew roundtable. This “kickoff” episode energizes combat robotics enthusiasts for 2026, focusing on a fully revamped Fantasy League, new platform features, and the show’s expanded event coverage. With insider banter, rule changes, interactive games, and a roadmap for the year, the episode sets the stage for another year of technical spectacle and community-driven chaos.

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Key Segments & Highlights

1. Crew Introduction & S3 Energy (00:00–03:06)

• Justin welcomes listeners to Season 3, promising "brand new year of chaos, commentary, and combat," with the full Rundown crew assembled.
• Roles introduced:
  • Ryan – Game Master ("The House")
  • Ashley – Community Connection ("I'm over Ryan already.")
  • Thomas – Chaos Conduit ("Well, I don't know actually why I'm here. I just am.")
  • Tony – Webmaster/Creative Lead
• Season’s focus: New rules, systems, and especially the upgraded Fantasy League.

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2. Icebreaker: “Who’s the GOAT?” (03:07–14:00)

• Game Master Ryan hosts a playful statistics showdown—comparing sports GOATs to combat robotics legends across knockouts and win rates.
• Sample Rounds (w/ Timestamps & Quotes):
  • Bill Russell vs. Jameson Go – Tournaments Won
    • [05:15] Thomas: “I haven’t heard of this Russell guy... Jameson Go’s kind of the best.”
    • Jameson Go wins – 16 NHRL tournaments vs. Russell’s 13 NBA titles.
  • Tom Brady vs. Maximizer (Best Stagomizer Robot) – Win Rate
    • [06:56] Thomas: “Tom and I, we share very similar names. Gotta go with my fellow Tom.”
    • Tom Brady edges out (77% to 76%).
  • Mike Tyson vs. Glenn Boxle’s Caldera (KOs/Knockouts)
    • [08:26] Thomas: “Clearly, the answer is Glenn, and the reason is Mike. He's retired.”
    • Glenn leads with 78 knockouts (Tyson had 44).
  • Roger Clemens vs. Lars Elliott (Win/Loss %)
    • [13:03] Roger Clemens 65.8%, Lars Elliott 74% (robots Impact & Jet Lag).
  • Crew unanimously beats "The House"; playful jabs about robots outshining sports heroes.
• Notable Moment: The crew votes together and always wins, prompting “House got zero points this time.” [14:00]

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3. 2026 Fantasy League Overhaul (16:47–38:30)

Website & Platform Innovations

• Tony introduces the new web-based Fantasy League platform:
  • Live draft windows like major sports fantasy, sortable bots/records, integrated event scoring.
  • Direct API pulls for instant team updates: “You’ll be able to get a live update and stream on how your team is doing at any given moment...” [17:10]
  • Anyone can run their own league or single-event fantasy—worldwide bot pools, trades, waiver wire, etc.
  • Customizable scoring and rules for diversity across event types and weight classes.
  • Quote (Tony, 19:01): “Anybody can make a room. So if you want to make your own fantasy league within NHRL, you can do that.”

Key Rule Changes & Improvements

• Podium Points System (“Mario Kart points”)
  • Instead of total cumulative points, events now score by ranking participants each event (easier catch-up, more competitive mid-season).
  • Justin: “If you robot, you have three robots...you earned a total of 60 points...if you are the highest scoring person at that event, you get 20 points if it’s a 20-person league...” [21:50]
• Unified Scoring Across Weight Classes
  • All classes get the same points for outcomes:
    • KO/Tapout: 7 | Judges Win: 6 | Forfeit Win: 5 | Judges Loss: 2
  • “Because beetles have more fights...they were going to count for more in the total...but now with podium points, it’s much easier...points are all the same.” [26:27]
• Snake Draft Format
  • Draft order now fully flexible; choose any weight class slot at your turn.
  • “When it comes to your turn, you can pick a beetle, hobby, or feather...fill your roster in the way you want...” [29:40]
  • Greater strategic depth, more like “real-life” fantasy sports drafts.

Team & Community Shoutouts

• Ashley finally gets her own team (“Team Bandle Bot Sides” in honor of friends Chris, Lindsay, and Luke). [33:36]
• Returnees and fresh faces fill registrations—friendly rivalries, “the house always wins” banter continues.
• New community features: leaderboards, trophies, potential photo roll, event calendars.

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4. Roadmap & Year Ahead (38:37–44:53)

Event Coverage Expansion

• Explicit goal: Go beyond the NHRL bubble to regional/national/international events.
• First up: MASS DESTRUCTION (Jan 31); Team Omega interview preview episode on deck; local event builder interviews and writeups planned.
• Ryan: Excited to debut “Thresher” at Mass Destruction:
  • “Thresher is a four-wheel drive, tiny little vert. Has 4-inch foam tires...Every single tire has its own blitz light...” [40:01]
• Boxelmania, local Pennsylvania, and other distributed events on the coverage horizon.
• Anyone can contribute event writeups, builder diaries, or audio—open invite for global combat robotics community involvement.

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5. Community Leaderboards & Trophies (36:11–37:12)

• New leaderboard and trophy system for event/game performance.
• Quote (Tony): “Now we give out trophies. There’s a trophy leaderboard for how well you are every day, week, and month.”

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6. Recent Event Recaps (44:57–46:55)

• New Year’s Knockout (Jan 2, Placer)
  • Winners: RX7 (beetle), Speedster (ant; back-to-back ant event wins), Arc Star (plastic open), Baguette (plastic edu).
• WCCRL (Jan 9): Speedster dominates again, Zika wins plastic ant.
• Rumble at Railroad (Jan 10): G Money (ant), Darktime (plastic ant).

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7. Looking Forward: Final Thoughts (46:55–end)

• Tony: “I can’t wait to see us go across the country instead of just NHRL. It’s going to be a blast.” [47:04]
• Ryan: “Fantasy was so fun last year...I think a lot of people enjoyed it as an addition to the sport. So I'm really excited to continue that this year.” [47:13]
• Wrap up and warm send-off to listeners; website plug, community celebration.
• Favorite sign-off exchange:
  • Thomas: “Remember, builders are better than sports people.” [48:39]
  • Justin: “Oh, my God. We just had to have the Negative Nancy on this episode.” [48:41]

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Memorable Quotes (by Timestamp)

• Ashley [14:02]: "This is what is coming for you for fantasy, Ryan. Know that. Ashley's playing this time."
• Tony [16:48]: "The biggest change is that we'll actually have a draft window, just like you would on ESPN fantasy sports."
• Ryan [40:01]: “Thresher is a four-wheel drive, tiny little vert...funniest thing. Every single tire has its own blitz light...should be fun as hell to drive.”
• Tony [47:04]: "I just, I can't wait to see us go across the country instead of just NHRL. It's going to be a blast."
• Ryan [47:13]: "I can't wait for fantasy again. Fantasy was so fun last year and...a lot of people enjoyed it as an addition to the sport."
• Thomas [48:39]: "Remember, builders are better than sports people."

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Takeaways & Tone

• Language & Tone: Lively, irreverent, full of intra-crew ribbing and warmth for the robotics community. Jokes at sports’ expense vs. builder pride are a running theme.
• Key Messages:
  • The Havoc Rundown is leveling up its Fantasy League platform and expanding event and builder coverage.
  • Major changes aim for more dynamic and inclusive participation, echoing mainstream fantasy sports while celebrating the quirks of combat robotics.
  • Community-driven content, creative features, and humor-in-engineering-camaraderie define the show’s approach.

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Quick Reference – Important Timestamps

• [03:07] “Who’s the GOAT?” game begins
• [16:48] Fantasy League web platform walkthrough
• [21:50] Podium points (Mario Kart) system explained
• [26:27] Unified event scoring across weight classes
• [29:40] Snake draft & strategy details
• [38:37] Roadmap and year overview
• [44:57] Local event (New Year’s Knockout) recaps
• [47:04] Final thoughts & crew enthusiasm
• [48:39] "Builders are better than sports people" sign-off banter

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Whether you’re new to combat robotics or a fantasy league shark, S3E1 is your energetic, comprehensive entry point to the sport’s most passionate commentary in 2026.

Transcript

[A]

Sam. Foreign. Welcome back and welcome to season three of the HAVOC rundown. I'm your host, Justin. And tonight we're kicking off a brand new year of chaos commentary and combat. The 2026 season is already in full swing with events lighting up across the Pacific Northwest. And this episode is all about our roadmap and getting you set for the year ahead. We're introducing new rules, new systems, and completely revamped Fantasy league, which now supports multiple formats and leagues across the combat Robotics world. Tonight, the guest is us. I'm joined by the full rundown crew, which is the game master, Ryan Hunter.

[B]

I much prefer the house, thank you.

[A]

Our community connection, Ashley Beckman.

[C]

I'm over Ryan already.

[A]

The chaos conduit, Thomas Carroll.

[D]

Well, I don't know actually why I'm here. I just am.

[A]

Yeah, Thomas is very anti. Yeah, we'll get into that later. And our webmaster and creative lead, Tony Baker.

[D]

Hey, everyone.

[E]

What new thing do you want?

[A]

Yeah, so like I said, this is our first episode, technically, of season three. This is our kickoff episode, which is, I guess, just meant to kind of talk about our roadmap and what we're going to be doing this year. We kind of had our year closed where we hinted at a couple things. The main point of this is to talk about the fantasy league, which we're getting into full swing this year. We have brand new rules, we have a new way to do it. The website is going to be fully supporting it, so it's very exciting. But before we get into all of that, we need a game to start us off for the new year. So we're going to head over to what I hope is a newly revamped and reconstructed game Corner.

[B]

Corner finished being constructed last year. It's. It's so nice and pristine in here. There's no bugs anywhere. It's nice. Okay. Don't mind the stickiness on the floor. It's butter from the popcorn. All right. All right. So tonight we are playing who's the goat? All right. It's basically going to be a different version of higher lower. I'm going to give you a sports legend and then a combat robot or a builder and a statistic, and you tell me which one's the better one. Which one's the goat? Which one has the higher statistic between them? Everybody's going to be playing here. Everyone will submit an answer. And as I love doing with these types of things together, all of you are fighting against the house. If the majority of you get the answer wrong, the house gets all the points for that round. But if the majority of you get the answer correct, the house wins. I mean, you win. The house always wins. But you.

[A]

You win.

[D]

No,

[C]

I got issues here.

[B]

All right? We don't need a death.

[E]

Got it.

[B]

I haven't slept well for the past week. I'd leave me alone. All right?

[C]

I got a good chance. Maybe.

[E]

Yes.

[B]

This should be a really fun game. All right, so as an example round, here we go. All right, the player who has the one the single most basketball championships in the NBA is Bill Russell. Compare that with how many NHRL tournaments Jameson Go has won across his robots. So who has won more Bill Russell in basketball championships or Jameson Go in NHL tournaments?

[E]

Is it tournaments or just the world championship?

[D]

Wait, wait, are we all answering together?

[C]

No, we all have to give our own answer.

[B]

You all give independent answers.

[D]

Okay, well, I have the answer. I haven't heard of this Russell guy because he's like lame and basketball is not good and Jameson Go's kind of the best. So Jameson Goh has more James.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Thomas says go.

[D]

Also, if the guy does have more victories. No, he doesn't.

[C]

No, he doesn't. I agree. I think it's Jammu.

[A]

Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with Jamo.

[B]

Okay. Justin goes with Jameson Goh.

[E]

If it's in front of it, then yes, it's Jameson Goh.

[B]

It's Jameson. Ashley, we have a majority with go.

[C]

I said it was JMO as well.

[B]

Okay, all of you unanimously say Jameson Go. And that is correct. Jameson has, across all of his bots at AHRL, won 16 times, 16 tournaments. That includes championships and everything against Bill Russell, who won 13 basketball championships. Which is. It's a good statistic. It's a really good statistic.

[E]

Oh, yeah, that's kind of insane.

[B]

All right, our next round, I'll give you this.

[C]

Let's go.

[B]

One of the greatest football players of all time is Tom Brady.

[C]

Hell yeah, it is.

[B]

He is such a great player. He has a particularly high win rate for games. How does Tom Brady. Does Tom Brady have a higher win rate over the best stagomizer of all time, Maximizer?

[D]

Well, I've got my answer. Tom and I, we share very similar names. Somebody even say the same name. So I gotta go with a fellow Tom.

[B]

All right. Thomas goes Tom.

[D]

Yeah, well, Maximizer. Maximizer is a better robot than any football player.

[C]

But I'm going Tom Brady.

[B]

Okay. Ashley goes Tom Brady.

[A]

I'm going to say Tom Brady as well.

[B]

Okay.

[E]

And I'm going to Make.

[B]

We'll make it unanimous. Guys. You got it right again. Tom Brady has a win percentage of 77% over a Maximizer's 76%.

[D]

Geez Louise.

[E]

Wow.

[D]

All right, that will change by the next time.

[C]

You get six more often.

[A]

We're on a roll.

[C]

Let's go.

[B]

All right, let's talk about knockouts. Who would you think of the most with knockouts in sports? Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson was known all of his life for not for winning matches by knockout, but what about one of the nicest guys in the sport, Glenn Boxle and his three pound bot caldera? Which one has the most knockouts?

[C]

Are we talking just the three or

[B]

we talking just the three? I am just talking the three.

[C]

Oh, man.

[D]

Everyone else has stance at first this time, so can't copy my homework.

[B]

I'm going with Glenn. All right.

[A]

Tony goes with Glenn just because I'm going with Mike Tyson.

[C]

Oh, man. Glenn has had so many.

[B]

All right, we are not. We are not all saying the same thing this time. All right, Jessica goes with Mike Tyson.

[C]

I'm torn on this one. I'm gonna go. Is this just NHL? Is this all time?

[B]

All time?

[D]

Tesla doesn't fall in NHL.

[C]

I'm gonna go with Le.

[B]

Ashley's going with Glenn. All right, Thomas. Well, we have a Glenn, a Glenn, and a Mike.

[D]

Clearly, the answer is Glenn, and the reason is Mike. He's retired.

[A]

Okay, so he's also been. He's also been fighting longer than. Like, I don't understand the.

[D]

But in five years after this episode, even if I'm wrong, you can then update the statistics and say that I was actually just ahead of the times.

[A]

Oh, God.

[D]

Glenn Boxel.

[B]

All right, Thomas is Glenn. So we have an overwhelming majority going with Glenn Boxhall because he's the best.

[D]

Boxhall.

[B]

And the house is good. And the house loses. Again, the answer is Glenn Boxle has 78 knockouts over Mike Tyson's career. 44.

[D]

I always forget that Glenn and Brian are like the same family because Glenn's just like, yeah, I just happen to be here. And then Brian's like the fireball drinking college team. Like, they're so different, but they fight the same bots.

[E]

Glenn's had so many fights, it's not even fun. Yeah.

[B]

It's insane.

[E]

So it's like.

[B]

Yeah, well, I. I didn't want to make Jameson for all of these rounds. You also have to understand that Jameson was. Would be like the top of almost every single one of these rounds.

[A]

You could have just called the game Goat. Goat. Versus goats.

[B]

Goat versus goats.

[D]

And compare them to really bad teams. Don't do that because then the people that fight those robots actually. No. Get permission from someone. Like, let's see who's a really bad bot. Mr. Roper.

[E]

Wow.

[B]

All right, last round. Who has a better win loss rate? Roger Clemens, one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all times, or Lars Elliott. And that's counting impact in jet lag.

[D]

Wait, what, what are we comparing the win loss rate?

[E]

No.

[B]

Win loss.

[A]

Yeah, for games.

[B]

So how many, how many games has Roger Clements won versus Mars? Yeah, he's a fisherman for baseball.

[D]

Well, pitches are lame and Lars is awesome. The rest of your team is like,

[A]

I love this more important.

[D]

So yeah, Lars, the picture's the most

[A]

important part of the team. What are you talking about?

[D]

What are you supposed to do if you don't. If you can't hit the ball?

[A]

Oh my God. Thomas, to be fair, your opinions about baseball are horrible. Horrible.

[B]

Yeah, to be, to be fair, Roger. Roger Clemens played in 709 Major League Baseball games.

[E]

Yeah, but it's the. How many wins?

[D]

That's, that's a way more chance.

[B]

It's win loss. It's win loss rate, percentage.

[C]

Right?

[B]

Like, yeah, percentage.

[D]

I think if you fought Impact versus Clemens. Impact every time. Yeah, he can throw a ball at 90 something miles an hour, but impact

[E]

could spit out like Tyman's got a lot of games and won a lot of games. But I don't know if his win loss percentage is playing baseball. Emperor 70s. So I'm gonna go Lars.

[B]

Okay, Tony goes with Lars.

[D]

You picked the correct answer.

[C]

I'm also gonna go with Lars because see, everyone knows is the most important. It's not always up to him.

[D]

Yeah, pitchers are lame.

[A]

I don't think that's what she said. But it sounds like we're all going Lars. So I guess I'll go with Lars. So I'm not against the pack.

[D]

No, I should go against the pack because we're gonna be wrong.

[B]

Thomas, are you going Lars?

[D]

What? Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, I'll go Lars. You all are going unanimously to Lars. Are you sure you want to do that?

[A]

Okay, I'm gonna go Clemens. No, I'm gonna go Clemens. I mean, it's still gonna be Lars. The answer is still going to be Lars, but I'm going to go Clemens just because.

[B]

Okay, Justin's moving to Clemens. Would anyone else like to move over to Roger Clemens?

[A]

No, he wants, literally wants a point. Yeah, he wants the house to get at least one point. I'm just I'm just moving over to Clemens just because in spite of Thomas.

[B]

Okay. Roger Clemens has a win rate of 65.8%, which is really good.

[D]

That's kind of bad.

[B]

But it's not as good as Lars, who has a clear win rate of 74 of counting impact and jet lag. That's not counting as.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Okay, you just told us how many total games Clemens played. How many total games did Lars play? Because that plays a huge impact into, you know, the win loss ratio.

[B]

So give me one second to do math.

[D]

Yeah, you make an old man. Lars is, like, in college. He's got time to destroy Clemens record.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Lars has 181 fights between impact and jet lag. I know. He has ants and stuff like that, too.

[D]

Yeah, just give a couple more years.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Awesome.

[B]

Well, that's the games corner. The house. Got zero points this time.

[C]

This is great.

[A]

Welcome.

[E]

This is the way to always be.

[C]

This is how. This is what is coming for you for fantasy. Ryan. Know that

[A]

Ashley's playing this time.

[B]

Now you're playing.

[C]

I'm in it. Let's go, Ryan.

[B]

All right, let's do it.

[E]

The question is, is Ashley or Zach going to win?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, I, I, I want to be a bug on the wall for, for when the, when you and Zach are close in points. That's gonna be interesting. Speaking of, let's move over to. So we're gonna talk about the, the Fantasy league, because it's the main thing, the main big change this year, and then we'll talk about the events and episodes that we already have planned out and some of the things coming out of the pipeline, as well as some of the other events that, that happened from the three events in the Pacific Northwest that we mentioned earlier. So let's move over to our roundtable segment, which is the 2026 fantasy league explained. So, as any of our longtime listeners will know, the 2025 season, our 2025 podcast season, we launched a beta fantasy league that was meant to test if it was a viable thing that can be done, because we had this big question of, can you do fantasy sports of Combat Robotics? And it was a beta because we didn't really have any kind of comparable rule set or comparable things to go by. So we kind of had to start from scratch and make up the rules and figured out as we went along there was a lot of things changed during the year. Last year, a lot of rules and a lot of modifications had to be made. But going into our 2026 season, we are making some major changes, not only in the rules, but also how the leagues are going to be tracked and how we're going to be able to have visuals of it. Because the 25th season lived out of Google Sheets, which at times was frustrating. So our webmaster and amazing creative lead has made the fantasy league live on our website, which is amazing. So before we get started on the rule changes, Tony, do you want to talk about what it looks like, what the league looks like on the website, what we're going to be able to do, all the changes going from Google Sheets to an actual web host, a web application?

[E]

So the biggest change is that we'll actually have a draft window, just like you would on ESPN fantasy sports and things like that. So if you log into the website while we're actually doing the draft, you'll be able to actually see which bots are up there, what the records are. I'm going to have the records that NHRL up there, the world rankings and everything else up there. So it'll all be sorted and easily. Therefore I can see. So you'll be able to see when you're coming up, which picks were done, how the teams are forming up. That'll all ought to be automatic on the actual site, which is, I think, going to be make the actual drafting actually quite amazing. The second part is that on the event days, we're going to be pulling information directly from TrueFinals. You'll be able to get a live update and stream on how your team is doing at any given moment on the website as well. So those are the two biggest changes, I think, because everybody's like, where am I? What am I doing? How many points do I have? It's like, and Justin's there trying to do crazy things on HRL and tell you that at the same time. Now it's all going to be living live on the website. So yeah, I literally had a. I

[A]

had a PowerShell script that was hitting the True Finals API and pulling all the raw data down into a way that can be read. And then I was feeding it into ChatGPT, which was interpreting the ones and zeros because that's how the back end of TrueFinals API looks at it is like a win in a certain category is a one and a loss is a zero. But then like buys are zeros and it's really confusing. So I had to basically open a project in ChatGPT and say, this means this, this means this, this means this. Here's the raw data. Can you Spit out what I needed to be spit out to throw into the sheet. So that's what I was doing live as everything was going and updating those. And then it would update the points. I had a gigantic spreadsheet that kept track of everyone's rosters throughout the year, what points each of those bots in the rosters were getting. And then it would update the league standings as it went on with points. So having an actual web platform that's going to do all of that automatically for us is beautiful. I love it.

[E]

The other really cool thing, not necessarily with our fantasy league, is anybody can make room. So if you want to make your own fantasy league within hrl, you could do that right along with them. If you want to make an event for just a single event, you could do that. So upcoming this week is Excitement is the Ants event. If you wanted to actually do that while you're there and actually have a single event, you can do that on our website. And my favorite thing is you actually can have a worldwide duel so you can choose from bots all over the world to make the team. And then as I update the events from the year, you can actually get those points for your league. You can actually do trades. I have a waiver wire built into it. You can pick up free agents and everything else on your team. All that's under the world. So there's lots of options to be able to play and enjoy the fantasy. And if you guys are using it, that's why it's the data on the X website this year. As you guys are using it, we'll make some changes and see how things are going to work out this year. So next year it'll go fully live and hopefully have a lot larger group of people playing.

[A]

Yes. And also on the website, under the news section, if you go under rules, there are two articles that are sitting there. One of them is a Worldwide Fantasy League Rules. Those are the. It's like a 30 page document that goes over the general outline of rules for a Combat Robotics fantasy league. Going into everything that you would need to run your own. All the rules that go by. It has an open thing for any kind of weight class that you want, any other system that you want to do. I mean, it keeps to the points and the base things that we set up that allowed the league to run are still there. But as Tony has set up the leagues, you can also make changes. You can make knockouts count for 20 points and tap outs only count for five or whatever you want to say. New League up to base or make them zero. If a single event only keeps track of like did this bot win or did it not win? You can still set up the points so that it makes sense. You can still track that. So hopefully we have made a dynamic system that allows anyone to go in and make a league and track this up ourselves and then as well on there. For anyone that is listening and has registered for our NHL league, which will be open until the 23rd. I think I said, yeah, I think January 23rd is. We're going to close registration for that. But we have open registration for our NHL league right now. I believe we are sitting at around 20 teams which if we get enough interest in that, we will open multiple leagues so that we don't have anyone that is left out of that. So we will see how that goes. But we have open registration right now and we are going to run our NHRA league like we did last year. Except for now it's not in beta. It's in. What is it called? Early access. It's in early access. So our nhrol league is in early access and the website is in beta. So, you know, always working on that kind of stuff. So a couple of the rule changes for. Again, like I said, the world rules are kind of a general outline. You can make different changes and point changes and whatever changes you want to make it your own. But it gives a framework for NHRO League. There are some changes that we have made to make everything go a little bit more slow, smooth and work a little bit better than it did last year because it was a little muddied and convoluted and hard to keep track of. The big picture change is from the league to a platform. It's not just league anymore, it's a platform. On the website we've already talked about that. It's built to support the multiple leagues and all that kind of stuff. But in the NH Row League, I think the biggest change that we made is instead of seasonal long points were doing, I think what it was the idea originally brought up, they called it Mario Part Mario Kart points. But that it's podium points is basically what it's called, I think is what the system is called. So previously let's say you robot, you have three robots or I guess four robots for our league. They went through the day and you earned a total of 60 points across all your robots for the entire Day. Those 60 points went into the league tracking and then those 60 points added up all the way to the end of the year. And then the person with the overall most points won, which last year was Eden, I think he had like 960something points. I would have to bring up the tracker to see this year how it's going to work. Is each event, each NHL event is going to be its own encapsulated thing and the points are going to be tracked. So if you are bought, if across all your bots you have 60 points and you are the highest scoring person at that event, then you get 20 points if it's a 20 person league and then the second place person gets 19 and the third place gets 18 and that allows instead of a combined amount of points that can be dependent on, hey, did this get a knockout? Did that, whatever. That all adds up and snowballs into the end. It allows a much more condensed, balanced, easier to change placing and get ahead and still catch up kind of league that I think will make it a little more competitive because it kind of felt after a couple events last year that there were some people that were way out in front with way too many points to ever be caught. And doing a podium placing system is going to change that and make it so it's a lot closer throughout the year and it makes a lot more competitive. So I mean, I don't get to

[C]

chase Dan this year.

[A]

Well, you might. I mean, if he gets first place at three of three events, he's gonna have like 60 points and you know, so.

[E]

And you finish last, you know it's gonna be hard. So yeah, don't finish last in one

[C]

way, but yeah, myself last year.

[A]

Oh yeah, No, I. I was about to say the way you drafted for Chris, Lindsay and Luke last year, you definitely proved that you have drafting chops. So we will see how you do

[C]

my friends

[A]

in a while.

[C]

I can't help it.

[A]

Oh my.

[C]

I don't know. World champions over here.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[E]

Well, well, all the data and we kind of like level the plate.

[A]

Yeah, well, we will. I do want to point out that your fiance is a world champion and he is now playing as well. So. Fighting.

[C]

Don't worry, I got it.

[B]

Are you guys gonna be fighting over who drafts prom hina?

[C]

Yeah. You see, I'm the fiance though, that this is gonna get interesting.

[E]

Technically, he's also the fiance.

[A]

Where was I? Okay. Yeah. So the next, the next big change that we are making is last year. The point totals for what a match outcome were, were different across the different weight classes because the initial thought was. Excuse me, because beetles have more fight. Beetles are going to count for more in the total at the end of the year because we are changing it to podium points, it is much easier for a website platform standpoint and for keeping track across everything that the points are across all weight classes the same. So it doesn't matter which weight class. It is our system for our NHROL league. And again, this is customizable if you make a league on the website is customizable as you go. So you can make these points, whatever you want for your league or for, for a single day or whatever you want to do, you can make the points different. Like I said, you can make a KO worth 20 points and judges win worth five or it doesn't matter. But for ours, KOs and tap outs, which we're going to count as the same thing, is seven points. Judges win is six, forfeit win is five and a judge's loss is two. So those are the four match outcomes that we are tracking. Forfeit win is currently sitting at five just because it is not the bot who won's fault that the other bot forfeited. There's been some drama the past couple days as far as forfeits are concerned and NHRL is concerned that forfeits are going to have a bit of a different weight this year. So we will see how forfeits actually happen because it's going to feel different forfeiting your bot this year. But if I don't know, we don't really want to get into this episode, but if you don't know that, you can go look at the XP system that NHRL has implemented. It's interesting. So those are the point totals. That's another big difference from last year. The. Any notes on that before I move off to the third big change? Nope. Cool. And then the final big change that we're making, there's some small tweaks as far as like seating and, and how the the website's going to go in. But the third biggest change that we're making is how we're drafting. So last year and again, this is something you can do completely different if you want to make your own league. I'm just talking about our, the HAVOC rundown NHRA league. Last year, how we drafted was you did Beetle one and then you did Beetle two and then you did Hobby and then featherweight. How it's going to work this year is there is going to be a draft order and we are going to snake up and down that draft order until every single person has four robots, one or two beetles, a hobby and a feather. But in no particular Order. So when it comes to your turn in the draft, you can pick a Beetle, a hobby, or a feather to fit into that slot. And as soon as that bot is in your slot, that slot is closed. So let's say it gets to Ryan's turn. He wants to pick his beetle, so he picks his Beetle and then it goes to Ashley. And Ashley's like, I want to get my hobby before anybody else can get it. So she slots her hobby into her hobby slot, and then it comes back around again. And Ryan's like, I want my hobby. Ashley already has her hobby, so she choose, oh, I want my first beetle or I want my featherweight. And it continues in the snake format all the way through. So first to last, last, or first. First to last. Last to first until everyone has all of their slots clicked. And what this is going to do is it's going to allow people to have a lot more of a strategy. It's going to allow people to try and pick up robots that they want in whatever order they want of their importance without having to worry about the people in front of them getting a better chance because, oh, we're in our hobby. So I have to choose my hobby year. If your be sign up here yet,

[C]

that run, if Funky ever comes back, man, that would.

[E]

That would.

[C]

He would love that this year.

[A]

He is not on my registration yet. No, he is not. Dan just registered today. So Dan is back. And Aiden registered. Aiden registered 56 seconds into the registry being open.

[C]

I don't think I could fill out the form that fast, but I did try.

[A]

Well, Sam Herman filled it out in 47 seconds, so. And then. Yeah, so that's fun. Yeah. So this draft format is allows. Is going to allow a lot more strategy. It's going to allow a lot more balance, and it's going to allow people to fill up their roster in the way they want versus the way that we have it structured. So we think that it's going to be a lot more of a fun draft. It's also the way I understand drafts in other sports work. When you get to your draft, you can usually choose whichever position that you want to grab instead of being told, oh, you have to take your quarterback now, or whatever. So it's a lot closer to how drafts and other sports work. And we think it's going to be a lot more fun and a lot more balanced.

[B]

I think it's going to be a lot. It's going to be a lot more chaotic when it happens, too.

[E]

Oh, absolutely. Like, you figure, like, you got, like, the third or fourth pick. If you had the third or fourth pick last season in Hobby, like, you're not getting like one of the top spots, like, so you are the third or fourth pickover in the draft and it's like, okay, all the good deals are picked. Well, I'm going to pick or I'm going to pick Tom Hatta from the hoppy way for the. Yeah, there. So it's like, it's. You can easily do those types of things which I think will be a really cool first round especially that's you're

[A]

going to see all the big names

[E]

drop off really quick off the first round. You tip. If you've been in any other fantasy draft, that's where your top picks are done.

[A]

Yeah. So. Well, it's also going to be funny because we in the past have always had people say, oh, you took my pick. But it's like, oh, we're in Beatles and they took your pick in Beatles as we're going through and it's going to be like, you took my 12. And it's like, then you should have taken a 12 when you took. When you had the chance to take a 12 instead of your Beetle. Exactly.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

I think it's going to be. It's going to be a fun draft. So those are major changes. One of the other major changes is Ashley is playing this year. Last year you were when Chris, Luke and Lindsay were kind of off the grid. Luke being in Japan and Chris and Lindsay off doing other projects. They kind of in the woods of Canada. Yeah. They kind of relegated you to be their choice person. So you kind of on the tail end of our season. We're drafting robots, multiple robots and kind of had that, oh, I got some points. But they weren't your points. They were Chris's points. You know, so this year you have a team. Do you want to tell everyone what your team name is and why?

[C]

Yes, of course. So because of my joy and deep friendship with Luke, Lindsay and Chris, I have gone ahead and taken all of their three team names from last year and I am going to be team Bandle Bot sides this year in honor of the three of them and encouraging me to be involved. And I hope that I do them proud.

[A]

Nice. And then, Ryan, your team name is the house.

[B]

Because the house always wins.

[C]

No, it doesn't. You're not. By changing your team name.

[B]

We will see. I was doing well. I was doing well for like a good amount of time last year and then I just like fell off and everybody went right past do you know why? Why?

[C]

Hashtag justicefor Kratos.

[B]

Oh, I know. Kratos cursed me.

[C]

You will never live that down.

[A]

Yeah, we have some returning faces from last year as well in this registration. The registration opens yesterday at 12. So far we have Julian Papazian, we have Nick Andres, we have Aiden of course, who won last year. Miles is up there. Of course. Ryan Glenn Boxel is up there.

[C]

Tim, I just want to say Glenn was so excited that he like needed to make sure he was getting in our league.

[A]

He. He 1205 is when he registered. So he. Five minutes after I dropped the registry he was on there.

[E]

He was worried.

[A]

Yeah. Everybody excited. People were.

[E]

He was worrying it wasn't going to get.

[A]

It's five minutes later.

[E]

Yeah. Yep.

[A]

And then we have some new faces like Che. We talk about Che. Who is your. Her screen name is your mom on our discord. She of course has her son and happy birthday. And then Rain is also up there. So she's team Mel Colony. And Mel Colony, he is team Ecstatic. So that should be awesome.

[C]

I love that.

[A]

And then of course we have. Zach is up there. We have Charlie McGill is new. And then Sam Herman is new. So we have some new faces. Some old faces. And that's so far what. What their industry looks like. So I think Charlie is trying to

[C]

make their way through all of our ranking leaderboards because I was playing games on Havoc rundown before we started recording. I'm gonna get that snake Tony,

[A]

all

[C]

of the leaderboards and Charlie is at the top of all of them. So this is just another game for Carly to play with us. And I love that.

[A]

Yes. So in terms of our games, I

[E]

now give out trophies. There's trophies, there's a trophy leaderboard for how well you are on the leaderboard of every day and week and month.

[C]

Oh man, I'm in trouble.

[A]

Well, we have to get a. We have to get a picture so we can post it on the website of the. The trophy. Wherever Aiden has the trophy right now, hopefully it's in a good spot.

[C]

Oh yeah. Take a picture of you with the trophy. We should definitely post it.

[B]

Yeah, we have one. We have.

[A]

Yeah, we have one. Yeah, we have one. We have a photo giving it to him. So yeah, I can. I can put that up on the website. That's fine. That. That is a good idea. We should have a place to post like a photo roll section. Tony, whatever you have.

[C]

Tony. Tony, I need you. I need you to look. We make the banners on website.

[E]

So, so we want photo roll Got it. Okay.

[C]

Damn it, Ashley.

[B]

Birthday's up for all listeners.

[A]

Calendars for all listeners.

[B]

This is what we do all day. Is go, Tony at this. Tony, let's go.

[C]

Yeah, I definitely asked for a builder birthday calendar at one point. Builders. So sorry I am.

[E]

That people just have to put their birthdays in. Like there's a few.

[C]

It's only for Ashley's information, nobody else's.

[E]

Yeah. And that'll do something cool for you that night. Yes.

[A]

So that is our fantasy league. Is there any other touching points before we move on about the fantasy league? We're very excited about the new changes and we will, of course, keep on updating during episodes of how it's going and how the world changes are working and all that kind of stuff.

[E]

So I just can't wait to see it actually run.

[A]

It's one of those things, like, I

[E]

can't totally simulate everything that's gonna happen.

[A]

So I'm like, this should be interesting. Yes. I can't wait for. For first draft night so we can figure that out. That's gonna be fun. Which will be February 2nd.

[E]

Groundhog Day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, really? That's cool.

[A]

Which will be February 2nd. Sorry, that was a stupid joke. Okay, so let's move on to our plans for the year and then we'll talk about the recaps for some of the events. And that will be it for this episode. Like I said, it's a short and sweet. So the like we said in our closing of last year, this year is a focus on expanding our reach past NHRL and looking at all the other events and what they have to offer. We are going to start that journey with mass destruction. And mass destruction is on January 31st. Ryan has a beetle that is currently on the wait list. So we might be doing a press slash, you know, participating in the event. If he gets in. If not, we'll just be there for press. We have reached out to Team Omega and they are very excited to work with us so that we can go there and get some builder interviews, get some interviews with the people putting the event on, do a full write up, maybe get some audio stuff, get some content to put on the website, put on the YouTube channel, all that kind of stuff. Go ahead, Ryan. I see you want to say something.

[B]

Extremely excited to fight with pressure. I'm so excited about it.

[C]

Right?

[B]

We haven't. We haven't. Justin and I have not been to mass destruction before. We keep meaning to go out there and also to, of course, a Voxel mania event. And I definitely Want to do the Boxelmania event as well. Thresher is a four wheel drive, tiny little tiny weapon in the middle vert. It has 4 inch foam tires on it. It looks ridiculous. It is the funniest thing. Every single tire has its own blitz light on it. So it should be rather speedy and basically be flung around the box every time it gets hit. But it should be fun as hell to drive and I'm really looking forward to it. I have the parts, most of the parts are in. I'm waiting for some parts coming from Robot Smashing League and then she could get put together.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

And I think we're all going to

[A]

mass destruct as far as I know.

[E]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

I have pretty press badges for everyone, so. And yeah, so we are working with Team Omega to do that to get some behind the scene access, talk to builders and. And the people putting on the event. And included in that is a interview with Team Omega about mass destruction, which is going to take place next Tuesday and be up before the event of the 31st. And that is going to be talking to them about how mass destruction came about and what the event means to them and what makes it different for all the other events and all those kind of. All that kind of information that people want to know. Just trying to hype up that event a little bit and get the backstory and background of how it came to be. So I am very excited to go to that. I am very excited to talk to them. That is going to be our next episode of the year. And then of course after that is the February 7th NHL event which is going to be the first competition, the first tournament of the year. And we will do a episode on that. We haven't decided a builder or who the guest is going to be for that episode, but we will be talking about the February 7th event because that is the kickoff of the NHL season. So that is our current plan. We do have a roadmap going forward for each of the NHL events as well as some of the other local and non local events peppered throughout the year. Trying to get some more interviews of the people behind the smaller events that make up the other part of the Combat Robotics community.

[E]

Absolutely.

[A]

Anything anybody is excited for.

[B]

I. Well, I'm just excited to fight a

[E]

bot again this year.

[B]

I'm so excited. I'm so pumped for it and I'm really pumped to be able to go. We're also going to like do G Scroll and stuff like that. I'm really pumped to go see one of those events. I'm just really excited to be to go to those local events. I love local events. Local events are like the smaller events compared to nhrl have just such a good vibe to them. It's just everybody coming out.

[A]

Yeah. Boxelmania. We'll also be going to Boxelmania and talking to either Glenn or Brian again maybe, or someone participating at Boxelmania. Just any of the local ones around here. We have a little bit of a longer reach because Ashley is in Pennsylvania and I know Ashley, you have some plans with Zach to go to some of the other events and she has a fancy new mic to use to get some cool interview content there.

[E]

And that being said, if you have audio or write up any event that you do anywhere in the world, we will gladly put those up on the website and talk about them on the podcast and we'll get your information out there. Yep, yep.

[A]

Not only do we have a YouTube channel that we can post that stuff that goes right into the website, but we also have a content creators section of the website that people can post articles and put write ups and whatever else up there as well. So one of the things that we would love to get as we go forward to post onto the new section for anyone that wants to do it after they go to any of the events is a write up on your time at that event and how your robot did. Because we love those and I know that people write those up and throw them on Facebook and they're seen on Facebook and stuff like that. But we really want to give a platform forum for that kind of content. So if you are listening and you go to another event and you want to write up about how your robot did in that event, we have a platform for that. You can write it up, send it to us, we'll put it up, or you can go into the content creator console and put it up yourself.

[E]

So very cool.

[A]

Okay, so before we leave, I want to talk about the three events that we have on the calendar that have happened so far in this year. The first One was on January 2nd. It was called the New Year's Knockout. I guess it's called Placer, right?

[E]

Yep.

[A]

Right. Tony, this one was Beetle Ant and Plastic Ant. What is the difference in the Open and the Edu?

[E]

So Edu is called Senior High School Degree.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[E]

So it's basically like newcomers to the event and stuff like that. Right.

[A]

Okay. So the New Year's Knockout had a Beetle event, an Ant event, Full Combat Ant event, a Plastic Ant Ant Open and a Plastic event. Edu or educational plastic ant. For the beetle event, RX7 won that for the ants, the full combat ant speedster one, which we'll talk about Speedster again in a second for the Plastic Ant Open Arc Star and then for the Edu Plastic Ant Baguette, which is an awesome robot name by the way. So the second event was WCCRL which happened on January 9th. This is where we talk about Speedster again because they brought the builder, Speedster brought it again and won the Ant event there, which was their second title in seven days in a week. And the plastic ant that won that was called Zika. And then finally we have Rumble at railroad, which was January 10, which had an ant and a plastic ant. The winner of the ant was G Money and the winner of the classic hit was Darktime. We will continue doing these, just trying to touch on those local events and who won them. We'll try and get some more stats and stuff as we fill that stuff up in the website so we can have a little bit more like win loss and some stats on each of these robots. So before we end our season three opener, does anyone have any thoughts on the year ahead or anything that we talked about?

[E]

I'm excited. I just, I can't wait to see us go across the country instead of just nhrl. It's going to be a blast. Probably come to these platforms.

[A]

Yep, robots are cool. Thomas, where did you go?

[D]

I was here.

[B]

I, I, I can't wait for fantasy again. Fantasy was so fun last year and I think it not fantasy last year spread out from even just everybody participating in it to everybody at every single event. Eventually figured out, found out about fantasy, especially people whose bots were picked and everything like that. And it kind of, I think a lot of people enjoyed it as a like addition to the sport. So I'm really excited to continue that this year.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, 100% agree. Okay, so with that, that wraps up our season three opener. Welcome to season three, everyone. Whether you're a season builder, a stat tracking fantasy fanatic, or a fan discovering the chaos, we're so glad to have you here. Thank you to everyone who listens, shares and supports the Havoc rundown. And especially big thank you to all the players, admins and fans taking part in this year's fantasy leagues. You're the heart of this community. We can't wait to see what madness unfolds in 2026. Be sure to visit our website at Havocrundo.com for all of our episodes, all of our information, our games, the Havoc Registry basically everything we do is going to be there on that website now, that is our main platform. There you'll find the Fantasy League Tools, episode archives, merch and ways to support the show. We'll be back soon with our first event preview of the year, which is going to be mass destruction on January 31st. Until then, draft smart, drive safe and stay chaotic. Everyone say goodbye to the listeners. Bye, everyone.

[B]

Goodbye.

[D]

Remember, builders are better than sports people.

[A]

Oh, my God. We just had to have the Negative Nancy on the website on this episode. Negative Nancy?

[D]

No, Builders are just better.

[B]

Bye, everyone.