Nerf claims the Rapidstrike can empty an 18 clip in 5.62 seconds. I put that claim to the test in a quick video.

Batteries: 4 x Toys 'R' Us branded C batteries
Time: 4.923
No. darts: 18
ROF: 3.45dps or 207.2dpm

So yes, the Rapidstrike can achieve the claimed ROF.

Today's comparison post will be of Nerf's two full-auto clip system blasters. Hopefully this will keep you guys occupied until I get my Rapidstrike review done.






Aesthetics: The Rapidstrike is only a few centimetres shorter than the Stampede, but the difference in designs makes them appear quite different. The Rapidstrike resembles an assault rifle type blaster with the stock extended, and a carbine-y thing with the stock retracted. In comparison, the Stampede resembles a light machine gun, especially in its full set of attachments. Both blasters look great in their own way.
Accessories: The Rapidstrike comes with itself, an 18 clip and 18 Elite darts.
The Stampede comes with itself, 3 18 dart clips, a 6 dart clip, a "Blast Shield" attachment, and a foregrip/bipod attachment, as well as 60 Streamline darts.
I think it's quite obvious which blaster wins.
Range/Power: The grey trigger Rapidstrike gets about 10m average true flat. It's ranges aren't particularly consistent, but the average is 10m so that's what I'm giving as the range. Stampedes get less than 9m ranges, at least mine did. I've heard reports of stock Stampedes getting over 35 feet ranges, but I'm certainly not getting that.
The Rapidstrike wins by a bit.
Accuracy: Both blasters have pretty awful accuracy. When you have accuracy that bad, it's pretty hard to say which is better, so I'm just gonna say that they're both awful and so this round is a draw.
Usability: Usability is probably the most interesting section here. Let's start of with the Rapidstrike.
The Rapidstrike uses 4 C batteries, which is lighter than the Stampede's 6 D batteries. Additionally, the Rapidstrike has a more ergonomic front grip (without any attachments). Because of its overall lower profile and retractable stock, I find the Rapidstrike a little easier to handle. The retractable stock is useful for storage too. The Rapidstrike's translucent jam door is pretty cool. However, as a flywheel blaster, the Rapidstrike suffers from having fire delay, in which you have to first rev up the Rapidstrike before you can fire with any reasonable range. The Rapidstrike's biggest problem in the Usability area is a particular jam known in some circles as the "Vigilante Malfunction". In this particular jam, the dart being pushed into the flywheels is stopped by the rubber skirt just in front of the flywheels. In this particular jam position, the dart pusher does not touch the dart at all, but the dart is just out of reach of the flywheels. This usually results in an awkward situation where you are pulling both triggers, and making a lot of noise, but nothing is happening. Even worse, I have both a Rayven and Stryfe, and I have not experienced this jam with either of those blasters so there really is no excuse for Nerf to have not solved this jam.
On the other hand, the Stampede has a much larger jam door opening, and the clear window on the right allows you to look into the firing mech without having to open the jam door. Though the Stampede does have wind up fire delay, this fire delay isn't as long as revving up the Rapidstrike to fire off a first shot. The Stampede's main usability issue is that being a breeched clip system blaster, it is susceptible to the "regular" type of jam, in which a dart usually gets squished and mangled. It seems to happen more than my Alpha Troopers, but maybe that's just my darts. This sort of dart mangling doesn't occur with the Rapidstrike, but both blasters can jam just the same.
Because the Rapidstrike is slightly easier to handle due to its lower weight, and both blasters have some jam issues, I'm handing this round to the Rapidstrike.
Rate of Fire: The Rapidstrike running off 4 C batteries gets a ROF of at its peak, around 3.5dps.
The Stampede only gets up to a little under 3dps running off its 6 D batteries.
Naturally the Rapidstrike wins.
Capacity: The Rapidstrike comes with a single 18 clip, for a capacity of 18.
The Stampede comes with 3 18 clips and a 6 clip, giving a total out-of-box capacity of 60.
Stampede wins this round, obviously.
Value for Money: The Rapidstrike is currently available for 60+AUD outside of sales, and as little as 40AUD during sales. The Stampede was available for at its cheapest, 60AUD outside of sales at Kmart, and usually 100+ everywhere else. Seeing as their non-sale prices are the same at their cheapest, the Stampede comes with so much more stuff, and the Rapidstrike's performance isn't that much better, I'm giving this round to the Stampede.

Overall, the Rapidstrike has won 3 rounds, the Stampede 3 rounds with one draw. Therefore this round is a draw. However, the Rapidstrike is clearly the superior performing blaster, as its wins are the the performance rounds. On the other hand, the Stampede is a much better "booster pack" for your other clip system blasters as it includes more clips and attachments.

After this fifth round of N-Strike vs Elite, the score is:
Elite: 3.5 -- N-Strike: 1.5

(Nerffan)
Since its unveiling in late 2013.  the Sweet Revenge (previously named Wildshot) was one the more hyped-for blasters in the Nerf Rebelle line alongside its 'brother' the Zombiestrike Hammershot, with both being a hammer-action revolver reminiscent of cowboy revolvers. So how good is this new revolver?

Note that the Hammershot and Sweet Revenge are the same, so this review can be used for the Hammershot.

The Sweet Revenge (SR) is packaged in a semi-open box, with only the blaster partially exposed and the rest hidden from view. This open-style of packaging allows customers to see what they're buying, but this also exposes the contents to germs, dirt and is much more easily tampered with or damaged compared to sealed boxes.
Back of the box, with a model posing with the Sweet Revenge and and outline of the product; pretty standard stuff.
All the stuff that comes with the Sweet Revenge kit. Some Rebelle vision wear, 5 teal darts(coded "J" if you are interested), a manual(you don't really need one), the Sweet Revenge's holster and the blaster itself. Considering all this, it makes sense that the Sweet Revenge costs more than the Hammershot and why it is so much more expensive than standard revolvers like the Strongarm.

And this is the blaster itself. The SR features a simple but also intricate colour scheme, with a white body, with pink and violet highlights along with these intricate wing designs, which match the plain white body perfectly.  The orange front part helps keep a good seal between the turret and a thin piece of foam inside the SR.

I personally find this colour scheme fine, although this "girly" colour scheme may discourage younger boys from purchasing this blaster as these days toys tend to be judged by their colour schemes.

Looking from the back you can really see how slim the SR is, and how the gracefully curves out for the turret, in stark contrast to previous revolver-type blasters, such as the N-Strike Maverick and Spectre.


At the front of the blaster you can see the  turret, each with their own dart peg. Behind this is the air restrictor and a thin piece of foam for a good seal, which helps in firing a good shot.

Probably the most unique feature about the  SR is that it is hammer-primed, much like a cowboy's(in this case cowgirl's) six-shot revolver. The fact that it's hammer-primed means that the SR/Hammershot is probably Nerf's most realistic revolver, as previous designs have featured a much more practical but less realistic slide. Being hammer primed, this does allow the SR to be operated one-handedly, which is a plus.

The SR's operation simply consists of pulling down on the hammer until it clicks and then pulling the trigger. Additionally the trigger is quite easy to pull, only requiring about 5mm to disengage the catch and is able to provide a quick and easy shot. The turret rotates on priming moves clockwise, user perspective.

The SR also features "fan-fire", which consists of the user holding down the trigger and repeatedly pulling the hammer, much like "slam-fire", mainly due to the turret rotating on prime, which doesn't inhibit firing. (Unlike the Maverick, with turret misrotations because it rotates on trigger pull)
However, because the stock-hammer is so small that it's very difficult to get a grip on the hammer. As you can see below, my hand barely just latches onto the hammer.
   
I've found that when fan-firing  slowly,  produces decent results, with all five darts hitting consistently hitting a distance(which is about 10-12m) and accuracy is alright. Instead, if you attempt to fan-fire quickly, the blaster's performance drastically worse, but at the end of the day, fan-firing just isn't effective or fun like slam-fire on a Rampage. I recommend using regular priming techniques if you intend on firing quickly.



As for ergonomics, the SR performs quite well.  I personally find the SR very comfortable as the curved handle design seems to mold into my hand. As you can see below, I do have to shift my grip slightly when priming, and having average-sized teenage hands, I find the SR quite easy to prime. However, younger users may find the SR quite difficult to use, as the hammer is quite small and doesn't have many places to grip onto.



Here is the Sweet Revenge in comparison to similarly-sized blasters. As you can see, the Sweet Revenge is about the same size as a Vortex Proton, but is also longer than the Dart Tag Sharp Shot by some margin. The Proton is much wider than the Sweet Revenge, while the Sharp Shot is just slightly thinner than the Sweet Revenge itself.


From the top view, you can really see just how slim the Sweet Revenge is; it's slightly wider than Sharp Shot.

Along with its new features, the SR also has a redesigned tactical rail. The SR rail excludes the previous grooves from past rail designs and instead features a smooth, unbroken rail, designed to fit into its holster. As you can see below, tactical rail attachments, such as the Retaliator's foregrip are compatible with the SR. However, this change; much like the Hammershot's redesigned rail  is unlikely to be compatible with "Slydev" 3D-printed Nerf attachments, as they require a friction fit with the grooves in the old rail design. I personally find that the new design looks alot more refined, and it fits in well.




Here's the top view of the holster. You can see the grooves beneath the dart-holders which help keep the Sweet Revenge in.

And here are some images of the holster on the Sweet Revenge. It looks quite good on the blaster and matches it well.

As the holster is designed for right-handers, placing the Sweet Revenge upside down in its holster makes it nowhere near as secure as for right-handers. In the pictures below you can see the Sweet revenge does fit to a certain distance, although I wouldn't recommend it. However, there is a left-handed holster mod available here.




And finally here's a picture of the holster on me. I personally find the holster very comfortable, with its compact design not restricting my movements in a Nerf war and the belt clip holding very well on my pants.


As for the performance, the SR performs alright.
Ranges are generally 13-14m with a few high and low shots. Consistency is alright, with only one or two darts swerving off, probably due to the Rebelle darts(which are Elites with a different colour scheme) and the open barrel design. Do note that this is a grey-trigger unit, so results may vary with pink-trigger US versions.
Accuracy is average, with most darts being able to hit a human-sized target from 10m away, but some darts swerved off, both right and left.
ROF depends on how fast you cock the hammer. With regular priming techniques 2dps is possible and doesn't compromise stability if you use it two-handed. However, fan-firing with the stock hammer is quite painful ,being small and hard to pull down. Fan-firing slowly produce better results, with alot more consistency than if you fan-fire quickly. (Ranges were about 10-11m fan-firing slowly)


The Sweet Revenge is available for $24 at Big W only and also is the same price as the Hammershot in Australia. (And yes, that is true.)The Sweet Revenge doesn't have the best performance, but its inclusion of a holster and vision gear makes it better value than other revolvers and compared to the Hammershot, its extra accessories make it better value.
Unless you have some particular preference, the Sweet Revenge is definitely worth it. I personally got mine at $20, $4 down from the non-sale price at $24.

As a hammer-action blaster, I personally have found the Sweet Revenge to be the most fun blaster out of all the many Nerf blasters I've used over the years, and it also makes a great sidearm because it is one-handable and easy to reload. Although other revolvers can be bought for under $20, the Sweet Revenge just so ridiculously fun to use, and that makes it worth the price.
I highly recommend you pick up a Sweet Revenge Kit, or at least a Hammershot. (if Hammershots are cheaper in your area)


Pros: Hammer-primed, paint job looks good, holster is effective and comfortable, general ergonomics are excellent, inclusion of vision gear is a plus, SR is more fun than other blasters
Cons: Fan-firing is uncomfortable, ranges are somewhat substandard, accuracy isn't the best, prime can be hard for younger users, capacity is inferior compared to other revolvers.


 Power: 6/7
Accuracy: 3.5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Usability: 4.5/5
Rate of Fire: 2.5/5
Capacity: 2/5
Overall: 3.91/6

Personal Rating: 6/6 While not the best performer, the Sweet Revenge is just so much fun to use! And that makes it my favorite blaster of the year.

The Rapidstrike CS-18 was one of the most exciting Nerf releases of 2013 for many. Since the Stampede of 2010, there weren't any other similar "assault rifle" styled full auto blasters, and some people were modding their N-Strike Rayvens to be full auto. And of course, even from the initial leaked pictures, the Rapidstrike looked like a beast.
So does the Rapidstrike live up to all of its hype?
 Here's the flattened box to start off with.

 And here's the Rapidstrike out of box. Not pictured: a manual.

And fully assembled, pretty ordinary fare except for the clear clip.


The Rapidstrike with stock retracted. It's a fantastic looking blaster, even with the orange stripe that should be white. It works both as a modern or sci fi carbine/assault rifle, and many have likened it to the M41A Pulse Rifle.
Down the front, the barrel has the same faux rifling as all the other Elite things. Doesn't do anything naturally. Note how wide the battery tray beneath the muzzle is.
Top view, pretty normal stuff. Note how wide the cheek rest type grey part is , and how squared it is compared to the rest of the blaster. Two tac rails here, one on top of the carry handle, and one at the front.
Bottom of the front part, note the width of the battery tray, the sole tac rail, and the design of the angled grip section (grey part). This angled grip part is not something I've seen before on any other blaster, so it's a nice touch.
Side tac rail, there's one on each side.
Down the iron sight through the carry handle. This is with the front sight flipped up (see the above muzzle picture).
And with the front sight flipped down. Honestly just like all other iron sights on Nerf blasters, these iron sights are pretty useless.

Here's a closer look at the stock retracted and extended. There's no in-between lock-in point, it's just in or out. It's extremely sturdy in either position though.
Here's a look at the handle and all the functional bits and pieces. Top trigger is the main trigger of course, it cycles the dart pusher and allows maximum power to the flywheels, and can only be pulled when the acceleration/rev trigger is active.
Bottom right trigger is the rev trigger. This gets the flywheels spinning up, and allows the main trigger to be pulled.
Bottom left button is the clip release. It lets you pull out the clip (howls of amazement).
Here's the Rapidstrike handle compared to the Stryfe. I personally find the Rapidstrike's a little too squared and too heavily angled, making it uncomfortable compared to the much more progressively tapered Stryfe handle. Maybe it's just me.
Here's a look at the thickness of the Stryfe compared to Rapidstrike. As you can see, the Stryfe is barely 2/3rds the thickness of the Rapidstrike. I personally find the Stryfe a little thin, and the Rapidstrike a little thick.
A better look at the battery tray screw ports. There are three screws holding it in.
Here's my hand on the Rapidstrike handle.
The Rapidstrike has multiple sling points. One just behind the muzzle...
...two in front of the the cheek stock, protecting the rear iron sight...
...and the traditional one at the bottom of the handle.

Here's me gripping the front of the Rapidstrike in two distinct ways.
The top one showcases the angled grip in front of the magwell. This reduces first shot recoil by 33%...or it would if BF4 actually represented real life.
The bottom showcases a "normal" underbarrel grip.
Both are reasonable comfortable, though because of the width of the battery tray, those with smaller hands may have trouble getting a solid grip.

Like the Stampede before it, the Rapidstrike is a heavy blaster. Though not quite the level of the Stampede and its 6 D batteries, the Rapidstrike still uses 4 C batteries which add a fair bit of weight. Not to mention the Rapidstrike is naturally fairly bulky and heavy, resulting in a blaster that weighs a little over 1kg.

So without a clip loaded, a Rapidstrike weighs 1.2209kg, which is much heavier than any of the Elites I've got.

The jam door is a nice transparent orange, and slides open simply. The jam door acts as an emergency kill switch, instantly stopping all of the Rapidstrike's motors. Of course, this means you could catch the dart pusher half way out if you open the jam door during a firing cycle. As a remedy to this potential problem, as soon as you close the jam door, the dart pusher will retract to rest position.
Here's a look at the rubber skirt that supposedly helps to centre darts. It was seen on the Rayven as well, but the Stryfe replaced it with 2 small spring loaded arms, which was far superior.
Here's a look through the jam door opening with a clip loaded. There's ample space to get your fingers in to clear a jam.
Here's a look inside the magwell, and all of the safeties.
The right most white/grey part is the clip retention piece, so without it clips would just fall out.
The second from the right white/grey piece is a safety that prevents pulling the main trigger if a clip is not loaded.
The (removed) safety where the red circle is is an electrical safety that prevents revving up the flywheels if a clip is not loaded.

Some time back, Basic Nerf reported that he was getting strange jams, in which the dart seemingly wasn't pushed forward fully into the flywheels. Unfortunately, I am experiencing the same problem. It seems that the pusher begins to retract before the dart has reached the flywheels, and so the pusher is stuck cycling, while the dart is stuck just before the flywheels, and nothing is happening.
 The cause of this problem seems to be the rubber skirt, which is causing darts to get stuck. This is very disappointing to see, since the same skirt was seen on the N-Strike Rayven, and was replaced with two spring loaded doors on the Stryfe which did not have this problem. This forces me to deduct points from the Usability rating.

Annoyingly, like the Stryfe, the Rapidstrike has some compatability issues with the Longstrike barrel. In the above really bad muzzle shot, you can see small pieces which prevent the Longstrike barrel from being inserted all the way. This picture shows how far a Longstrike barrel will fit, and it will not lock on.
All other barrel extensions, including the Spectre's silencer, will fit on just fine. This is really irritating for me because I like decking out blasters with as many attachments as possible just for fun.
The Rapidstrike isn't the only new thing in the box though, it comes with an exclusive clear 18 dart clip. Functionally it works exactly the same as any other 18 dart clip. It is fun to watch it advance darts though, and is easier to keep track of your ammo than any other clip. There is the problem that at close range opponents can see your ammo count too, but that's minor.
Loading an orange 18 clip, it matches a bit better than the clear clip because of the orange stripe.
One odd thing I noticed after a bit off use, the darts seem to have a light scrape on the tip, presumably where the flywheels contacted with the darts. I'm not sure if this affects performance, but as far as I can tell, not significantly.

And now of course, performance.
Range is honestly not very good, and not particularly consistent. With TRU branded C batteries that have been lightly used, I'm getting 10m average ranges at true flat. Some darts dip down at as little as 6m, while some fly a little further to 11 or 12m. Even by N-Strike standards that isn't great. Do remember that this is the grey trigger version. An interesting result from the Rapidstrike's circuit design is that the flywheels only rev up to maximum when the main trigger is pulled, making idling flywheels much quieter. Additionally, because the flywheels are fed max power when firing, there is no range loss in rapid fire.
Accuracy, like with the Stampede, is awful and is pretty much non-existent. Not unexpected, but still fairly disappointing. Even at a 5m range, it's very difficult to get solid hits on a smallish targets, where most other blasters would score easy hits. Thankfully, it is still possible to score hits on a human sized target at 9m away because of the Rapidstrike's ROF.
Rate of fire is where the Rapidstrike makes its name. Nerf claims that it empties the included 18 clip in 5.62 seconds, which is a ROF of 3.025dps. My testing shows that the Rapidstrike will empty an 18 clip in 4.923 seconds, giving a ROF of 3.45dps, which for once is a stat superior to that claimed by Nerf. In fairness, it's possible that they began timing as soon as they started revving up the Rapidstrike, while I started timing once the first dart shot out. This ROF is fast enough to partially counteract the awful accuracy, but you will still end up wasting a lot of darts.

Everything considered, is the Rapidstrike a blaster you should get?
If you're looking for a precise, powerful blaster then no, obviously. That is basically the complete opposite of the Rapidstrike.
If you're looking for a compact, lightweight blaster then again no, obviously. If you want a compact, lightweight, clip fed flywheeler get a Stryfe or an Elite Rayven.
If you're looking for a suppressive fire type blaster, then the Rapidstrike is certainly a good option. While it doesn't have as much capacity as the Rampage, the Rapidstrike's full auto makes it easier to spray out a burst of darts. While the Rampage does have better single shot ability as well as a higher capacity, the Rapidstrike's ease of bursting as well as full spraying making it a great suppression blaster.
If you're looking for just an all-round primary, then the Rapidstrike is certainly a good option. The rate of fire and ease of spamming at a semi-decent range (10ish metres) give you great power in close quarters and close range. It's definitely not the outright best primary blaster though, because others, particularly the springer clip fed blasters, are more accurate and have a greater range. Additionally the rev time can be extremely irritating and potentially game-losing if you aren't vigilant on the trigger.
If you're looking for just an all round fun blaster, the Rapidstrike is definitely an option, but I personally wouldn't label it as one of the best. Sure the rate of fire is pretty fun, it looks beast, and watching the clip advance is pretty cool, but the Rapidstrike's battery requirements, weight and high price break the dea for me. While they don't have as high a capacity, blasters like the Triad, Sweet Revenge/Hammershot and the Retaliator or EAT are all great fun, and cost half or less than the Rapidstrike.

The Rapidstrike is available for as "cheap" as $60 without sales, at BigW and Kmart. Sales bring Rapidstrike prices down to as little as $40. I personally got mine for $45 at TRU down from $65. Sure it might be a little expensive for what you get, but it's certainly quite a fun blaster. Though I'm still sticking to my EAT as my primary, I definitely understand why so many people use Rapidstrikes as primaries (as well as secondaries when cut down). Rapidstrikes make pretty scary blasters when rewired, motor replaced and LiPo'd.

Pros: ROF is superior to Stampede, shell is awesome, rapid fire doesn't reduce range, easily spammable, stock is extremely solid, lots of tacticool rails and sling points, iron sights are super tacticool, clear clip allows easy checking of ammo, burst fire is quite easy
Cons: Range is not very good, accuracy is awful, ROF is still inferior to air powered full autos, slam fire and some semi autos, heavy when using Cs, iron sights block off a lot of vision, at close range opponents can see your ammo level (if they're not ducking for cover), rev up time, rather expensive

Power: 4/7
Accuracy: 2/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Usability: 3/5
Rate of Fire: 4/5
Capacity: 4.5/5
Overall: 3.97/6

Personal Rating: 5/6 - The Rapidstrike is a heap of fun when you throw in some more powerful batteries.

Thought you guys would like to know some of the stuff that's been going on recently.
There's a couple of things, including a game report of a small game on 30/7/14, a look at some of my recent acquisitions, and just general news on what's happening.

First things first, a game report. This game was hosted by the Tag Recon group.

The game was only one hour long (since a lot of the guys had things to do), which is much shorter than usual. We played a game of Team Deathmatch to get people warmed up, followed by a mini Humans vs Zombies game, and then to finish off a mini Capture the Flag game.
I used my dual Sweet Revenges throughout the games, while other blasters available were Strongarms, Roughcuts, Furyfires and Magstrikes. The Strongarms saw the most use as they were the most numerous.
The play area was a tambarked area with a couple of trees for cover, but quite flat and small, and besides the trees there was basically no cover. Any more than around 10 people and you'd need a bigger area.

The TDM was pretty simple, one-shot-respawn, and you had 3 respawns. Once out of respawns, you're out, and the team with surviving people wins obviously.
Mini HvZ works as you'd expect a small scale HvZ to work. The zombies simply have to touch the humans to convert them into zombies. If a zombie gets tagged by a blaster, he/she is stunned for 5 seconds. This results in relatively short games that work with as little as 6-7 people. The winner is the last surviving human, although the game continues until he/she gets tagged by a zombie.
CTF again works just as you'd expect from a Nerf-based CTF, respawn at a point away from the flag (designated in this case by Magstrike clips), drop the flag if tagged, one-shot-respawn, pretty simple.

The Strongarms performed as you'd expect, decent range and accuracy, easy to run around with, reliable, easy to use, etc. They're basically the blaster to which everything else is compared to, and they're the most numerous blaster in the public armoury, for very good reason.
My dual Sweet Revenges performed well, as they provided a near instant follow-up shot if the first missed, as well as allowing me to threaten two opponents at once. In the mini HvZ, I was able to stave off two zombies without firing a shot, and managed to be the last survivor. The open turret was also useful when reloading. Though I did lose 2 shots compared to dual wielding Strongarms, I feel that the easier one-hand prime and easier reload made up for it.

The Roughcuts were quite interesting. The dual-firing made it much harder to dodge both darts, where dodging a Strongarm's single shots would be fairly easy at mid range. However, as we were using Whistlers and Sonic Micros which fitted a little loose in the Roughcut's barrels, on occasion the Roughcut would fire one good dart from one side, and splutter out two darts from the other side. This would often leave the user a little confused, in a vulnerable position, and their opponent untagged. While the double-fire was a lot harder to dodge than single fire, and particularly deadly at close range, it effectively halved the number of shots the user had to 4. This usually left Roughcut users out of ammo faster than any other players (except Magstrikers of course), often forcing them to fall back to reload, or just switch out for Strongarms and not use the Roughcuts at all. I don't remember anyone using the Roughcut in the last round at all.

The Furyfires worked more as support blasters compared to the Strongarms. While they didn't fire as far, the extra capacity and superior rate of fire (Strongarm slam fire was pretty much never used) allowed the user to more effectively suppress opponents. Compared to Strongarms, Furyfires are a fair bit bulkier and larger, making them less effective in tree-to-tree combat. The open turret was also helpful for reloading, though getting access to all 10 barrels is a bit of a chore. One issue we encountered was that it was difficult to get jams cleared. Because the darts were relatively old and squishy, they would often dribble out when fired. In the case of all the other blasters, this was ok because there was basically no barrel to get in the way. On the Furyfire however, there is a fairly long barrel, and the dribbled out darts would often get stuck in the barrel. This would result in the next shot not firing out properly, resulting in a jam, and the Furyfire being rendered unusable. Also dual wielding Furyfires is not recommended.

The Magstrikes were used as you would expect, a one-use instant-tag blaster that would usually be dumped once emptied. Because of how long the pump-up time is, and the nature of the games we played as well as the terrain of the play area, Magstrikes weren't particularly viable as a primary blaster. They would be great for taking out an opponent who was being just too good, for some suppressive fire, or for rushing an opponent, but Magstrikes aren't suited to tree-to-tree combat. Of course, all it would take to make the Magstrikes devastatingly effective would be a little bit more cover, or maybe just a few more people.

It was of course a lot of fun, and although short, I did learn things about how the blasters perform in certain conditions with certain darts.


And now to the second part of this post, just some things on my recent acquisitions.
I've managed to obtain a number of things, all of it second hand.

In this picture:

• Longshot with attachments (AR was removed by previous owner)
• Broken Hyperfire
• Broken Elite Spectre with all attachments (repaired, works fine now)

Not in this picture, a formerly broken Clear Mav which I fixed using my already gutted spare Mav. It was returned to its owner. Also not featured, a broken Mav which I gutted for parts.

And in this picture:

• Blue Longshot with attachments and clips
• Elite Rayven
• 2 18 dart clips

And just for the heck of it, my two complete and stock(ish) Longshots, side-by-side.



Finally, a look at some of the things I've been doing recently.

It performs very well, just as well as an SM1500 with a plugged pump. It works fantastic as an underbarrel backup shotgun because of the quick pump up time (just two pumps), and the tac rail grooves make it easy to Slydev on.
Like this:
 Or this:
 Or even this:
 and this:
Underbarrel integration is one of the reasons I chose to use the Raider barrel as the shell. The Raider barrel and all its tac rail grooves is easy to fit underbarrel of another blaster.

Secondly, a quick look at a modded X-Shot Angle Fire Bow.
While the stock bow includes useless untensioned bow arms, the base blaster is actually very small, being not much bigger than a Sweet Revenge. And yet when modded it packs a monstrous punch. Why? Just take a look at this:
Though the picture doesn't show the whole thing, the X-Shot Bow is a plunger blaster with a stock spring nearly twice the strength of any stock Nerf spring, and with a perfect plunger seal and a 10cm draw, nearly 4 times that of a Nitefinder.
With just a 10cm long 16mm UPVC barrel and removing all the air blockage, I'm flinging Elites 25m flat. I am outshooting my Elite Alpha Trooper with a 10 minute mod of a $13 blaster.

Finally, some awesome tacticool from my newly acquired Elite Spectre. Check the Blaster Tacticool page for all of the pics.
I'll be making an Elite Spectre review in the future, but I'll delay it to see if anything else breaks or malfunctions, since a lot of people have had their Elite Spectres break or malfunction. In fact, I got this Elite Spectre only because it broke.

That's it for this post, next post should be a review or comparison or something.

We are proud to be able to present a review on Buzz Bee's new Extreme Blastzooka!
This unit was sent to us by Buzz Bee Toys, many thanks to them for that. Note that them sending this unit for review will not taint the review in any way.


The box is pretty ordinary open-style fare, as usual from Buzz Bee. Note the 9m range claim instead of the 50ft that I believe North America is receiving. Judging from my testing results, and from what Buzz Bee has said, I believe the North American one simply has a tighter OPRV, meaning you can pump the blaster more before it stops accepting more air.
I believe this is also the same way Buzz Bee is making the Air Max series weak enough for non-North American markets.

This boxing is really, really simple and cheap. The clear gaps are not something you'd see in a Nerf box. Though it does feel a little like Buzz Bee is cutting costs here (and they probably are), with such an emphasis on environmental impact, minimal cardboard is nice.
Note also how easy it is to get the Blastzooka out of the box. It just takes the untying of two cable ties and it comes out easy. Not great for anti theft, but it's not exactly easy to conceal the Blastzooka...
The missiles are harder to get to without damaging the box though.

And everything finally out of packaging.
Here's a better look at the Blastzooka's new missile compared to an Elite dart.

Old Buzz Bee missiles do fit in the Blastzooka. They are a bit tighter on the rocket post, but get pretty much the same range.
Conversely, the Blastzooka rockets are a little loose on the rocket post of a 4B or Berserker. They still get the same range as the old yellow Buzz Bee rockets though.

Here's the two missiles compared directly.
Note the difference in construction - the new rocket has just a green main body and a black rear and 3 fins all in one piece. The old rocket has a yellow main body, yellow rear body, and 4 blue fins.


Now let's look at the blaster itself.

The rocket post is basically the same as a the Buzz Bee Big Blast. Note also that the muzzle ring is clipped on, and can probably be removed through brute force.
 The middle section is rather thin.
The other side of the shell, without the sticker it's rather bland, even with the orange accents.
The missile loads in pretty easy, just push it over the rocket post. It's reasonably tight, and so gets a pretty good air seal.
As with a lot of other Buzz Bee blasters, the Blastzooka is a lot lighter than similar sized Nerf made blasters. The plastic does feel thinner, though unlike some older Buzz Bee blasters I've used, while the Blastzooka does feel "cheap" compared to a Nerf blaster, it doesn't have the "dollar store toy" cheap feel to it.

The Blastzooka is an air blaster. To prime it, you pump multiple times to pressurise the tank, and then fire all the air at once by pressing the trigger.
The Blastzooka takes 12 pumps for maximum power. Any more triggers the OPRV, and vents the excess air. It requires a minimum of about 4 pumps though to actually fire off the rocket. Any less and the rocket just slides up the rocket post.


The draw on the pump is about 13cm.
The pump handle is a little small and uncomfortable to grip. At least for me.
This is the trigger, it's just a push to fire thing. Nothing interesting except for the fact it's not a conventional trigger.
Unlike most other blasters, the Blastzooka is designed to be shoulder fired. Here's a look at the curve seemingly design to be a shoulder rest.
Here's me with the Blastzooka mounted on my shoulder. My left arm is bent nearly 180 degrees just to hold the forward section of the Blastzooka, it's actually very, very small for its purpose.
I actually use it resting the pump handle against my shoulder like a stock, as it's far more comfortable than trying to use it shoulder mounted.
Here's the Blastzooka compared to a couple other blasters I had lying around. As you can clearly see, it's about the length of a Roughcut. So if you want an idea of how small the Blastzooka is, try mounting a Roughcut on your shoulder.

And now performance.
At maximum power (~12 pumps), the Blastzooka fired from shoulder level flat gets about 8m range. Which isn't bad considering it's firing a rocket. A (very) high angle can get over 14m, so yes the Blastzooka does live up to its 9m range claim.
Accuracy isn't fantastic. The rockets don't really seem to spin, so they sometimes fly off to the sides, but due to the size of the ammo, you can probably still hit a human sized target at 7-8m range.
Rate of fire is as you'd expect, awful. It takes 12 pumps to get maximum power, and that takes several seconds. Then you have to insert a new rocket on the rocket post, and you're looking at 5+ seconds before getting off a second shot.

The Blastzooka has an RRP of 10USD in the US, and an unknown price in Australia (Australian release is unconfirmed). It's a fairly good deal considering that's about the price of a Strongarm. Sure a Strongarm would be much more practical in almost all Nerf war scenarios, but launching rockets is fun. The next cheapest rocket blaster I know of that's currently available is the Demolisher, and that thing is 40USD.
If your gametypes give power to rockets (such as destroying shields) and you want a rocket blaster, then the Blastzooka is a much better value choice than the Demolisher, so it's definitely a good option. If you're looking for a blaster to derp around with, the Blastzooka is fun, but don't forget there are other cheap and fun dart blasters around too.
At such a low price, I think you have very little to lose purchasing one, even if you don't have a need for a rocket blaster.

Power: 7/7
Accuracy: 4/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Usability: 3.5/5
Rate of Fire: 0.5/5
Capacity: 0.5/5
Overall: 3.6/6

Personal Rating: 4.5/6 - though it is a little on the small side, and it takes quite a few pumps to fully prime, I think the rockets look sick, and there's always a certain charm to launching rockets.

Again many thanks to Buzz Bee Toys for sending this for review! It's quite a fun blaster to toy around with, if rather war impractical and undersized.


And now for the internals. Much talk about the Blastzooka was how it would compare to Buzz Bee's previous rocket launcher, the Big Blast. That thing had a huge tank and had incredible mod potential. Does the Blastzooka have that same potential?
Well as blatantly obvious, the Blastzooka's tank is a fair bit smaller than the second gen Big Blast tank. The first gen Big Blast tank is bigger still. Also note that the Blastzooka has what's known as a "back pressure" tank, rather than the Big Blast's more conventional pin release. It does get the same stock range though, so who knows? Maybe it can match the Big Blast in power with a stock OPRV.




The second gen Big Blast filled its tank in 3-4 pumps, so why does the Blastzooka need 12? This is the answer, the Blastzooka pump is tiny compared to the Big Blast, meaning it takes a lot more pumps to move the same volume of air.

Another report from a game with the guys at Tag Recon.

We played the same gametypes this time as previously, and in the same area. Copying from my previous post:

Mini HvZ works as you'd expect a small scale HvZ to work. The zombies simply have to touch the humans to convert them into zombies. If a zombie gets tagged by a blaster, he/she is stunned for 5 seconds. This results in relatively short games that work with as little as 6-7 people. The winner is the last surviving human, although the game continues until he/she gets tagged by a zombie.
CTF again works just as you'd expect from a Nerf-based CTF, respawn at a point away from the flag (designated in this case by 6 dart clips), drop the flag if tagged, one-shot-respawn, no firing with the flag and have both flags to win, pretty simple.

We are looking at implementing a few new gametypes though.

In this game we had more people than before, so capacity did become an issue.
In the previous game we used exclusively Whistlers/Sonic Micros. In this game, we brought out some Elites and I also brought my Kooshes. The bright green Kooshes in particular were very easy to spot in the dark, and the Kooshes in general offered much better accuracy than Elites.

Blasters included Strongarms, Roughcuts, my Sweet Revenges and Elite Spectre, one guy brought a modded Recon, Magstrikes and Rayvens. I also brought along my Blastzooka because one of the guys wanted to see it. Unfortunately he fell while using it and it snapped it in half, but luckily the internals are undamaged. I'll probably look at integrating it into something later.
And hey, that guy is now probably the first person in the world to break a Blastzooka!
Anyway, let's look into how the blasters performed.

As always, the Strongarms were the commonly used all round blaster. In HvZ the low capacity wasn't a huge issue as you would have short periods of rest to reload in. In the CTF however, the low capacity became a bit of an issue. Because we had 4-5 people per team, and you would usually use several darts to tag one person, you would usually run out of darts before you could take out enough people to rush. This often resulted in some awkward standoffs where some people would quickly run back to pick up darts, and their teammates covering them. This was somewhat balanced however by the fact that a majority of people were using Strongarms, and so most people had the same disadvantage.

My Sweet Revenges performed decently, however their inferior capacity to the Strongarms was particularly apparent. I would often run out of darts quite fast due to the number of players, forcing me to fall back and reload. I might look at using a clip system blaster for extra capacity for the next games instead if we keep getting more players. Dual wielding Sweet Revenges did help me fend off zombie rushes in HvZ, as only late into the game would you get more than 3 zombies rushing you at once, and fending off 2 zombies is easy when dual wielding.

The Roughcuts became a little more popular this game, possibly because of the extra shots it provided over the Strongarms. The dual shot was particularly effective at stunning zombies and tagging opponents at close range, especially with the surprisingly accurate dual Koosh or Whistler shot. However the single shot was rarely used as it is very hard to pull off in a combat situation, so Roughcut users often found themselves out of ammo faster than Strongarm users. They were also slightly easier to reload than Strongarms, as there was no need to pop out the cylinder.

The one Recon introduced into the game was one with an OMW kit, so it was firing much harder than a stock one, however it wasn't too powerful to be banned from use. The user had two 18 dart clips stuck together for faster reload, and that capacity advantage let him fire a lot more darts at targets before needing to reload. Its power was decent as well. These two aspects made it rather difficult to approach the user as none of the other blasters had even half of its capacity, and the range was superior to the stock blasters there. However, one major flaw with the Recon was that it jammed up several times throughout the games. This would pretty much guarantee that the user would be tagged, and naturally would occur when in the worst conditions. This one key flaw is something I would never want from a blaster.

The Magstrikes and Rayvens were largely used similar to how the Magstrikes were used last game. People would pick them up and greatly enjoy the rapid fire ability, only for the experience to turn sour when they realised what a pain reloading would be. The Rayvens also suffered terribly from awful range. In particular, the Rayven would be rather ineffective in HvZ due to the difficulty of reloading, and the abysmal range meaning you had only one chance to stun a zombie. The Magstrike was never used as its rate of fire meant having to pump it up and totally reload it basically every 5 seconds after reloading it. These traits resulted in the Magstrikes and Rayvens being dumped in favour of Strongarms and Roughcuts.


The HvZ games ran pretty smoothly, you would normally have a few minutes of standoff where the zombies are just constantly stunned charging at people. At some point, someone would miss their shot, resulting in the zombie getting the tag. It would just snowball from there, with the tags getting more and more frequent despite the increased frequency of stuns.
Often the last few survivors would fall purely due to running out of ammo, as they would have used a few darts to get some of the earlier stuns.

CTF games were not as smooth though. Because of the low muzzle velocity of the blasters used, once a person took the flag and got a few metres away, they would be very hard to hit while running. This would result in CTF coming down to one person being fed up with the standoff and rushing the flag. This meant that it was very difficult to retrieve your flag once it was taken.
In one particular game of CTF, both teams had flag runners rush at the same team, resulting in a flag swap. This happened twice, ending finally when one team successfully rushed unopposed to capture both flags.
I personally felt that this took away part of the fun of CTF, as you have very little chance of retrieving your own flag to keep the game going. The only way you maintained a chance of winning was if you rushed the opponent's flag when they rushed yours, so as to prevent them from capturing your flag. In the FPS games I play that have decent CTF (UT2004, Battlefront 2), half the fun would be taking down the enemy who was carrying your flag, and this was very difficult in our situation.
I'm not sure how this could be fixed though, given our limited space and resources, the need for team balance and the lack of video game idealness.

We also ran CTF with instant respawns. This meant that you basically had 10 seconds at very most to capitalise on tagging an opponent and push with superior numbers. Which naturally is greatly reduced when you are close to the enemy flag. I feel that this makes capturing the flag through a push very difficult, forcing the sprint-for-the-flag tactic to be the only viable tactic.

It was because of these issues with CTF that I personally preferred playing HvZ, but the game was fun nonetheless.


Another key issue, particularly for CTF, was the lack of cover. We played in the usual tambarked area with a couple of trees and benches quite a few metres apart. Because of how spaced out the trees are it's very difficult to get a relatively flat shot from tree to tree with a relatively stock blaster. This forces you out of cover if you want to push and advance. When out of cover, your only way to avoid being tagged is to dodge, and so often the confrontation would turn into a dodging contest.
I would often stand out in the open to bait shots from the opponent and dodge them. In these confrontations I would rarely fire shots unless they were actually threatening in some way, or I wanted to move up.

While I think it is fine to have dodging in a Nerf war, I don't thinking dodging should be a prominent feature of confrontations as they don't seem as fun as cover-to-cover combat. In particular, I play some indoors very-close-quarters games with some of my friends. The primary play area is often no larger than 10m long, and the games are often short but fun. Having sufficient cover introduces a need for strategy, as you can't just rely on luck or your opponent running out of ammo. Cover also helps to slow down flag runners, making them more vulnerable.


All in all, it was a fun game with a few more apparent flaws than before. We're currently looking at making some portable cover, as well as looking for a different location for some variety.

The "Koosh" dart is one of the few aftermarket non-homemade darts that is popular and recommended in many Nerf circles. It has gained popularity in many groups that use stock darts. So should you use Koosh darts over your stock of Elite darts?

Just as a quick note, "Koosh" is not their actual name. These darts have no "official" name and have no known company producing them. The name "Koosh" was given to it by members of the NIC for reasons I do not know.
As you can see, the Koosh's head is unlike anything Nerf has released before. Unlike the normally solid heads (with the exception of the velcroed Dart Tag darts), the Koosh head has very small finger like protrusions. This has led them to be described as "fuzzy". It's extremely soft to touch.

Whoops, you can't see the Elite weight reading, sorry about that, but it should say about 2.9g.
In any case, it shows that Kooshes are a little heavier than Elites. Obviously there would be some variation between each dart, but I'm not looking for an exact weight, just a comparison. This is one of the features of the Koosh that contributes to its performance.

The quality and consistency of Koosh gluing is pretty bad. In the case of the upper picture, the adhesive had not properly cured, so the tip came off very easily. In the case of the lower picture, the middle dart had an excess of adhesive around the tip.
Koosh darts are pretty much (but not exactly) the same length as Elites. They work fine in just about every blaster tha accepts Elites.
Here's a close up of the difference in tips. Left is the Koosh, clearly evident by the "fuzzy" tip. The right is the flatter headed Elite dart. The aerodynamic difference is rather significant, though I'm not sufficiently educated to say exactly how so.
In this picture I believe the Koosh is the right dart. Its foam is wider than (used, worn out) Elite dart foam, which gives it quite a tight fit in a lot of blasters.

But that's all meaningless if the Koosh dart doesn't perform acceptably in blasters where Elites perform fine.
How does the Koosh dart perform in Nerf blasters? Here's my testing results.

Blaster: Rebelle Sweet Revenge
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Rebelle/Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 13m range, not good accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 13m range, great accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? Yes

Blaster: Rebelle Sweet Revenge
Mods: Spring precompression, AR removed
Original Ammo: Rebelle/Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 15+m range, bad accuracy beyond 8m
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 15m range, good accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? Yes, extra Elite range is useless without accuracy
Blaster: N-Strike Scout IX-3
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Whistler darts, tested with Elite darts (perform very similarly)
Original Power/Accuracy: 8m range, decent accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 9m range, good accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Dart Tag Snapfire 8
Mods: AR removed; Power mode
Original Ammo: Dart Tag Whistler darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 12-14m, decent accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 14m, good accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Rebelle Pink Crush
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Rebelle/Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 14m, good accuracy on most shots but some shots veer off
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 14m, good accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Elite Roughcut 2x4
Mods: 4x2 mod, spring precompression
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 9m, decent spread
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 11m, narrow spread
Kooshes Recommended? If you want range, yes. If you want spread, no.
Blaster: Dart Tag Furyfire
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Dart Tag darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 9-11m, good accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 9-11m, good accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? No, no difference in performance, blue Kooshes can misfire
Blaster: Elite Rayven CS-18
Mods: Barricade motors, 2xIMR 14500
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 15+m, awful accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 15+m, incredible accuracy
Kooshes Recommended? VERY YES
Blaster: Elite Alpha Trooper CS-12
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 9-10m, ok accuracy
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 7-9m, excellent accuracy; occasional jamming on blue Kooshes
Kooshes Recommended? No, accuracy difference isn't that great, jamming is a major issue

Blaster: Elite Alpha Trooper CS-12
Mods: AR removed, 5kg spring replacement
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, horrid accuracy beyond 12ish metres
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, great accuracy; occasional helicoptering on Kooshes with excess glue
Kooshes Recommended? Yes, accuracy is incredibly good, helicoptering reduced by cleaning all Kooshes; no if you don't want to clean your Kooshes
Blaster: N-Strike Longshot CS-6 (blue)
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Streamline darts, tested with Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 10-13m, inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 13m, quite accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes

Blaster: N-Strike Longshot CS-6 (yellow)
Mods: AR removed, Raider spring added
Original Ammo: Streamline darts, tested with Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m usually, very inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m usually, quite inaccurate
Kooshes Recommended? It's too hard to determine just how the dart types compare as they're so inconsistent.
Blaster: Zombie Strike Sledgefire
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Zombie Strike/Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 8-10m, fairly accurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 9-12m, quite accurate/straight flying
Kooshes Recommended? Yes if you want range, no if you want spread
Blaster: Elite Retaliator
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 10-15m, quite inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 9-11m, fairly accurate
Kooshes Recommended? No, huge range loss for not great accuracy gain

Blaster: Elite Retaliator
Mods: 5kg spring replacement
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, quite inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, usually quite accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Elite Spectre REV-5
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 10-12m, not very accurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 11-12m, fairly accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Elite Rapidstrike CS-18
Mods: 3xTrustfire 14500
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, very inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, slightly accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: N-Strike Longstrike CS-6
Mods: AR removal
Original Ammo: Streamline darts, tested with Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 10-14m, quite inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 10-14m, fairly inaccurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes, though small difference
Blaster: X-Shot Angel Fire Bow
Mods: Rebarrel
Original Ammo: X-Shot arrows, tested with Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Well beyond 15m, fairly inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Well beyond 15m, quite accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Elite Stryfe
Mods: Barricade motors, 2xIMR 14500
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, fairly inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, very accurate
Kooshes Recommended? VERY YES
Blaster: N-Strike Rayven
Mods: Unknown motors
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 10-13m, fairly inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 12m, quite accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes
Blaster: Elite Triad EX-3
Mods: 6kg spring replacement
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, not accurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: Beyond 15m, laser straight accurate
Kooshes Recommended? MUCH YES; it's so accurate it's scary
Blaster: "Elite" Jolt EX-1
Mods: None
Original Ammo: Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: Up to 15m, fairly inaccurate
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 15m, very accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes

Blaster: N-Strike Stampede ECS
Mods: AR removal, Minimisation
Original Ammo: Streamline darts, tested with Elite darts
Original Power/Accuracy: 8-14m, no consistency or accuracy at all
Koosh Power/Accuracy: 10-12m, slightly accurate
Kooshes Recommended? Yes if you want accuracy, no if you want maximum range
The Koosh dart comes in two colours, blue and green. While the tips are the same, the foam is very different. Blue Kooshes are a little thicker than green Kooshes, and this is very apparent when loading them into blasters. This difference in width results in some interesting effects.
The green Kooshes perform quite differently to blue ones. In flywheelers such as my Elite Rayven, the Kooshes were a lot less accurate and sprayed more like Elites (though still not as bad). They still flew straight once they had stabilised, but they flew less straight more of the time.
On the other hand, green Kooshes worked normally in my brass-barreled Sweet Revenge, which plopped out blue Kooshes as they were too tight. Conversely, blasters with extremely loose barrels benefit from the extra tight fit of the blue Kooshes, not so much the loose fit of the green Kooshes.
Likewise, where my modded EAT helicoptered and jammed several times with the blue Kooshes, I've seen very few green Kooshes helicopter, and I've had no green Koosh jams. They tend to fishtail a lot, but they don't jam or helicopter as often.
After removing all the excess glue on my Kooshes, I've had basically no helicopters or jams in my modded EAT, and it fires them out like a beast. I'm still experiencing jams with my stock EAT, in which the thickest blue Kooshes get stuck in the breech and don't fire.
The green Koosh seems to perform similarly to the blue Koosh otherwise, though I've heard that the green is less sturdy. We'll have to wait and see how true that is, since I've actually found that the blue Kooshes have worse tip gluing.

In summary, blasters that prefer blue Kooshes are:

• Flywheel blasters
• Blasters with very loose barrels
• More powerful modded blasters (particularly ones with spring upgrades)

And blasters that prefer green Kooshes are:

• Blasters with very tight barrels
• Stock Elite Alpha Troopers
• Particularly weak blasters

Elite's aren't completely obsolete though. There are some aspects where Elites are better than Kooshes.
As you'd expect from such a low cost ammo source, the quality control for Kooshes is pretty awful. About a third of the darts had excess glue around the tips, which often hindered performance.
Several of the darts that had excess glue removed also had their tips pop off at some point. Luckily none of them have caused a jam yet, but it's still irritating. I believe that the glue bonds better to the green foam than the blue foam, as I've seen more blue foam with uncured glue than green. It's easy to just super glue them back, but Nerf made darts pretty much never have this problem in the first place.
Additionally, many of the darts had off centre tips. This would be much more pronounced with the thinner green darts, often to the point that the dart tip would sometimes protrude past the foam body. Naturally with Nerf darts this is not a problem, and just about every dart I've seen has had acceptable tip centering.
As the lighter dart, Elites also get slightly better ranges from particularly weak blasters. But since I don't use such weak blasters, this isn't relevant to me. If you still use older blasters such as old Dart Tag or N-Strike stuff, Elites may perform better than Kooshes for you.

In summary, Koosh darts are in my opinion far better than Elites. Their performance in the majority of blasters was as good as, or better than, Elites, and more often than not had superior accuracy regardless. While their quality is lacking and an irritatingly large amount will need their heads reglued, I personally feel that the price difference more than makes up for it. Where I could get a 30 pack of Elites for $10, I can get 200 Kooshes for just $20. I'd rather get over 3 times more darts for the same price and have to reglue some of them, than get the measly small amount of less accurate and consistent darts.
If you don't want to have to check every single dart for imperfections and be regluing tips, then you probably want to stick to using Elites or Elite Suctions (haven't tried Elite Suctions, but I will if they ever get down here for a reasonable price).

Koosh darts can be purchased from eBay at this link. They are not available in any brick-and-mortar stores, only online.

Another game with the guys at Tag Recon.
We had about 16 people turn up today, the biggest turnout I've seen so far. It was awesome, we got to test out some new gamemodes with more people, and I brought more blasters to try out.

Gamemodes:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Because of the large turnout we started with 3 original zombies, that seemed to work ok. It seemed pretty popular among people.
Capture the Bomb - in this game type your team would try to hold the Lanard Scatter Blast for some amount of time (20/30 seconds) uninterrupted, while fending off the other team(s). Tagging rules are one-shot respawn as usual, and drop the bomb (not throw) when tagged. You can throw the bomb to your teammates and continue the countdown (as well as ninja-saving the bomb if the carrier is tagged and drops it), but if the bomb touches the ground then the timer resets.
It's basically Oddball from Halo.
Tag Teams - this is a variant of regular Team Deathmatch. You would have multiple small teams, same old last team standing wins rules. However, when tagged, you would stay where you got tagged and wait for a teammate to high-five/otherwise tap you with their hand to bring you back into the game. If an entire team is downed into this "waiting for revive" mode, then that team is out.

Tanks - not a game type, just an addition to other game types. In this addition there are people who use shields. Obviously this adds all sorts of new strategies to the game.

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster. We had a few that started to misfire and jam, although some jams seem to be just because of bad darts.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always, they really helped fend off multiple zombies at once in HvZ. They also seem to be more powerful than Strongarms which is great, and more reliable.  
Roughcuts - performed as per usual. They worked well to increase chance of tagging, but more often than not ran out faster than Strongarms.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - rarely used, but usually taken as a backup blaster, not a primary. The only primary-used single shot I saw was an NF that I modded, and it had superior range to most things.
Blastzooka (AKA the Shamecannon) -  the Shamecannon is obviously not a practical blaster in our gametypes, as rockets do not yet have special abilities. However, its use of comically large ammo made it fun and amusing, bestowing eternal shame upon those who got hit by it.

New:
Nitefinder (AR removed, added spring, improved seal) - I didn't see a whole lot of this particular nitefinder getting used, but the main user has said to me that it performed significantly better than stock, so yeah. I modded it so I know it's certainly hitting ranges better than stock, but none of these performance mods really matter unless they make a difference on the field. And in this case they certainly did.
Retaliator - range is on par with Strongarms, however the capacity advantage is huge. Where a Strongarms has 6 shots before reloading, an out-of-box Retaliator has 12, as well as the advantage of fast clip-switches if you have spare clips. There was only one and I didn't see it get much use so I can't really say a whole lot.
Elite Alpha Trooper (AR removal, 5kg spring) - the EAT was quickly relegated to bench duty, as it was deemed to be very overpowered. It has far superior range, rate of fire, capacity and reload speed (with spare clips). Accuracy with kooshes is also pretty good. Simply put, it is totally superior to just about everything else around, so I probably won't bring it again. With a US spring I expect it will be a not-too-overpowered top tier blaster, but the 5kg spring is just too powerful.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - as a clip system blaster, the Rayven has an automatic advantage in capacity. Add on the higher than average range and the ridiculous rate of fire, and the Rayven becomes a seriously effective blaster. Also when loaded with Kooshes, the Rayven was surprisingly accurate. Using it, I managed to be the last survivor in HvZ, and I was able to fend off the whole horde for a short time. In other gametypes, the suppressive fire that the Rayven can put out is ridiculous compared to Strongarms. Because we play one-shot-whatever, you can hose down teams of opponents with ease. Simply put, the Rayven was probably the best not-too-OP blaster there.
Elite Stryfe (2 Trustfire 14500s, GoPro attached, Underbarrel Triad) - I actually didn't see this have much action. All I recall of it in action is being used as a mobile camera, and me tagging its user as a zombie. I assume it would perform similarly to the Elite Rayven.

We did run into an issue where someone loaded Whistlers into a clip, but that will disappear when the Koosh order arrives.


One important new feature of these games was that we added some cover in the form of bread trays. Though not quite high enough to crouch behind for full cover, they made decent shields when picked up. They did get in the way of running in a straight line though, which helps to solve the previous "flag run is instant win" issue.
I still think the cover has quite a way to go though, because the only way you would fully protect yourself is by crouching very low, and that isn't practical or easy.

The large number of players also reduced how effective dodging was in midfield combat. In previous games you could easily dodge, because you would usually be faced with just one opponent, and the others would be occupied with your teammates. However, because we had so many more players this time round, if you tried to go out into the open and bait shots, you would get barraged by several opponents looking for an easy tag, and you can only really dodge that volume of fire if you're a ninja or a Force user. This therefore forced the use of proper tactics. You could try rushing your opponents, running in to take out one or two of them then quickly retreating before you get hosed down, or you could try coordinating with your team and pushing up together. Either way, because of the number of players, you really needed good teamwork to make much progress against your opponents.

A lot of the time, we would have people run out of the tambark area for various reasons, such as to escape zombies or to survive when holding the bomb. Though we tried to restrict play to the tambarked area, especially with so many people it did feel a little cramped and hectic. I personally feel that some better cover and a larger play area would greatly help if this turnout is regular.

HvZ was a popular gametype, probably because of how fast paced it is and how easy it is to learn/jump in to. In the past, we would end up with about 7 or so zombies chasing down the last human. It didn't really look like a whole zombie horde chasing down a human, just a small group. However, because of the day's turnout, we ended up with about 15 zombies chasing down one person, which did look more like a horde in our relatively small play area. One player who used the Shamecannon in a HvZ game managed to survive and be one of the last survivors. This shows that you don't necessarily need the best blaster to survive in HvZ, you just need to be able to run. I managed to be the last survivor using the Rayven and dual Sweet Revenges, as the Rayven's capacity and rate of fire allowed me to stun entire groups of zombies with ease. In another HvZ game the last survivor used a single Strongarm, so you can see that it's not just the blaster that determines how long you'll last in HvZ.

Capture the Bomb was probably the gametype that needs the most tweaking.
At first we tried 4 teams of 3 people each, however this didn't go so well. The team that gets a hold of the bomb would be up against 3 times as many players to try and survive, and this made it practically impossible to hold the bomb for more than 10 seconds. This ended in a standoff with everyone just waiting for someone else to touch the bomb. As a result of the game being so ridiculously hectic, it was near impossible for mods to actually see when the bomb carrier was tagged, and also watch the bomb's movement so as to count down.
In an attempt to balance this, we switched to 2 teams of 7ish people each. However, this presented its own problems. Once one person got a hold of the bomb, the rest of their team would form a human shield around the carrier, making it very difficult for people to discern when they got tagged or not. It was also very difficult for mods to watch tags on the bomb carrier.
One fundamental problem with Capture the Bomb is that if the carrier doesn't feel the tag and someone calls it, the carrier will have probably moved a few metres away from the tag point, potentially affecting who next gets possession of the bomb. This also made tags near the 20/30 second mark very difficult to moderate. I personally think that Capture the Bomb has a long way to go before it becomes a "good" gametype like HvZ.

Team Deathmatch is a classic and popular shooter gametype, however it doesn't seem to promote a great deal of teamwork as it's very easy to get lots of tags without the support of teammates.
Tag Teams totally changes this however. Instead of respawning from a common team respawn point, you would have to rely on your teammates to come to you and get you back in the game. Since having teammates downed would leave you at a disadvantage in numbers, you would be forced to stick together so as to make reviving easier.
The team cooperation aspect is amplified when you add in tanks, as cover on the field is still quite sparse, making the tanks highly valuable. With tanks in play, you would usually be forced to cooperate with your teammates to flank and take out the opposing tank(s) while defending your own tank, otherwise you would be down a player and also have less cover.
Tag Teams worked really well with small teams, we had a few 2v2 matches once the bulk of the players had left, and it was quite fun, if a little short. Either one player of one team would get tagged, allowing the other player to get flanked and taken out shortly after, or one player of each team would get tagged, resulting in body camping and using the downed players as human shields.
I wasn't around to see Tag Teams with larger and more teams, but I've been told it works well.


And that's about it. We're still experimenting with new gametypes and rules to get a nice variety of well balanced and fun games.

Yeah, these things are pretty much weekly/twice weekly now. And as always with Tag Recon.

Today's turnout was again quite good, we had a maximum of about 12 people playing, a lot of whom I haven't seen before. Which of course is a good thing.
Today we used a play area near our usual one, but it's not quite the same. [Play Area 2] has similar terrain, but the tree cover is very dense in a small area and lacking everywhere else, while the old play area (Play Area 1) is less dense with trees, but has more trees spread out.
It is still a fairly small area and 12 people is probably the very limit of reasonable number of players.

Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary).
Capture the Bomb - Oddball stolen from Halo. Your team would try to hold the Lanard Scatter Blast for some amount of time (20/30 seconds) uninterrupted, while fending off the other team(s). Tagging rules are one-shot respawn as usual, and drop the bomb (not throw) when tagged. You can throw the bomb to your teammates and continue the countdown (as well as ninja-saving the bomb if the carrier is tagged and drops it), but if the bomb touches the ground then the timer resets.
Tag Teams - this is a variant of regular Team Deathmatch. Instead of respawning when tagged, you would wait for a teammate to come and high-five you to revive you. If your whole team got tagged, then you guys would be out of the game. Works better with several smaller teams, rather than a few large teams.
Capture the Flag - steal the enemy's flag and return it to your flag, and be in possession of both flags to win. One-shot-respawn at some arbitrary location (which is always changing) with some respawn timer (which is also always changing).

New:
Bombing Run - stolen straight from UT. Basically one flag reverse CTF. You would try to take a bomb (a Lanard Scatter Blast) to the opponent's goal/flag/target thing. All other rules from CTF apply.

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster. Confirmed this round, any jams and misfires that I witnessed were due to bad darts or use of Streamlines.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always, much better than Strongarms for effective dual wielding.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual. They're getting more popular now possibly because they're harder to dodge and easier to rapid fire. Also shooting 2 darts at once is just plain cool, a lot of people enjoy that.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - rarely used, and really weren't that effective.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - the capacity, rate of fire and range are still ridiculously overpowered compared to everything else there. Not quite as overpowered as the EAT though so I'll keep bringing it.

New:
DT Swarmfire (blue trigger) - an interesting new blaster. Because our stock blasters are grey trigger, the blue trigger Swarmfire had better range to just about everything else there. Its capacity advantage of 20 darts was also very significant, even with both of my Sweet Revenges I only have half of that capacity. The rate of fire isn't that fantastic at 1-2dps, and this was shown when the Swarmfire user used up basically all 20 darts on one constantly dodging opponent. The fire delay between pulling the trigger and actually firing didn't seem to be a huge issue. Most noticeably in HvZ, the user would pull the trigger when the zombie was about 7-8 metres out, and the user was moving away. This would usually give the user enough time for the shot to fire and nail the zombie at around 3-5 metres. In the other team oriented games, the Swarmfire would be used as a suppressive fire blaster, as the user would often just pull and hold the trigger until they run out of ammo, or their target got hit.
All things considered, I think that while the Swarmfire is rather overpowered compared to the Strongarms and Roughcuts we normally use, it's not as gamebreaking as my Elite Rayven. While it does have similar range and capacity, its rate of fire isn't the best and its reload is horrendously slow, and primarily the slow reload prevents it from being ban-worthy overpowered in my opinion.
It would certainly make some great team support blasters if we could get a couple, though they are very large and heavy to carry around compared to Strongarms and Roughcuts.


Unlike the past games we've had, this time around we had HvZ games where the zombies eventually gave up chasing the humans, and so the humans effectively won. I was that human once, and we had one player who could outrun everyone else so noone could catch him. As we run with the rules that the previous last survivors become the new OZs, said excellent runner made a great zombie. The only way I was able to survive long enough for the zombies to give up was because I used my tac vest to hold a large amount of spare ammo. This meant that when I was far enough away from zombies, I could quickly reload my dual Sweet Revenges back up to full capacity and fend off the zombies. If I didn't have this spare ammo, I wouldn't have survived nearly as long.
That one person who outran everyone else ran with dual Nitefinders, and I saw one person fend off two zombies for a short time with a single Nitefinder.

As with what's happened in past events, the CTF games didn't work that well, and neither did Bombing Run (as it is an alteration of CTF). The respawning system seemed to not work at all, probably because of miscommunication. The problem of moderating whether the carrier was tagged before or after winning also popped up again, though moreso in BR than CTF.
In one of the games of CTF, I was able to circle around most of the opponents, tag one or two of them, steal the flag and then dump it at my team's flag, at the feet of all my teammates who were desparately defending. I feel that you shouldn't be able to just run around all the action to get an easy score, because that's not much of a challenge compared to pushing through all remaning opposing players, though this is more of an issue with the play area and lack of cover rather than the gamemode itself.
Bombing Run in particular was very unpolished and didn't work well, though I suspect bad communication was part of the problem. We had awkward respawning, misunderstanding of rules, basically everything went wrong somehow.
We also played without solid spawn points, as we had nothing else to indicate spawn points. This resulted in some pretty bad spawning locations and decisions.
Long story short, CTF still needs some polishing, and BR needs some serious reworking.

We played one round of Capture the Bomb, and I'm not sure it worked out that well. My team won that (I captured the bomb), however we only won so easily because everyone else was seemingly out of ammo, and had to stop to reload. The stopping-to-reload problem is something that I feel would be easily solved with the placement of a few strategic ammo dumps, so we'll probably start doing that.
Besides that I'm personally just not that much of a fan of CtB, it doesn't feel as fun or exciting as any of the other gamemodes.

We played a few rounds of Tag Teams, and it worked fairly well. We usually used teams of 2 or 3 players each, because having lots of small team makes things really hectic and intense. I personally think that teamwork wise it's far superior to regular Team Deathmatch, as you rely on your teammates to get back in the game. However, one issue we did come across was that if a team stayed clumped together, it would be near impossible to take them out. This would be because as soon as one got hit, the other(s) would run behind them to use them as a human shield, and then revive them to get the downed member back into the game. I would usually tag one of them, causing the other to go for the revive, then tag the reviver after they revived the first teammate, and this would go on and on until I ran out of darts. The only way to eliminate a clumped together team was to coordinate an attack or use multishot/rapid fire blasters, which aren't common. Now Roughcuts are multishot blasters, but they're not accurate enough to tag two opponents at the same time consistently.
This meant that basically your only hope for taking out a team was to split them up and take them out separately, which is much easier.
I think that implementing a revive timer of some kind would help to reduce this issue, as you can't just instantly bring your downed teammate back in.


This round was probably the most running-intensive of all the games I've attended. It ran for about two hours, and of those two hours probably 45 minutes were spent on HvZ, of which I spent basically the entire time running.

We got to try some new rules and a new gamemode, so hopefully next game we can run with a new set of rules that makes all the objective based games a little better. I'm personally thinking that restricting the area you can be in when carrying the bomb/flag/whatever would help to balance the games.

I'm hoping to bring in a few new/different blasters for people to try, so we can get some blaster diversity going. At the moment I'm seeing just the Strongarms and Roughcuts getting major use, and I'd like to see the single shots get a bit more usage.

This will be the last Tag Recon game I report on right after the event. The next ones will probably be condensed into once a fortnight or something. I should have a new review up before then though.


Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary).
Capture the Bomb - Oddball stolen from Halo. You/your team would try to hold the Lanard Scatter Blast for some amount of time (10/20/30 seconds) uninterrupted, while fending off the other team(s). Tagging rules are one-shot respawn as usual, and drop the bomb (not throw) when tagged. You can throw the bomb to your teammates and continue the countdown (as well as ninja-saving the bomb if the carrier is tagged and drops it), but if the bomb touches the ground then the timer resets. New respawn for no-team CtB, see below.
Tag Teams - this is a variant of regular Team Deathmatch. Instead of respawning when tagged, you would wait for a teammate to come and revive you. To revive a teammate, you would place your hand on them, and count out loud to 3. If your whole team got tagged, then your team would be out of the game. Works better with several smaller teams, rather than a few large teams.

New:
Attack and Defend - a variant of Basic Nerf's Siege the Fort. In this gamemode you would have a small team of attackers and a large team of defenders. The attackers would try and convert all defenders into attackers, or steal an objective and return it to their spawn point (and would win if successful in either). The defenders would try and survive as long as possible while defending the objective. Attackers are one-shot-respawn, while defenders take three shots, and then turn into an attacker. The defenders would be restricted to a marked area, while attackers would respawn from a given area.

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - rarely used, except as backup to a Strongarm or Roughcut.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - still grossly overpowered, but at least there was something else that was on par.
Magstrikes - surprisingly we had one person actually use the Magstrike in HvZ. They used it to fire off bursts, which were highly effective at tagging zombies. Once it ran out though, the user dumped it in favour of Strongarms. The Magstrike still isn't a particularly practical blaster because we've yet to find a portable and effective cover system.

New:
Elite Stryfe (Barricade motors, 2 Trustfire 14500s) - performed basically the same as the Rayven, that is to say, stupidly and grossly overpowered compared to everything else. Range, rate of fire, capacity, the Stryfe and Rayven have basically everything needed for the games we play and the area we play in. They were pretty scary to go up against, considering the volume of fire they put out.
DT Snapfire (AR removed) - didn't see a lot of action, and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because it wasn't near the Strongarms and Roughcuts. People were surprised at the semi auto action though, and it was powerful enough to keep up with stock grey trigger Elites, though not as accurate. The extra capacity doesn't hurt either.
Buzz Bee Air Max 6 - brought it just for fun, to compare to the other blasters around. It's certainly better in range and accuracy, though the lack of ROF will probably prevent it from being a popular blaster. I probably won't bother with it next game anyway.
Elite Spectre - pretty much a Strongarm without slam fire, the 6th dart, and with a harder to pop in cylinder. Range did seem a little better than Strongarms, though practically the Strongarms' extra shot and superior ROF are far more important than a little extra range. I really only got the Spectre for the accesories anyway, you're far better off getting a Strongarm.


For most of the time this game, we had an odd number of people so we couldn't do CTF or BR, and so instead we played a few rounds of Tag Teams and HvZ.
In Tag Teams we had 3 teams of 3 people, and it worked quite well. The new 3-second-revive greatly reduced a team's ability to clump together and become invincible, and it also prevented people from doing run-by-revives. My team got taken out early, so I got to watch how the new revive system affected gameplay, and it really does help promote the teamwork aspect of the game.
HvZ worked well as usual, with 2 OZs and the rest humans. Once again there was an emphasis on being able to run, as in mid and late game it would become difficult to find time to reload.

Once about half of the players left, we decided to play a round of free for all CtB.
In this new version you would have to hold the bomb for just 10 seconds, because in free for all it's incredibly difficult to hold it for much longer. If you got tagged you would have to run to the grass (which was surrounding the tambark play area), and count to 5 to respawn. This worked really well, as 5 seconds is more than enough for the victor of the firefight to pick up the bomb and run away from the respawning player. Additionally, the tambark area is large enough for a bomb carrier to get away from most (or all) of the respawning players.
I personally enjoyed this version of CtB much more than any of the other CtB games we've played, as the respawning system seemed to work a lot better than previous stun systems.

Besides the tweaks to old gamemodes, we managed to trial a game of Attack and Defend with just 3 of us. It wasn't a proper game, more of just a trial run to see how things would go and what would be needed to make it run well. Nonetheless it was rather fun for just the three of us and it did run as expected and as hoped. As always, the game lasted several minutes while the attacker would get a few tags on the defenders, but would be taken out rather quickly. Once one defender was converted into an attacker though, it took less than a minute for the second defender to fall.
When I've run this game with my friends, usually the last defender(s) would simply just run away to prolong the game and try and win. The addition of the objective prevents the defenders from just running away to survive, as if they do the attackers can simply just capture the objective to win. The addition of the objective hopefully will also add an extra tactical element to the game, as the attackers have two ways to win.
It took about 5 minutes for the trial game to finish with starting teams of 1v2, so I'm hoping that with some larger teams we can implement some defender win conditions and make this into a great gametype.

While Nerf has seemngly forsaken the air tank/bladder in favour of the springer and flywheeler, Buzz Bee is here to save the day with their Air Max line of air tanked dart blasters. The smallest of these is the Air Max 1, formerly known as the Panther.
Once again, many thanks to Buzz Bee Toys for sending the Air Max blasters to me for review! These are US release blasters, I believe most of the world gets weaker blasters, and from what I've been told Australia isn't getting a regular retail release of Air Max blasters at all.


The AM1 comes in an open blister style packaging on a single piece of cardboard, very exposed. This has been Buzz Bee's packaging style for a number of years now for all of their blasters, and Nerf has only just started introducing it to their larger blasters.

Unlike the other Air Max blasters, the AM1 has a range claim of a mere 45 feet.
Just two cable ties to remove and the AM1 comes out easily. The darts are in a basic blister package.
 Out of the box, the AM1 and its six Extreme darts.

Let's take a quick look at the Extreme darts, because they're very different compared to any of Nerf's Micro sized darts.
 As clearly apparent, the Extreme dart is a significant amount shorter than an Elite dart. It also uses a black foam unlike that of Nerf foam.
The black Extreme foam is much, much more rigid than Nerf's Elite dart foam. It's also slightly thicker, which causes it to fit quite tight in Nerf's blasters. Buzz Bee blasters use a different barrel design to Nerf's. Instead of having an air restrictor and air coming out from behind the barrel, Buzz Bee blasters use a thick dart peg, from which air is released out through small vents. This causes Buzz Bee blasters to severely damage or weaken Nerf darts when firing, and often causes darts to split down the middle. However, because Buzz Bee's foam is so much more dense and rigid than Nerf's, it takes no noticeable damage even from repeated firing.
However, the thicker foam of Buzz Bee darts also causes a reduction in range when used in Nerf blasters.
As blatantly obvious, the Extreme darts are tipped with suction caps, letting them stick to most flat surfaces when fired at them. The Extreme darts are not as "sticky" as Nerf's old suction darts, and they do not stick for as long or as well as said Nerf darts. The Extreme dart heads are also rather inconsistent, with some being slightly deformed, and some being stickier than others.


Just a couple of looks at the AM1 design. It's very different to Nerf's modern militaristic style Elite line, despite the same colour scheme. The AM1 is a lot more curved and a lot smoother, though it lacks a lot of the details that Nerf made blasters have, like small paint applications. Instead, Buzz Bee have decided to use a single awful sticker for their detailing. While I do like Nerf's Elite paintscheme, the AM1 to me just isn't a good looking blaster. It's too thin, and the curves to me are weirdly designed.
An Extreme dart loaded into the barrel, as with most other blasters it loads right up to the tip.
The handle of the AM1 is atrociously small. I'm struggling to keep my fourth finger on the handle, and usually I just use my middle finger as my trigger finger just so I can grip the AM1 with my whole hand.
The trigger is also badly designed. If pulled sharply, unless your trigger finger is small enough to stay inside the trigger's curve, your finger gets spiked by the bottom part of the trigger. Though not exactly sharp, it's still quite painful to push against in a sharp trigger pull.

Unlike just about all of Nerf's current offerings, Buzz Bee's Air Max blasters are all air tanked blasters.

The pump handle is also atrociously and ridiculously small, and very close to the barrel. I usually grip it with just two or three fingers so as to not bump my hand into the barrel. The pump draw length isn't too bad for a blaster of this size, and it only takes 2-3 pumps to fill the tank and activate the OPRV.
  The tank in the AM1 is the new style small tank.
Here's the AM1 compared to some other single shots, the Pink Crush and the Triad. As clearly evident, the AM1 lacks the sort of details that make Nerf blasters distinctly superior aesthetically.
So how does the AM1 perform?
The AM1 takes a mere 3 pumps to be full. Using the included Extreme darts, it gets ranges of about 12m flat. Not the best range out there, but it still contends with grey trigger Elite blasters.
Accuracy though is incredible. Using the included Extreme darts, I'm seeing grouping of about 30cm on the ground at maximum range. The Extreme darts are incredibly and ridiculously consistent. While the AM1 has no sights to speak of, it's still quite easy to hit a relatively small target at a 10m range with Extreme darts because of how accurate and stable they are.
Rate of fire, naturally, is horrible. Along with being a single shot blaster, you also have to pump several times rather than complete a single priming action as with springer single shots.1 dart every 3 seconds is probably the best you'll get.

I've deducted several marks from the Usability rating due to the discomfort from holding and handling the AM1. It's certainly not designed with teenagers/adults in mind, and size wise really only suits children.

The AM1 also suffers from the issue of feeling cheaper than Nerf blasters. Though by no means flimsy and fragile, the AM1 is still lighter and thinner than Nerf blasters, and lacks the quality feel that most Nerf blasters have. It is still fairly solid, just not as much as Nerf blasters.

So should you go out and get an Air Max 1? Well, while it doesn't quite match orange trigger Elite blasters in range, it does outdo all currently available Nerf blasters in accuracy. So if you absolutely must have pinpoint accuracy from your single shot pistol, then the AM1 is probably your best option unless Nitefinders or similar are still available (as they have suction darts, not Elites). In a Nerf war though you're probably better off with the slightly faster ROF of a Firestrike or Jolt, rather than the superior accuracy.

The AM1 is available in the US for around 5USD I believe, which is an absolute bargain. While perhaps not as high quality as Nerf blasters, the AM1 is still a decent performing and fun blaster. If you're looking for a fun and accurate single shot, or you're looking for a cheap air blaster to mod, do consider the AM1. If you're looking for a reliable and comfortable single shot backup for Nerf wars, then the AM1 isn't the first choice I'd recommend, though it still does perform well and does do well with some mods.

Power: 5.5/7
Accuracy: 5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Usability: 3/5
Rate of Fire: 0.5/5

Overall: 3.49/5

Personal Rating: 3.5/5 - while the AM1 doesn't have the best range of Nerf pistols, it is by far the most accurate currently available single shot that I've used. That alone makes it qute fun to use. Unless you mod though spring powered single shots like the Firestrike are overall more practical.

I do have a Demo review in the works, it'll take a couple days to get all the pictures and type it all up, but in the meantime here's a video of how fast you can empty a Demo.

Time: 1.833
No. darts: 18
ROF: 9.27dps or 556.5dpm

The Demolisher is the only blaster I've used so far that gets a ROF anywhere near that of a Magstrike, which is impressive considering the Demo is semi auto. It beats both the Stryfe and Rayven, though I've yet to test the Rayven with trigger mods for a smoother/easier trigger pull.

New biweekly format for the Tag Recon game reports.
12/9/14
Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary). Usually requires at least 7 players.
Bombing Run - stolen from UT with CS influence. You try to take a central bomb (a Lanard Scatter Blast) to the opponent's goal, 'plant' it and keep it there for some amount of time. If the enemy manages to remove the bomb from the goal before that time is up, the bomb is 'defused' and is ready to be planted at a goal again. If a team manages to 'detonate' the bomb at the opponent's goal, then that team wins.

New:
Attack and Defend - a variant of Basic Nerf's Siege the Fort. In this gamemode you would have a small team of attackers and a large team of defenders. The attackers would try and convert all defenders into attackers, or steal an objective and return it to their spawn point (and would win if successful in either). The defenders would try and survive as long as possible while defending the objective. Attackers are one-shot-respawn, while defenders take three shots, and then turn into an attacker. The defenders would be restricted to a marked area, while attackers would respawn from a given area.

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual. People started dual wielding them, this time with a decent amount of success in HvZ, assuming they were able to prime them effectively, and they weren't against more than 2 zombies. As usual the dual fire ability excites people.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - rarely used, except as backup to a Strongarm or Roughcut.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - it cut out at some point for some reason, but besides that it performed as per usual, quite OP.
Elite Stryfe (Barricade motors, 2 Trustfire 14500s) - performed same as usual, for some reason people go for the Stryfe instead of the Rayven even when they're next to each other. Maybe it's because I can fit more tacticool stuff on the Stryfe.
Blastzooka (AKA the Shamecannon) - returned this week to shame more people. People seem to really like the noise it makes upon firing too.

New:
DT Snapfire (AR removed) - saw a lot more action today, people really liked being able to just semi-auto it, and it complimented well with another blaster for dual wielding. Range is definitely competitive with grey trigger Elites, and the one-handability is a big step up from the usually two hand Strongarms. The extra 2 shots are nice too.
Elite Spectre - as usual, not quite as good as the perfectly acceptable Strongarm, primarily due to lower capacity. Adds a bit of diversity though and I personally prefer the feel of the Spectre slide to the Strongarm.
Elite Triad (OMW Vulcan 6kg spring) - though it doesn't have the capacity to go toe to toe with a Strongarm, the spring upgrade gives it comparable power to an OMW spring replaced EAT, which we know is pretty overpowered. It's just powerful enough to sting a fair bit at close range though, which may present a slight issue.
ZS Hammershot - performed pretty much identically to one of my Sweet Revenges.
Elite Alpha Trooper (OMW 5kg spring) - this was quite OP. Ranges exceeding basically everything else, a rate of fire and capacity also exceeding most things, and a reload speed much faster than most things. Simply put, it's almost totally superior to anything else around. It's probably at the limit of the power we'll allow at our games, though at the moment there are many factors that make it OP.

For much of this day's games, we had an odd number so team games were rarely played. Instead, we played a lot of HvZ and Attack and Defend.
HvZ has never failed us before, and it didn't fail us this time. It's a really good gametype for getting new players warmed up, running, interacting with other players, and comfortable with their blasters.

We implemented a new rule for Bombing Run. To win the round, your team would have to get the bomb to the enemy goal and keep it there for 5 seconds. This helps to emphasise the need for teamwork, as it's very difficult to one-man-rush the bomb and win quickly with the 5 second rule. It also gives the opposing team a small chance of retrieving the bomb and prolonging the round. However, we found that 5 seconds isn't a great time. While it does prevent bomb rushes from being game ending (which is good), if a team works together well and tags or pushes back most of the opposing team's players they are practically guaranteed the win even if most of their players get tagged. 5 seconds is not enough for members of a defending team to run back to their spawn point, respawn, and then tag or push back the attacking team, and then defuse the bomb. Heck, 5 seconds isn't enough to run back to your respawn point and sprint to your team's goal even without the presence of opposing players. 10-15 seconds might make the game run better, but we'll have to see when we try it out.
Besides the flaws in the 5 second rule, it was great to see how Bombing Run promoted teamwork. Because the bomb carrier would usually be unable to use their blaster(s) effectively with the bomb in one hand, they were forced to rely on teammates for the bulk of combat. What usually ended up happening was the bomb carrier would stick with one particular teammate and try and get a position near the enemy goal, while the rest would try to tag opposing players and create an opening, as well as prevent flanking.

Attack and Defend is a rather odd gametype, in that the teams don't stay constant throughout the game. It's actually quite similar to HvZ, except the zombies now have blasters too. However, it ran quite differently to how I normally run AnD with my friends. Initially we tried starting with 1v4 (horrible mistake I know). Normally this works ok-ish with my friends because we usually run with exclusively clip system blasters, so spamming is very much viable to quickly convert a defender. However, this time it worked very badly, because the initial attacker was using a single shot crossbow, making it very easy to dodge, and very difficult for the attacker to get any hits onto a defender. One of the defenders volunteered to become an attacker to speed up the game, and it went relatively smoothly from there.
After that slow starting game, we decided to have at least 2 starting attackers to get the game rolling much faster. Having 2 initial attackers would give the defenders a little trouble, as it wasn't always easy to keep track of both attackers. Having 2 initial attackers also meant that there was a lot less 'safe' area in the defender zone, as if you ran away from one attacker you could potentially run into the line of fire of the other. This helped to get defenders tagged and taken out more quickly, which would propel the game towards the defender's imminent defeat.
We also allowed the attackers to use the Lanard Scatter Blast, as a one-hit-convert weapon. If a defender gets hit by it, they instantly become an attacker regardless of the number of tags they've had. This is not really a huge advantage for the attackers, as it's difficult to line up a throw while also firing and dodging. To ensure that the attackers have the LSB boon for as much of the game as possible, the defenders must through the LSB back to the attackers once out of combat.
Once we started to get the balance of attackers and defenders right, the games began to run more and more smoothly. However, one issue we came across was that the objective flag was too easy to capture. If the attackers effectively pushed far enough into defender territory, they could conceivably rush the flag under the suppressive fire of fellow attackers, and capture the flag without taking out the majority of defenders. This was not the intention of adding the objective, rather the objective was meant to be an anti-coward device. We're looking at ways of fixing this issue now, and will be testing it next game.


19/9/14
Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary). Usually requires at least 7 players.
Capture the Flag - same old CTF, two teams, get both flags to your flag post to win (you obviously start with your own), one-shot-respawn, drop the flag if tagged.
Capture the Bomb (FFA) - Oddball stolen from Halo. You would try to hold the Lanard Scatter Blast for some amount of time, while fending off the other players. Tagging rules are one-shot respawn as usual, and throw the bomb towards the centre of the field when tagged (as respawns are in the surrounding area). If the bomb touches the ground then the timer resets. In FFA CtB to respawn you would go to the surrounding grass area, count to 5 and get back in the game.
Attack and Defend - a variant of Basic Nerf's Siege the Fort. In this gamemode you would have a small team of attackers and a large team of defenders. The attackers would try and convert all defenders into attackers, or steal an objective and return it to their spawn point (and would win if successful in either). The defenders would try and survive as long as possible while defending the objective. Attackers are one-shot-respawn, while defenders take three shots, and then turn into an attacker. The defenders would be restricted to a marked area, while attackers would respawn from a given area.
To capture the objective, an attacker must first place their hand on the flag, hold it for 5 seconds while counting out loud, and then they may remove and capture it.

New:
Scavenger HvZ - played after the majority of the games, so that there is ammo strewn across the field. In this game humans go into play with some small number of darts (e.g. 1), and must pick up darts to fill their blasters. Zombies are allowed to pick up ammo, and return it to the dart box/bag/whatever, from which humans cannot take ammo. Same stun rules apply.
This gamemode is really just for the zombies to troll the humans, and to also make end-of-day dart pickup much, much easier.

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. Worked great as always.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual.
Single Shots (NFs, Firestrikes, Strikefires) - rarely used, except as backup to a Strongarm or Roughcut.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - OP as usual. It did take a little getting used to for newbies, as pulling the rev trigger, waiting and then pulling the main trigger seemed to not be intuitive, so for half a game the newbie user just constantly jammed it. Once developing the right technique though, they were fine with it.
Elite Stryfe (Barricade motors, 2 Trustfire 14500s) - see Rayven.
Blastzooka (AKA the Shamecannon) - now with an extra sling hook so you can use it alongside another blaster, and a slight power increase for longer ranged shaming.
DT Snapfire (AR removed) - proved to be very, very inaccurate which became a problem in HvZ. The ability to one hand it compared to Strongarms is a big bonus though, which can help when run-and-gunning in HvZ.
Elite Spectre - same as usual, a slam-fire-less Strongarm with one less shot.

New:
Elite XD Demolisher (2 Trustfire 14500s and stock) - both Demos were near unusuable as clip system blasters. The stock one had such an abysmal dart firing range that we would have probably had a better time using a stock Deploy. The modded one did perform better, however both completely jammed using Streamlines, and totally failed to fire them. Because it was so difficult to scavenge just Elite darts (we have a mix of darts at the moment), we just gave up using the Demos as dart blasters, and just used the rocket launcher. Which is awesome. The range on the rockets is incredible, it was outranging most of the dart blasters with ease. I actually spent most of my time using just the Demo rocket launcher, because it was just that much fun.
Elite Triad (added LSFG spring) - wasn't really used, however its power was quite noticeable.

HvZ is always a good option, it's easy for new people to jump in and have fun. It gets everyone running even if they're defensively inclined, and it's a great gametype for trying out something silly and fun. In one of the games, me and one of the other humans decided to run with just rockets. I used the Demolisher rocket launcher, and he used the Shamecannon, and we managed to be the last survivors somehow.

We played a round of CTF, and I felt that it didn't work well. I was able to run around the enemy team, tag one or two defenders, steal the flag and just ran it back in 20-30 seconds all up. This isn't necessarily a problem of the defenders being bad, but more that the lack of cover allowed me to just circle around the opposing team rather than take them out. I personally feel that you should only be able to take the flag if you've worked together with your team to eliminate some key defenders and create an opening that you can run through.
If you can run the flag having taken out just 1 person, and most of the team is defending then either that team is really, really bad or the play area isn't suitable and needs some adjusting. In our case I believe that adding some substantial cover would help greatly.

Capture the Bomb was extremely hectic, and in my opinion quite ridiculous. In the past, CtB (FFA) games have worked with 5 players, because you have enough space to get far enough away from everyone to get near a 10-20 second capture. However, we played CtB with more than 7 people, and as a result there was a lot of bomb drops and it took a long time to have a winner. We also tried a variant where you try to hold on to the bomb for a total of some longer amount of time, which means that no attempt to capture the bomb is wasted.
With so many people, it's near impossible to run away from other players and find a location that is safe for long enough to capture the bomb. From my experience, the only gametype that is still enjoyable when you become entirely too tired to run is HvZ, simply because it is designed for the zombies to win in the end. All other gametypes I've played that make you too tired to run half way through it feel like the game is dragging on too long. While this isn't true for say whole day HvZ games, for the short, fast paced games we play I believe that games should never drag on very long. This game of CtB dragged on for very long, so long that I totally gave up trying to capture the bomb, and just tried to tag as many people as possible.
I feel that while CtB (FFA) is a perfectly reasonable gametype for a small group (5-6 or less), it certainly doesn't work for more in our current play area.

Attack and Defend still had the same issue as before in that the start would be very slow. Part of the issue was that the attackers would quickly run out of ammo. While they would get some tags on the defenders, they would never get the 3 hits required to convert. This is likely due to most of the primary blasters being Strongarms and Roughcuts. As a result, instead of the usual heavily-skewed-to-defenders starting numbers, we had to start with nearly even teams, with the defenders having a slight advantage. The implementation of the 5-second steal helped significantly, greatly reducing the viability of the attacker tactc of pushing/rushing the flag for a quick win.
Another issue with AnD was that the defenders would often be just standing out in the open, due to lack of cover. This partially ruins the idea of "defenders" defending a fortified location, but with some cover that will probably be fixed.

Scavenger HvZ is a finishing up gametype. In this gamemode humans would be given a very small amount of ammo to start off with, and would have to scavenge the ammo already on the ground from previous rounds. With so much ammo on the ground, Scavenger wouldn't seem much more intense than regular HvZ, except the ability for zombies to pick up and remove darts from the field is huge. Humans can either keep running away from zombies to survive, or use (and usually lose) darts on stunning the zombies. Once the zombies have cleaned up most of the field, the humans usually begin to get quite nervous, which as a zombie is great to see. More than anything though, Scavenger is meant to help with dart pickup, reducing the amount of ammo that needs to be picked up at the end of the day.
The need for humans to scavenge darts can distract them from fending off the zombie threat. From picking up darts as a zombie, I was able to tag a human without running or even putting any effort into the tag, with the human walking up next to me scavenging ammo, not realising I was a zombie.
Usually players are given points for the ammo they return, and the person with the most points at the end of the round wins. Depending on how you want the games to run, both zombies and humans can scavenge and return ammo for points. This often gives humans an important dilemma: Do you keep as much ammo as possible and try to survive as long as possible so you have more time to pick up ammo? Or do you return almost all the ammo you scavenge to get as many points as possible before you inevitably and quickly get turned into a zombie?

I personally feel that the 19/9/14 game could have run a lot smoother, with some issues arising from miscommunication and the CtB games that dragged on for a long time.

Among other things, I received a blue Longshot from the US. I'm not going to review it since I already reviewed the yellow Longshot here, but I can give you all sorts of pretty pictures of the blue.
Note that the blue Longshot retail package contains 2 yellow 6 dart clips, while the yellow Longshot contains just 1 orange 6 dart clip.
As far as I'm aware, the blue Longshot never made it to Australia for retail, hence its high value among Aussies.

 All together.
And all its component bits.

Let's first look at the LSFG, the first part everyone throws away/sells off.




 This little cutout does hold a dart as seen above, but not very well.
The barrel's not very long, even Koosh darts stick out significantly.

Now a quick look at the yellow 6 dart clips, they're really not anything special besides colour.

And now a quick look at the scope, the other part everyone throws out/sells off.


 It really doesn't help much as an aiming aid, you'd be better off without it.

And now a look at the main Longshot body.








 This FPS shot took a lot of arm strength to take.
And a quick comparison of the blue Longshot with two of the most popular CS blasters today, the Rapidstrike and EAT. Note that the Longshot and Rapidstrike blues are very similar and match quite well, while the regular Elite blue of the EAT is a little lighter.

This is probably one of the most relevant comparisons right now, with the recent(ish) release of the Demolisher.


Aesthetics: Both blasters fill that crucial assault rifle style that is so popular. The Demolisher mimics an assault rifle with underslung grenade launcher which is so popular in videogames, while the Rapidstrike fits a more generic full auto rifle style. Both look awesome in their own right.
Accessories: The Demolisher comes with itself, a detachable stock, a 10 dart banana clip, 10 Elite darts and 2 Elite missiles.
The Rapidstrike comes with itself, a clear 18 dart clip and 18 Elite darts.
I'm calling this round a draw, because the Demolisher trades the extra capacity for a detachable stock and an underslung rocket launcher.
Range/Power: The grey trigger Demolisher, despite being an Elite XD blaster, gets ranges of about 7-8m, which is pathetic. A good number of N-Strike blasters beat that. The rocket launcher can get ranges of 10m+ easily, but we're comparing dart blasting.
The grey trigger Rapidstrike is better, but only slightly, getting 9-10m average ranges. Neither blaster is realy worthy of the title "Elite" in stock form.
Obviously the Rapidstrike wins this round, but it was a pretty sad round overall.
Accuracy: The Demolisher has passable accuracy, probably as a result of its low power, though of course it's not perfect as it uses Elite darts. Rocket accuracy is actually surprisingly good once you develop a good firing technique, but again we're comparing dart blasting here.
The Rapidstrike has just downright bad accuracy, it's a struggle to hit anything consistently at a range of about 7m.
The Demolisher wins this round.
Usability:  Both the Demolisher and Rapidstrike have their share of usability and ergonomic issues.
A stock Demolisher entirely fails to feed Koosh and Streamline darts, despite the latter being a Nerf-made clip system compatible dart. Additionally, the rocket launcher is initially very hard to use as it is pump to fire, especially so for younger/weaker users who will struggle to get decent rocket shots off. Additionally, there is no comfortable place for your off hand to grasp the Demo, as the rocket launcher's grip is a significant distance below the handle. This isn't usually a problem with Nerf blasters, which are usually fairly comfortable to grip under the barrel.
A stock Rapidstrike on the other hand suffers from a unique jamming problem not present in any other flywheel blaster I've used, and as we all know jamming is a major issue. Unlike the Demolisher, which at least feed Elites perfectly fine, the Rapidstrike can jam on any ammo you give it, whether it be Elites, Streamlines, Kooshes, or other third party darts. Additionally the weight of the Rapidstrike's 4 C batteries is significant compared to the Demolisher's 4 AA batteries, which can be an issue for younger users.
I'm calling this round a draw as well, because while the Rapidstrike's jamming is a major issue, so is the Demolisher's incompatibility with dart types it should be compatible with, and the Demolisher has a bigger ergonomic issue than the Rapidstrike due to the Rapidstrike's battery tray placement in the underbarrel grip area.
Rate of Fire: The Demolisher, as I've shown in my recent HFCBE video, can spew out darts at a rate of just over 9dps, though this requires a higher voltage to keep the motors from stopping. A stock voltage Demo is limited to about 5dps.
A stock Rapidstrike, as shown in a less recent HFCBE video, spews out darts at about 3.5dps consistently.
Naturally the Demolisher wins this round.
Capacity: The Demolisher comes with a 10 dart banana clip, while the Rapidstrike comes with an 18 dart clear clip.
Obviously the Rapidstrike wins this round.
Value for Money: The Rapidstrike is available for about 60AUD off sale, going down to about 40-45AUD on sale. Likewise, the Demolisher is available for about 60AUD off sale, however as a newer product the cheapest it has been is 50AUD on sale.
While the Rapidstrike is an overall more effective dart blaster primarily due to the Demolisher's abysmal range and lower capacity, the Demolisher does have an underslung rocket launcher which totally steals the show, being ridiculously fun to use as well as surprisingly powerful and accurate.
I'm going to have to call this round a draw as well, because value wise I can't pick between tacticool and a gimmicky rocket launcher, and practical dart blasting.

The Demolisher has won 2 rounds, and the Rapidstrike 2, with 3 draws. Thus this comparison is a tie. However, if I was playing to win, I would have to say that the Rapidstrike is a better war blaster because it is the more practical dart blaster. If I just wanted to goof off and have fun though, I would take the Demolisher to just have fun, purely because of how fun the rocket launcher is to use.
Honestly though, both blasters in their stock form are pretty bad in their stock form. For instance, a stock Retaliator outranges both and has significantly better accuracy with the barrel on, and is significantly cheaper.

The Demolisher 2 in 1 is one of the first Elite blasters to be released in the "XD" line, which claims to have 22m range here in Aus, as opposed to the old 20m range claim. So does the Demo live up to this claim?

Here's the Demo box, sorry for the awful quality but it was getting late and I was really excited to open it.
Note the small display window on the right with an Elite rocket and dart showing.
Here's all the stuff out of box. The main Demo blaster, the Demo stock, the 10 dart banana clip, 2 Elite Missiles (I use 'missiles' and 'rockets' interchangeably) and 10 Elite darts. Not bad considering how stingy Nerf has become with recent releases.
And all assembled, the Demo is a pretty cool looking assault rifle type blaster, with the ever popular underbarrel grenade launcher attachment, though in this case it fires rockets.

I'm not a fan of how orange it is, though to be honest I expected worse. When preliminary pictures came out it looked like the Demo was going to be full super saturated safety orange (look at the orange Stryfe), and it looked terrible. Thankfully, the main shell part of the Demo is more of a pumpkin-ish orange, which is far less damaging to the eyes. I still maintain that the regular Elite blue paintscheme is the best modern general release colour scheme, but that's just me.

The whole Demo stock is Elite grey, so while it does work fine with other blasters such as the Stryfe or EAT, it doesn't look particularly cool or standout like the Demo does. I would have liked some colour on it, but again, personal preferences.


Let's take a quick look at the new Elite Missiles, which are so far unique to the Demolisher but are available in refill packs of 3, at least in the US.
The Elite missile is a projectile far larger than an Elite dart, though by missile standards it's still small. It's shorter than Buzz Bee's quite common rockets, though the two are cross compatible which is nice. It's also significantly smaller than the old Titan rocket, which was Nerf's last attempt at a rocket blaster.

Note the construction of the rocket, specifically the head. The body of the rocket is made of pool noodle like foam, very similar to a Buzz Bee rocket. The fins are also the same style as Buzz Bee's, except they're stiffer and thicker. However, note that the head of the rocket is an extremely dense foam like material. It can take quite a beating, since in my Uni wars we've accidentally fired them into trees several times at close range, and into the tambark ground at high speed many times, and there are no marks besides very, very small cuts and holes which don't seem to affect performance.
The head is certainly tougher than that of a Buzz Bee rocket, which is good if you use them a lot, however especially at close range the very rigid head can significantly hurt, especially for younger people.
The hole through the back of the rocket is quite large, being able to drop an Elite dart into it easily. There's more than enough foam to keep the rocket quite rigid though.
These rockets perform quite well if powered correctly. The fins are angled slightly, which makes the rocket spin as it flies making it surprisingly accurate, though if any of the fins or the body are damaged this accuracy disappears.
However the rockets do possess quite a lot of kinetic energy, and so they have much more potential than darts to damage and knock over things. Definitely don't use them near fragile or easily damaged objects.


Now let's look at the Demolisher blaster itself.

Without a clip loaded or any attachments the Demolisher is very oddly shaped. While the main part of the blaster shares a similar style to the rest of the Elite blasters (particularly the very similar Stryfe), the huge rocket launcher tube and grip completely throw off the design and balance of the blaster. In particular the round shape of the rocket launcher tube is totally different in style to the usually sharp N-Strike/Elite styling.

Note the "Elite" print on the white stripe, which appears to be a new feature on new/rereleased Elite blasters.
The Demolisher is fairly chunky compared to most other Elite clip system blasters, especially when compared to blasters like the super slim Stryfe, or the reasonably slim EAT. Because of this, it completely conceals the position of the flywheel motors, whereelse in blasters like the Stryfe, you could clearly see the bulge in the shell designed for the motors.

The rocket launcher is a simple push-to-fire blaster, much like the Super Soakers Nerf has been releasing in the past few years. I personally would have much preferred a system that can be primed, and then fired by pulling a trigger, but thankfully rocket performance isn't actually that bad.
Performance is down near the bottom of the review.
The grip itself is actually huge, in a standard shotgun style grip position my hand covers at most half of the grip. It's also decently grippable, though if you have wet or oily hands you'll still slip.
Here's the Demolisher's 4AA battery box position. Again due to its chunkiness, the battery box is almost completely flush with the rest of the shell while blasters like the Stryfe and Rayven had the battery box clearly bulging out.
The Demolisher's jam door is a slide to open one, like that of a Rapidstrike and unlike that of a Stryfe. It's rather stiff for a jam door, unlike the Rapidstrike's which is extremely loose.
A close up on the trigger area. Like the Stryfe and Rapidstrike, the Demolisher is a flywheel blaster with a rev trigger (bottom right), a main firing trigger (top) and a clip release button (bottom left). The Demolisher is a semi auto blaster, so each pull of the trigger will fire one and only one dart.

It's also interesting to note that the Demolisher doesn't have the dart sensor that the Stryfe has, and so doesn't suffer from the same usability issues of jamming despite being loaded.
The Demolisher's handle is sized very decently, as you can see here my whole hand fits on it with nearly 3cm to spare.
The Demolisher has 3 sling points. Two are besides the muzzle...
...and the third is the obligatory handle loop.
The Demolisher has two tactical rails, and both are in slightly unusual positions.
The obligatory top rail is at the front of the blaster, rather than above the handle, which makes scopes and sights look weird.
The second rail is a right side one, and is similar in position to the top one. Not many attachments make sense in this position, the only ones I can think of are the Hydro Cannon's shield and any tactical lights.
I believe that the Demolisher was rumoured to have a 3rd rail, underneath the barrel while the rocket launcher would be detachable. Sadly, the rocket launcher is not detachable so there is no underbarrel rail.
The Demolisher has a barrel extension accepting muzzle, and unlike the Rapidstrike it accepts the Longstrike barrel extension.
The Demolisher also accepts stocks naturally, as it comes with its own stock. Pictured here is the LightningStorm stock.
Unfortunately due to its new orange paintjob, the Demolisher doesn't work particularly well with most of the attachments currently available, though it does work well with the old orange N-Strike Gear Up series, from which I have nothing.

Naturally as a clip system blaster the Demolisher accepts any clips. Pictured here are the 12 dart clip and the 25 dart drum. I personally like the look of a curved clip most, but like all aesthetics, it's all personal preference.
The Demolisher is rather front heavy, which is to be expected since the rocket launcher is attached under the barrel. It's not quite as front heavy as say a Rapidstrike with 4 C batteries, though it's certainly more front heavy than a Stryfe. Having a decent length stock does help, though like the Rapidstrike the weight balances out quite well with your off hand holding the rocket launcher grip.
Here's the Demolisher compared to two other Elite flywheelers, the Stryfe (above) and Rapidstrike (below). In many ways the Demolisher can be considered a beefed up version of the Stryfe, and it shares many characteristics with the Stryfe, such as being semi auto flywheelers, and having similar clip release systems, though in many ways the Demolisher is its own blaster rather than just a reshell or rerelease.
It is important to note that the Stryfe appears to be styled as a pistol/SMG type blaster where the Demolisher and Rapidstrike are styled more like assault rifles.
The Demolisher and Rapidstrike are quite similar in dimensions, if you remove the Rapidstrike's stock or add a suitable length stock to the Demolisher. The Demolisher's handle is a little slimmer, which for me is more comfortable than the Rapidstrike's handle.


Let's take a quick look at the Demolisher's new and unique stock.

The Demo stock is a rather unusual design, using a construction style similar to the Stockade's stock in that it's actually mostly hollow, probably so Nerf can save on plastic. Aesthetically the Demo stock resembles that from a Super Soaker LightningStorm or Switch Shot, but nothing released in Nerf's foam blasting lines.
The stock is also entirely grey, which is extremely dull compared to any of the other stocks available. It does work ok with most blasters that accepts stocks, but I personally believe that stocks like that from a Retaliator or Stockade look far better.
Naturally as a Nerf-made stock, the Demo stock will fit on any blaster that has the stock accepting block.

Also note the grey release switch, which is due to this Demo being a grey trigger one.

The Demo stock's main feature is the ability to hold a Demo rocket in the slot. The rocket stays in fairly well if pushed in head first all the way, thanks to 3 small pieces of plastic that push against the sides of the rocket.
While it is a nice feature that the Demo can holds an extra rocket, putting the extra rocket in the stock prevents you from 'aiming down sights', as the rocket gets in the way of your head. Considering how useless sights are on Nerf blasters, this isn't a huge problem, but for us tacticool guys it is annoying.
Length wise, the Demo stock is actually surprisingly short, being between the Retaliator and Stockade stocks in length. I personally found it a little too short to be comfortable, and I expect many of you larger people will find it far too short for comfort.

In short while the Demo stock is not the best looking or most comfortable stock, having easy access to an extra rocket at a moment's notice is very useful if you use the Demo's rocket launcher.


And now a quick look at the Demolisher's unique 10 dart banana clip.

The 10 dart banana clip is the first banana style clip Nerf has made, though there is a 3rd party 15 dart banana clip floating about.
As clearly evident here, the Demo's 10 dart banana clip is actually slightly longer than the 12 dart clip Nerf makes, despite its lower capacity. It also lacks the transparent right side that all of the Elite clips have.
Here's the two clips fully loaded, and as you can clearly see, the 10 dart banana clip does not using the curved section at all, which is extremely disappointing. The aforementioned 3rd party 15 dart clip actually does use its curved section.
Here's the 10 dart clip next to the 12 and 18 dart clips. For its size it really is quite a low capacity.
The 10 dart banana clip is clearly inferior for practical uses compared to the 12 and 18 dart clips due to its low capacity, as well as the curve making it less compatible with clip/magazine pouches that hold 12 and 18 dart clips. However, if you're looking to make your blaster look cool, the 10 dart banana clip is one of your best options purely because the curve adds an extra tacticool factor not found with straight clips.


One thing to note with the Demolisher is that it seems to grind away the heads of darts that it is fed. Now I've gotten rid of basically all of my Elites, so the included 10 Elites were the only Elites I could try. I used them a fair bit in just the Demolisher, and after some time I noticed that they all had grinding marks on their tips. I had this same problem with the Rapidstrike, though not with the Stryfe or my Rayvens. I haven't seen any significant performance effects, but I don't have a chrono to say for certain that this grinding does or doesn't affect performance.

One issue my particular Demolisher has is that there are two ridges, one on either side of the magwell, that cut into the sides of any clips you load in. Here you can see the wearing off of the black paint, right in the middle of the clip.
While not a huge problem, it does add significant friction to inserting/removing clips, and also just flat out annoys me.


And now stock performance.
Range is the biggest concern. Does the Demolisher hit its 22m range claim?

No. No it doesn't.
In fact, it doesn't even hit the old range claim of 20m.
And it struggles to hit the even older range claim of 15m. And that's at optimum firing angle.

Ranges with the darts are abysmal, there's no other way to put it. Shouldering it naturally (ie up to a 10 degree angle above horizontal), I'm barely getting from door to door, which in my house equates to 7-8m. Heck, my old N-Strike Recon, Deploy and Maverick achieved or exceeded that range. It's totally pathetic.
The rocket performs much better, though it's entirely dependent on how strong your arm is. Because of its firing mech, the range is entirely dependent on how fast you pump. I'm achieving 12m+ ranges with a solid pump, which considering it's firing rockets is pretty good.
Yes that's right, I'm outranging a dart blaster with a high range claim with a human powered pump rocket launcher. And I'm not exactly strong either. I'm not comfortable priming an 8kg spring Longshot.
Because you need a strong pump and/or a good technique just to get a rocket off, I expect kids to struggle getting any decent range from the rocket without practice, though older persons probably have the strength to consistently fire off a decent rocket shot.

Accuracy with darts is surprisingly decent, primarily because of how weak the Demo is. They mostly fly forward and slightly to the right, but of course being Elites the darts do occasionally swerve about.
Rocket accuracy is basically non-existent out of the box, because you have to pump back to fire and that totally throws off your aim before you've had a lot of practice or a good technique. Once you begin to establish a good technique though, it's easy to get relatively straight and accurate shots off, though of course it's still no match for an Air Max blaster or say a Nitefinder with suctions.

Rate of fire is thankfully a lot more pleasing than rate of fire. Being a semi auto flywheeler, a Demolisher can pump out darts as fast as you can pull the trigger. In my Demolisher HFCBE video, I managed to empty an 18 dart clip of Elites in 1.833 seconds, giving a ROF of 9.27dps or 556.5dpm, which is absolutely insane. That beats my Stryfe, which emptied an 18 in 2.1 seconds. So basically if you absolutely must fire all your darts as fast as possible, you could empty the included 10 dart clip in just over a second. Note that this ROF will actually jam the Demo, as the flywheels don't spin back up fast enough to keep up on 4 AAs; I achieved that ROF with 2 Trustfire 14500s.
Rocket ROF is as expected abysmal. Because of how tightly the rocket fits onto the rocket post, it's very difficult to quickly get the rocket onto the post. It takes me several seconds just to get the rocket on the post.

One interesting thing to note is the Demolisher's troubles with Kooshes. While it would fire about two thirds of the Kooshes in the clip I loaded just fine, the remaining third would not pass through the flywheeles, and would jam. This was less of a problem when running it with Trustfires, presumably because the extra speed forced the Kooshes through, but I still did encounter the occasional jam with them. Which is a shame, because I love Kooshes and don't using any stock ammo besides them.
Using green Kooshes on 2 Trustfires only jams with a weak trigger pull, consistently making strong trigger pulls practically eliminates the jams.
Even with 2 Trustfires a Demolisher completely jams on Streamlines because they're too short to feed correctly. This is irritating if you have to pick up ammo from the ground, and also annoying because no other Elite clip system blaster has this problem.

Should you get a Demolisher?
If you're after maximum out-of-box performance, then no, obviously not. A stock grey trigger Demolisher is one of the worst blasters I've ever come across (though I've heard orange trigger ones are quite good).
If you're looking for a good value blaster, then again no. Get a Strongarm or a Triad if you're looking for maximum value.
If you're looking for a rocket launching blaster, then the Demolisher is one of your only two options. The other is the Buzz Bee Blastzooka. The Blastzooka is a lot cheaper (at 1/4 of the Demo's price), smaller and lighter, though the Demolisher doesn't need to be pumped up, and has a built in dart blaster in case rockets aren't enough. Your choice whether you want an all round better and cheaper standalone rocket launcher or a tacticool faster firing assault rifle with underslung grenade launcher.
If you're looking for tacticool, then the Demolisher is certainly a good option. Underslung grenade launchers are super tacticool, as are banana clips, regardless of their practicality. It is a little pricey though, so you may want to look at a cheaper option like the Retaliator.
If you just have money to spend and want something to display or toy around with, then the Demolisher is certainly an option. It looks awesome, and the rocket launcher is super fun to play with. It is a little expensive though, but if you have the money to spend, why not?

I personally enjoy using the Demolisher, though I'm hugely disappointed with the dart blaster part. I have no shame in saying that I'm enjoying the rocket launcher part much, much more than the dart blaster part. I'm also disappointed that Kooshes don't work particularly well, because Kooshes are my main ammo type.

In summary, the Demolisher is a blaster that looks awesome, but fails to deliver. Subpar dart ranges, a fancy 10 dart banana clip that holds less than the similarly sized 12 dart clip (though in fairness you get more darts than with a Stryfe), a slightly too short stock that holds a spare rocket for the underslung rocket launcher that totally eclipses the main blaster in fun factor and range, the Demolisher is sadly not the blaster many of us hoped it would be. Obviously modding it will make it stand up to all the other Elite blasters, but in stock grey trigger form the dart blasting is just so incredibly sad.

Naturally if you get an orange trigger version you'll probably be much more satisfied with it because you'll get significantly better ranges than the grey trigger one. 

Pros: Tacticool underslung rocket launcher which actually performs really well, detachable stock is sturdy and holds an extra rocket, 10 dart banana clip is super tacticool, ROF is excellent
Cons: Dart blasting range is awful (grey trigger version), rocket launcher is not detachable, stock is a little too short, 10 dart banana clip is impractical compared to 12 and 18 dart straight clips, rocket launcher is push to fire and so isn't particularly accurate, jamming issues with Kooshes and Streamlines

Power: 2/7 (darts) 7/7 (rockets)
Accuracy: 3/5 (darts) 3.5/5 (rockets)
Value for Money: 2/5
Usability: 3/5
Rate of Fire: 5/5 (darts) 0.5/5 (rockets)

Overall: 2.89/5 (darts) 2.9/5 (rockets)

Personal Rating: 3.5/5 - the rocket launcher is ridiculously fun, and the 10 dart clip is super tacticool. It performs ok with a battery upgrade, but I'm quite sad it was so bad stock. Also the Koosh problem is annoying, because I love Kooshes, but it was easily fixed.

Last game of the year with Tag Recon, as the Uni semester is finishing and exams are coming.

Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary). Usually requires at least 7 players.
Capture the Flag - same old CTF, two teams, get both flags to your flag post to win (you obviously start with your own), one-shot-respawn, drop the flag if tagged.

New:
None

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster.The slam-fire ability was a bit more evidentthis time, with it being used to put out 6 darts very quickly, though it left the user vulnerable, especially if anyone survived the 6 dart spray.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. They've been slightly altered since last time, with the left hand one getting a boost by the way of a spring addition, and the right one losing the brass stubs that chamber loose darts better, but dislike Kooshes. Still worked great as always.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - not used at all.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - OP as usual, but not used
Elite Stryfe (Barricade motors, 2 Trustfire 14500s) - see Rayven.
Elite Alpha Trooper (OMW 5kg spring) - quite OP compared to the standard of the other blasters, and its rapid fire and high capacity was used to great effect in a mini HvZ game, letting the user survive for quite a while and fend off multiple zombies easily.
DT Snapfire (AR removed) - still extremely inaccurate. We ran across a problem when one of the players shoved in a dart too far, causing the turret to get jammed up. This is a direct result from removing the dart pegs, as well as the darts sticking out slightly more than with other revolver blasters. Other than that it worked fine.
Elite Spectre - same as usual, a slam-fire-less Strongarm with one less shot.

New:
None

As exams are fast approaching and assignments are due, most people seemed to be busy doing the assignment due at 6pm or studying for exams. We still managed to have a few decent games though.

The play area was an entirely new one. While previous play areas were primarily tambark with surrounding grass, this new play area was entirely concrete. While this did increase the threat of injury from falling, it also made dart pickup much, much easier as the brightly coloured darts stood out against the dull grey of the concrete.
While it lacked the cover that the trees offered, this new play area had a number of other features such as obstacle bollards and benches that acted as obstacles more than cover. It's also relatively enclosed, with only a few select paths out of the area, unlike the more open areas we usually play on.

CTF worked largely the same as it normally does, either one person rushes the flag and takes it and wins, or both teams rush the flags, resulting in a flag swap. This time around though the flag swap didn't make a huge difference to the length of the game, as about a minute after the flag swap there was another flag rush that resulted in a victory.
Normally in these CTF games, to rush the flag you would first take out the opponents on your side of the field, then sprint in and back out quickly to avoid getting tagged. However, due to the nature of the play area, running the flag would usually require you coming quite close the remaining opponents. This made it a lot easier to stop a flag rush as a defending player, which in my opinion made the games a lot more fun. In the old play areas it was easy to just circle around all the opponents and capture the flag, however due to the obstacles and enclosed nature of the play area, you would be forced to run the gauntlet of remaining players.

HvZ was also helped by this new play area. In the old play area, a human trying to escape zombies could very easily just turn around and run away, as the area around the play area is extremely open. In this new play area however, unless you ran away down one of the 3 paths, you would be confined to a small area that forced you to stun to survive rather than be able to just run. This made the game move along much more quickly, and in my opinion it was even more fun than usual. In the past games often the humans would escape and survive simply because there was a lot of space to run away in, and this made the first few tags take much longer to achieve. In the new play area, it was much easier for the 2 OZs to surround and tag a single human, provided said human was not extremely proficient in reloading. From there it was much easier than usual for the zombies to box in the humans, forcing them to use up valuable darts to survive rather than just run away.

Overall while we didn't get as many games in as hoped, the new play area proved to actually work really well with CTF and HvZ from smaller player numbers. I expect that if we were to have a large turnout in that area it would get extremely claustrophobic, due to how enclosed and small it is.

Now for a different Nerf line, here's a review of the Zombie Strike Sledgefire. Sorry it took so long to get this review done.

The Sledgefire was one of the two blasters in Zombie Strike's first wave back in late 2013. Like its partner the Hammershot, the Sledgefire is a completely new design rather than a modified version of an older blaster. Unlike every other Nerf blaster though, the Sledgefire uses shells to allow for fast reloading of multiple darts. This concept has been around for a while, primarily from Buzz Bee, but has had mixed opinions. Some like the novelty/realism factor of the shells, while others hated how they drastically increased reloading time. So how does the Sledgefire stack up as a shell using blaster?
Here's the Sledgefire in its new design open box. Past modern Nerf blasters of this size have all been in sealed boxes, while some of the upcoming blasters are intended to have open boxes. This open box idea is supposedly intended to let people know exactly what they're purchasing, which is a good idea. Unfortunately, having an open box means the blaster is exposed to more germs, dirt, etc, and is much more easily damaged or tampered with than a sealed box.

The Sledgefire box, which is the new Zombie Strike style of boxes. The only fully enclosed box I know of in the ZS line is the Crossfire Bow, and that's probably because the bow arms come detached.

Out of box, the stuff you get is fairly similar to a clip system blaster, though obviously with shells instead of clips. You do get 9 darts instead of the 8 pictured, I couldn't find my 9th when I was taking the pictures.

Here's the Sledgefire with all three shells in the stock.

Let's take a look at the Sledgefire's shells, Nerf's first venture into this territory. Buzz Bee has been making shell-using blasters for years, though they've primarily been shunned for the impracticality of shells increasing the time it takes to reload. They make for awesome props though.
The Sledgefire shells are a little longer than an Elite dart, but not by much.
The shells hold 3 darts each in a triangle pattern, that allows the darts to be as close as possible while still maintaining a short length of barrel. As you can see down the end, there are dart pegs, but no ARs.
Due to the design of the shells, the Sledgefire will only fire Elite and Elite dimension darts like Kooshes. Large head darts such as Whistlers and Suctions, and long stem darts such as Streamlines will not work, as they don't fit in far enough to engage the Sledgefire's ARs.
The shell has 3 air release holes, one for each barrel. I've covered them with sticky tape, however I haven't noticed a huge difference in performance.
Here's a shell loaded with 3 ZS darts. As you can clearly see, the entire dart fits inside the shell, with not a bit of the dart protruding out. This is the main cause of the Sledgefire's incompatability with fat head darts, which cannot fit far enough in.

So far the Sledgefire is the only blaster to use these 3 shot shells, however there have been rumours of a shell fed blaster coming in 2015. They work decently well, it's faster to remove an empty shell and put a loaded one in than load 3 darts individually, however sadly the Sledgefire only includes 3. There is a refill pack available Hasbro's online shop, however it only ships to North America.

Let's look at the Sledgefire itself.

The Sledgefire has a rather unusual paint scheme, which so far as I know is unique to it. The Sledgefire's main body colour is a light blue, with the usual greys and orange. In the first pictures we saw of the Sledgefire, the blue appeared to be an incredibly ostentatious flourescent blue. Thankfully it's not this shade of blue, being more of a candy blue sort of shade.
It differs from the Hammershot's orange with grey and orange, or the other ZS blasters with green with grey and orange, which I think is very unusual considering they all belong to the same line.

The general shape of the Sledgefire is more of a grenade launcher design than a shotgun, due to its single barrel break open action, but if you're looking for a hand cannon style, you can't go wrong here.
The Sledgefire is about the length of a Rapidstrike with the stock extended, so while it is still a fairly large blaster, it's not huge.
"Sledgefire" is written on both sides of the barrel. It's in raised plastic, like most names on Nerf blasters.
The main body of the Sledgefire, note the painted ZS logo, and the engraved tally marks above the trigger.
And the rear end of the Sledgefire, note the engraved "Zombie Strike" and the faux tape around the handle.
Down the top of the Sledgefire, it's actually quite thin.
The Sledgefire has a single tactical rail on top. It differens with the N-Strike style rails in that it has slots cut into it rather than the grooves seen on most N-Strike rails. This means that regular Slydev attachments will not work, but otherwise doesn't affect the way tactical rail attachments are mounted.
The Sledgefire is a break open shotgun blaster. The barrel is released using this switch, which is just above the handle.
If you have decently sized hands or fingers, you should be able to reach the barrel release switch with your thumb fairly easily. Smaller persons such as younger children may have trouble with it, though thanks to the box design you can try releasing the barrel while the Sledgefire is still in box in a store.
The handle is reasonably comfortable and is quite well sized, with my hand gripping it there's still plenty of space left.

Pulling the release switch causes the barrel to unlock...
...allowing you to pull it open. The break-open action also serves to prime the blaster. Once in this position you can easily insert a loaded shell in. To fire, you simply need to close the barrel and fire. The trigger is locked throughout the break-open action, and only unlocks when the barrel is closed.
The barrel actually swings open further than the fully primed position. Pulling it to this position causes the loaded shell to partially eject, allowing you to remove it more easily.
When priming the Sledgefire naturally, you'll probably pull it down into the eject position without realising it, so you don't realy need to think about pulling the barrel down further to eject the shell.
The Sledgefire uses 3 individual ARs to be able to fire any number of darts. If you load in just one dart, it will fire that one dart. If you load in just two darts, it will fire those two darts.
In the break open position, there is ample space to load a new shell in. I've tried loading the Sledgefire in positions before the fully-primed position, and have failed each time. The prime is specifically calibrated to finish when the barrel reaches a position that you can easily load in a shell.
Loading a shell is easy, simple line it up with the hole in the barrel and push it in until it clicks. You can then proceed to close the barrel and fire.
When you break open the barrel after firing, and pull the barrel down all the way past the fully primed stage, the shell will partially pop out into this position, from which it is easy to grab the shell and remove it.
Because the shell ejection system is spring loaded, if you hold the Sledgefire sideways or upside down, you can make it eject the shell right out of the barrel, rather than partially eject.
Looking down the barrel when loaded, you can see the 3 loaded darts. Note the piece just above the 3 darts, this is the piece that ejects the shell.
And when fired, note the 3 dart pegs of the shell.

When you close the barrel, the loaded shell seals with the 3 AR system. A small rubber outline around the ARs helps to seal the shell with the plunger system properly.
The Sledgefire's built in stock has slots in which it can hold the 3 included shells. I personally find the stock a little short, though it's not as short as the Retaliator stock.
They're quite secure in the upright position thanks to some tabs inside each slot, however they do stick out quite a lot. This position makes it easy to load each shell with darts.
The shells do fit in upside down, however they don't lock into place, as the tabs are designed to lock the shells in the upright position.
Looking through the slots, you can see some of the tabs.

So how does the Sledgefire perform?
Ranges aren't very good. The Sledgefire punches its three darts out to about 9m (30') which is pretty bad by today's standards, and average even by N-Strike standards. This would normally get it a terrible rating the the power category, except for the fact that the Sledgefire fires all three of its darts to this range, not just one. This gives the Sledgefire a much more respectable power score.
Putting only two darts into the shells instead of 3 gets you slightly better ranges, but the range difference is minor (about a metre at best) and you'd be much better off with the extra shot from loading 3 darts.
Loading only a single dart does get a bit more range, reaching the 12m (40') mark. However, the consistency of shots is very bad, with some shots firing shorter than with 3 darts loaded. Accuracy was also severely lacking with these shots, so if you want to fire single darts from the Sledgefire, my suggestion is to get a shell purpose made for firing single shots, or mod the Sledgefire.
Accuracy naturally isn't very good considering the Sledgefire fires 3 Elite style darts through a wide barrel. Spread at full range is usually about 1.5-2m wide. But hey, you don't get a Sledgefire for the accuracy do you?
Rate of fire is a rather odd one. Because the Sledgefire is a single shot style blaster, you fire out the darts, break open the barrel, switch the shell to a filled one and close the barrel. This makes for a fairly slow reloading process. However the Sledgefire doesn't fail miserably in this area simply because when you reload, you reload 3 darts at once, instead of one at a time. Switching shells takes about 4 seconds, so overall the Sledgefire's ROF is around 0.75dps - not as bad as it seems.

So should you get the Sledgefire or not?
If you're a Nerf war practicality purist, then no. The Sledgefire offers far worse practicality than just about every other blaster currently available. It lacks range and accuracy, and its use of shells coupled with its own large design makes the Sledgefire a pretty large and cumbersome burden. Sure the three dart burst could help you in some situations, but in almost all cases there's a superior blaster for that situation. And being so severely limited to just 3 shells which can only be sourced from Hasbro US (seriously, just release a proper retail package) forces you constantly reload your shells.
If you're a shotgun guy, then yes, obviously. The Sledgefire is one of Nerf's few blasters that works properly as a shotgun.
If you're looking for a fun, cool and silly blaster to just tool around with, the Sledgefire is definitely an option. No other blaster offers the same awesome break barrel shell fed true shotgun action, and the Sledgefire is just super fun to play with. Its high price does mean you make a fairly large monetary risk buying the Sledgefire however, as you can get blasters like the Firestrike and Triad which are also fun, but much, much cheaper.
The easiest test is to just look at it. If your insides scream "buy it!" like mine did, then clearly the Sledgefire is meant for you. If your insides say "...meh" or anything of the sort, then your money is probably better spent elsewhere.
The Sledgefire is available for around 40AUD at its cheapest outside of sales, from Target and BigW. During sales, prices can go down to ~30AUD at said stores. Is it worth the purchase? Well I personally think that the Sledgefire is a little expensive. Especially at its retail prices of 40AUD and 60+AUD elsewhere, there are much better purchases you could make. However, the Sledgefire is a very fun, unique and all round cool blaster, so I wouldn't call you a fool for getting one for 40AUD or less. I wouldn't get it for any more than 40AUD though.

Pros: Shells allow faster reloading of darts than individual dart loading, looks and feels awesome, loading system is quite intuitive and ridiculously fun
Cons: Incredibly impractical, only 3 shells and no easy/cheap way to source more outside of the US, range and accuracy are rather lacking, stock is a little too short for me

Power: 6.5/7
Accuracy: 2.5/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Usability: 4/5
Rate of Fire: 2/5
Overall: 3.33/5

Personal Rating: 4/5 - though it's totally impractical, it's just so much fun to let loose three rounds at a time. The reloading process is also awesome despite its impracticality.

The Elite Spectre REV-5 is an Elite remake of the old N-Strike Spectre REV-5. The N-Strike Spectre was welcomed as a decent blaster as it fixed many of the flaws that the other revolver, the Maverick, suffered from. However, the release of the Elite Strongarm has also solved many of the Maverick's problems, so does the Elite Spectre still have a place as an Elite revolver?
Here's the Elite Spectre's flattened box, pretty standard stuff.

Here's all the bits you get with the Elite Spectre. Besides the blaster itself, you get a Suppressor style barrel extension, a folding stock and 5 Elite darts. I've pictured Koosh darts because I've gotten rid of all my Elites.
Here's the Spectre fully assembled. It's quite a bit more of a handful than any other pistol sized revolver, being more of a carbine size.

Let's look at the base blaster first.

The Elite Spectre is very similar aesthetically to the N-Strike Spectre, the main difference being the length of the cylinder. The Elite Spectre's cylinder is shorter as it contains no ARs, instead there is just one AR on the plunger assembly.
The Spectre is quite a thin blaster, besides the cylinder and slide it's a straight, slim blaster.
The Spectre is a 5-shot revolver with a pop out cylinder. The grey (orange on orange trigger models) button on the right releases the cylinder, which you can push out easily from the right side.

Popping out the cylinder exposes 2.5 barrels, so with some dexterity and a little dart squishing you could fit in 3 darts at a time. The cylinder pops into position so that it is always in line with the plunger outlet, and it locks into place even when popped out, which makes rotating the cylinder to load in more darts easier. The end of the barrels is wider than the barrels themselves, allowing use of fat head darts such as Whistlers.
The cylinder is quite small for the number of darts it holds, most other cylinders are more round and larger.

The Spectre is a slide primed revolver, requisiting two hand operation. Once the slide is pulled to primed position, the plunger rod catches in place, and releasing the slide will cause it to spring back into rest position. It's decently comfortable to grip, though it's not huge.
The prime also rotates the cylinder. The cylinder rotation mech is quite solid so misfires and misrotations are quite rare.
Note the hot glue and the metal rod, those were not in the original Spectre I received.

It's very important to note that the Spectre I got was actually broken, which is why I bought it off my friend I've heard that many people have had that their Elite Spectres have broken, though I'm not sure exactly where. I haven't actually seen a non-broken Spectre, so I don't know exactly what's broken, however from the way it came to me I'm assuming it's the slide. From the original owner, I've heard that it broke on the day it was opened, so considering the amount of breakages I've seen/heard of, I'd say there's certainly something fundamentally wrong with the Elite Spectre's design.

The N-Strike Spectre did not have any glaring design flaws, as I haven't heard of any N-Strike Spectre breakages, so having the Elite version introduce such a glaring design flaw is a quite disappointing.
Here's the handle and trigger, pretty standard for an Elite blaster.
The handle is like that of the original Spectre, being smaller than usual. I personally find it reasonably comfortable, though if you have larger hands you may find it too small for comfort.
More importantly, the trigger slot is smaller than usual. This causes your trigger finger to scrape against the bottom of the trigger slot when you pull the trigger, which can cause some irritation to your trigger finger.
Note the sling point at the bottom of the handle, as per usual.
The Spectre accepts barrel extensions, and includes its own unique barrel extension.
The Spectre also accepts stocks and again includes its own unique stock.
The Spectre has a single tactical rail, but sadly doesn't come with a tac rail attachment.


Let's take a look at the Spectre's barrel extension.
The Spectre's barrel extension is (rather fittingly) a suppressor style, though naturally it has no suppressing abilities. It's the shortest barrel extension available.
As the N-Strike Spectre used Whistler darts (ironically enough), the faux barrel of the Spectre barrel is significantly wider than that of a Retaliator/Recon/Longshot barrel extension. That combined with its short length result in the Spectre barrel reducing blaster performance the least of all barrel extensions. On most stock blasters, it reduces ranges by barely a metre, while on more powerful blasters often the Spectre barrel has no effect on performance.

This combination of having minimal impact on performance and looking awesome result in the Spectre barrel being one of the most sought after barrel attachments.


Let's now look at the Spectre's stock.

The Spectre's stock is similar in design to the N-Strike Recon's stock, in that it's wiry rather than solid. It's one of the longer stocks Nerf makes.

The Spectre's stock is unique in that it's the only stock that folds. You can have it deployed as a stock, and then fold it back against the body of the blaster.
Starting from the deployed position, notice the black padlock on red sticker in the hole. This indicates that the stock is locked in position.
To unlock the stock, you simply need to pull it outwards.
Then you can swing it around...
...to the other position.
To lock it in, simply push the stock inwards so the padlock shows again.

And here's the stock deployed and folded on the Spectre.
The Spectre stock is quite neat. You can deploy it fo take more stable and accurate potshots, then fold it up for mobility and storage.
Sadly where the Spectre stock falls down is stability. The locking mechanism isn't particularly solid, and the stock itself is fairly flimsy as it's a wire stock made from plastic. Also taking into account its length, and you have a stock that bends very easily, and doesn't feel very stable.
It's definitely a very tacticool stock because of its folding feature, but in practical use you're better off just using a more solid stock such as a Raider stock, even if it doesn't fold away.

So now for performance. Does the Elite Spectre perform like an Elite blaster?
Ranges with the Elite Spectre range from 9-12m, averaging around 11m. This is about average for a grey trigger Elite blaster. Nothing special, but not bad.
Accuracy is decent but it doesn't compare to the N-Strike Spectre. Because the Elite Spectre uses Elite darts, some shots tend to veer off, which brings down the accuracy rating. The shots that don't veer away have a decent group, but certainly not the best.
Rate of fire is about 2-3dps, depending on how good your priming technique is. This is decent for a slide primed blaster, but it doesn't compare to the Strongarm's slam fire.


The N-Strike Spectre was quite a popular revolver choice over the Maverick, as it improved in many ways over the Maverick's many flaws. However, the Elite Spectre has to compete with the Strongarm, a vast improvement over the Maverick, and the Hammershot/Sweet Revenge, which are great blasters in their own right. So how does the Elite Spectre stack up in the Elite era revolver world?

The easiest factor to cover is tacticool. The Strongarm, Hammershot and Sweet Revenge all have just one tactical rail, while the Spectre has a tactical rail, and accepts both barrel extensions and stock attachments, making it the most customisable. So if you're looking for a revolver rifle of sime kind or some over tacticool revolver, the Spectre is a great base to start from.
Range wise all of the blasters are largely the same, with grey trigger models achieving 11-13m ranges with Elite type darts.
However the Spectre begins to fall down against the Strongarm in most other categories. While both are slide primed revolvers, The Strongarm packs an extra shot, has slam fire whic helps throw out darts even faster, and most importantly is significantly cheaper. In Australia you can get a Strongarm for about 1/4 the price of the Elite Spectre, and so for pretty much all practical uses, the Strongarm is superior to the Spectre as a revolver sidearm.
The key advantage of the Hammershot/Sweet Revenge is the ability to prime them with one hand, and one-hand primability is very useful for a sidearm/backup. They're also slightly easier to reload, as there's no need to pop out the cylinder. There's no significant disadvantage to using a HS/SR over the Elite Spectre, so I'd say that they're also superior to the Spectre as revolver sidearms.

So the Elite Spectre isn't a great revolver, but it's not the worst revolver ever. It's quite easy to find revolvers that are worse, though not necessarily in Nerf's recent releases. However, the Spectre's biggest flaw is its tendency to break. It's the only modern blaster I know of that has these sorts of breaking issues, and considering the quality of the blasters Nerf has recently released (physical design quality), this is not excusable at all. My fix for the break took a little bit of hot glue, and a thin metal rod, and this could very easily have been implemented in the Elite Spectre design from the start. I've had this fix in for over 2 months, and it's been used in several of my Uni games, and used casually for 2 months, and has shown no signs of stress or breaking.

While the Elite Spectre is a decent blaster when fixed, and does come with some awesomely tacticool stuff, I simply cannot recommend getting it on the basis that the out-of-box Spectre is highly prone to breaking. In Australia the Elite Spectre is an exclusive to Toys R Us and Toyworld, and so you'll have to pay a non-sale price of 40AUD, which is quite extortionate. The original Spectre was a Target exclusive and cost only 24AUD. 40AUD for a blaster that breaks and its two attachments that were available for far less only a few years ago make the Elite Spectre a very bad deal. Sales can take the Elite Spectre down to 28AUD, which is much more reasonable but still fairly high.
I got mine second hand for much cheaper and broken, however as a modder the problem was easy to fix, so for me it was a good deal. I'd recommend that if you really want to get an Elite Spectre or its attachments, get them second hand and be prepared to reinforce/repair the Spectre.
But if you're just after a revolver sidearm you're much better off with a Strongarm or Hammershot/Sweet Revenge.

Pros: Attachments are super tacticool, direct plunger upgrade from N-Strike Spectre, more reliable than N-Strike Spectre
Cons: Doesn't match up to the Strongarm in performance or capacity, stock is still fairly flimsy, accuracy and consistency lost through use of Elites, trigger slot is slightly too small, breakage rates are too high

Power: 5.5/7
Accuracy: 3.5/5
Value for Money: 1.5/5
Usability: 1/5 - common breaking issues mean I can't give it higher
Rate of Fire: 3.5/5

Overall: 2.69/5

Personal Rating: 4/5 - A working, fixed Elite Spectre is a decent blaster, though certainly not the best revolver available. The suppressor attachment looks fantastic and doesn't detract significantly from a blaster's performance, and the folding stock is neat and fun, though not necessarily the most practical.