Nanofire in the Wild

The wifey found the two colors of Nanofire out in the wild at ALDI here in Iowa just after Easter.

The Nerf N-Strike Nanofire is a new release this year. They've got it in blue and green. There are two holes on the top for horizontal ammo storage.

The official description: 

This compact Nerf blaster lets kids take it almost anywhere to start blasting almost anytime! Load 1 dart into the barrel, pull down the priming handle, and pull the trigger to fire. Reload and fire again! Storage for 2 darts on the handle. Comes with 3 Elite darts. Available in 2 colors: blue and red (each sold separately).

Yeah, you read that right. It says the two colors are blue and red. So the question is, will we see a red one, too?

Many will just write these off as Jolt repacking, and that's not totally untrue. To be exact, this is a repackage of an older repackage of the Jolt. The blaster was called the Dart Tag Stinger that came out in 2013. The biggest draw I see is that you're getting good, usable blasters for family wars or single-shot-only games for 4 bucks if you get them at ALDI.

If you're not lucky enough to have an ALDI nearby, they're going for 10.99 on Amazon.com at this writing. Better yet,  go to www.hasbrotoyshop.com and get it for the MSRP of $4.99.

Sorry for the short blurb. Today, we're heading out for an anniversary game at Carnegie Stout Public Library in Dubuque, Iowa. We'll be recording a review on the road, finalizing interviews for our new series we've been promising and playing in two hours of non-stop Nerf action among the stacks in an actual Carnegie library!

I love this job! ~CJ

TOY FAIR: Brand Name Chronographs Enter the Market

Well, warriors. Just after we released our review of a new option for nerf chronographs, two of our favorite companies came back at us with their own brand-name chrony merchandise.

Nerf came out with a chronograph and ammo counter combined. You can see it in the foreground of this pic from Foam From Above. He was all over the showroom early on at the Toy Fair in New York this past weekend.

It looks like their product attaches as a barrel accessory with all the compatible streamline/elite firing blasters. Plus, there is a tac rail on the underside. The release is pasted at the bottom of this post. Check out Foam From Above's first-hand write-ups for more on this new release. I am pretty excited about the price-point.

Nerf N-Strike Elite Dual-Strike Revealed!

Oh, warriors! Meet one of the newest blasters revealed from Nerf. It's the NERF N-Strike Elite Dual-Strike. Heck. YES. 

You can see here that the product is ready for merchandising and yes, it will be released for the Spring 2016 season. What that translates to is that you will possibly see them on shelves ahead of Christmas 2015 as some stores work to get their product out early. BTW, it's set for a suggested retail price of $19.99.

Questions Answered During Nerf HQ Hangout 2015

The season is upon us, Warriors -The smell of new blasters is in the air! That and we had another chance to sit down with NERF HQ to ask some burning questions about their products. We asked some pressing questions that have developed on the community and got to watch fellow bloggers and enthusiasts in action as well. You'll be seeing their coverage pop up as well, I'm sure. Blasterlabs, Foam From Above, Lord Draconical, Nerd Drop, Nerf Haven and Shining Foam all had good questions to throw out there during this exclusive Google Hangout with design, brand and marketing team members.

Every time we get together with the team at Nerf HQ, whether it's on Hangouts, in person at release parties, or just trading e-mails - you can tell that they all have an actual passion for what they do. There is a lot of fun in playing with these toys, but a lot of fun in making them too! We aren't allowed to share visuals and audio from the event, but if I could, I guarantee that I could pick out dozens of smiles for you from the entire panel (both HQ team members and NIC members).

Flameless Fireworks? - The Firetek Rocket!

Cool treat here, warriors. Our friends at Zing sent us a Firetek Rocket system recently and urged us to give it a try. We just had to get some night tests going ASAP.

The Firetek Bow from Zing! was already a lot of fun. I think this gives a lot of fun too at a little lower cost. Though, the Rocket is really not designed to use as a weapon so much as it is built to be a fun launcher. The thing is that you can't fire Rockets from the bow while you CAN fire Arrows from the Rocket sling. So, I would recommend buying extra Zing Firetek Arrows and using them in both of these products so that others can fire them back! I might argue that you can use this as a weapon is some cases -like when you have "explosives" rules in play at Dart Warz or other places where you are using bunkers and the like. More to come on that.

I titled this as "Flameless Fireworks" because I think you can get almost as much fun out of just watching this thing at night as firing it. But what are we missing? More colors!!!

(More after the link!)

The Current MEGA Line

Hey Warriors!

You know those reviews we've been promising? They're coming up now. We just posted the MEGA Cyclone shock review. There are a LOT of good things coming from this blaster. There was a little disappointment in there as well though :( Check out the review to find out what we're talking about. BUT THE BIGGEST PART: Could there be a giveaway announcement tucked in there too?

While we were finishing up that review, Dart Warz put up a group review for the MEGA BigShock we were honored to be a part of! They had their tournament recently and I had a complete blast being part of it along with the store teams and Vas from Foam From Above!

We have our individual BigShock review coming up in a while, but don't be shocked if a lot of what was said in the Dart Warz video is reflected there too! ~Chris

MEGA CycloneShock - Behind the Blaster

Warriors: I think I'll finally get some of those reviews up at the end of the week.

In the mean time, I've got a pretty fun sneak peak to throw your way. Our friends at NERF wanted you to get an early look at their latest video. Check out the excitement that some of the team at NERF HQ have for the MEGA Cyclone Shock!

I think the CycloneShock is actually pretty exciting. Yeah, maybe it can't really knock over humongous signs like they show in the video, but it sure can make the enemy duck on the battlefield. More to come on that! ~Chris

My First HvZ Experience - Meet Game of Foams

I know, warriors. I still didn't get our next review up. Forgive me. We've had more fires ignite in Colorado and I was a little tied up in my day job with some repercussions of that. No worries though, the firefighters got them out fairly quickly and no one in our region has lost homes to wildfire this year so far.

In good news, I do have a new video for you! We had a great time with a company called Game of Foams that is putting on short-form HvZ-styled events they call Survivors versus Zombie. They let us come up to Longmont and play with them, getting this footage to boot. It was a great opportunity to see how the ECS Cam Blaster would actually behave in a dusk setting outdoors. So I ran that with a dual banana "clip" I taped together after ganking them from a couple of our Demolishers.. Check out the results (below the jump)!!

New Logo?

What's up, warriors? I'll tell you what's up: a new logo. We've been wanting to get a badge design going for a while now and to update our current logo a bit. So we finally pulled the trigger. Our designer came back to me with a few designs. We've narrowed it down between a few and will likely make a decision soon! What do you think? ~Chris

Rhino-Fire Pre-orders Are Live!

Warriors! Have you seen the news? The Rhino-Fire is listed for pre-order exclusively at Walmart.com. The nice news that comes along with it is the $89.97 price tag. I don't know if that price will remain after the pre-order period. After all, it was set to be listed at $99.99 when first announced.

Check out their promo video from the Nerf facebook page too:

Post by Nerf.

Sean Hollister at Gizmodo got a chance to review this one early. He labels the Rhino-Fire as the Most Badass Foam Blaster Ever Built. That might be jumping the gun just a little bit, but I'm glad to know it's still setting off geek sensors :)

The two-stage trigger might take some getting used to since most of us have grown accustomed to the flywheel activators that are native to all the other N-Strike Elite flywheel blasters. Also, with the accuracy problems that Hollister notes, the Most Badass award may have issues too.

Can't wait to put this through our combine of tests! ~Chris

The ECS-12 Cam Blaster and others

So Warriors,

In case you missed it on Youtube, we recently got a care package in the mail from our friends over at Nerf. We got a chance to un-box the ECS-12 Cam blaster and also found the Demolisher and the MEGA Thunderbow in the box.

All of these are in testing now and they'll get comprehensive reviews soon! Which one do you want to pick up the most?

~Chris

Project Scorpius Begins

So, warriors, we can collect blasters and talk about the new stuff until we're blue in the face. However, it really comes down to what we can do with what we have. It's also about having fun. Right? So I've been going after an idea.

The Scorpius Project is a concept that has been in the back of my mind in one way or another since about a year into Click Click BAMF. We thought about bringing out another channel to look directly into mods and the like. We also thought about making a character for the channel so that the same guys weren't advocating mods on one channel and no mods on another channel. We never made the other channel, so a couple of ideas have been hanging out.

Between meeting the Nerf Ninja at Dart Wars and watching one of Basic Nerf's loadout videos, I've been thinking on and working on a loadout/costume of my own. You can see a photoshop/sketch design I've been working out.

One of my favorite elements of the loadout is the Kunai knife bracer from Calamacil. I hadn't seen any warriors around me incorporating these into their wars, so I just had to give it a try. Check out the un-boxing. We'll have a review coming on that too:

AirForce Blowgun - Blow by Blow Review

Got the chance to get another review up! This time is the AirForce BlowGun from the company with the same name.

I just got done talking with the creators of the BlowGun and they've got some good news. They're checking out new samples from the factory right now that account for left-handed users. In addition, they tell me that a new design on the tube will get rid of the small jamming problem from using too much pressure to pull in a dart.

We should also talk more about the Range category. Becky from AirForce BlowGuns had some good responses to our review that I want to bring up. We should really acknowledge that the Range results will vary based on the individual operator (they include that on the box as well). We tested out the blaster with what I would consider an average force of breath. But the beauty of the blowgun design is that you can vary your breath to change the distance you are firing the darts. I am looking forward to trying this blasters in an upcoming, full-on battle to give it the best workout possible.

Maybe at some point we can add a chronometer and pressure or force measurement to the testing for a more thorough review too.

I'm looking forward to continuing to cover the AirForce BlowGuns. I think things will just keep getting better! ~Chris

Rhino Fire, Part 2

Good news, warriors. NERF got back to us with the official release concerning the Rhino Fire we reported on earlier today. Some good things and possibly worrisome notes in the mix.

NEW NERF Rhino Fire Charges onto the Scene

Check it out, Warriors! Looks like the big bad blaster for the season may have already leaked out! Check out what showed up on the Spanish Amazon site. The box art calls it the Rhino Fire while the site calls it the Rhino Strike.

Now, it doesn't show in stock yet, but that's only a matter of time. At first glance, this looks like the new answer to the Vulcan/Havok of old. With the large bipod and high dual output, this looks to be the new "turret" weapon for the market.

Just from looking at the artwork, you can see that this will be drum-fed (likely flywheel-fired). It looks like the back has a similar trigger system to the Vulcan. There looks to be a tactical rail -at least on the right front and the top.

Sighting Report - NERF Rebelle Secrets and Spies

The products that we've been awaiting from the Rebelle Secrets and Spies line have hit the shelves! No sign of the Rapid Red, but everything else seems to be there -at least at the Toys R Us in Colorado Springs.

Of the most interest may be the Agent Bow. It's NERF's first real foray into the world of actual bow-fired arrows. Sure, they've had things with the word "bow" in the name. However, this one seems to be the first direct competition to the Zing bows from NERF.

It claims 85 feet for the Range. That's shy of the 100 foot MEGA distances. I wonder how they will fair with this completely new-to-Nerf projectile! BTW, you'll drop 30-bucks plus tax on it.

Strangely, it is not on ToysRUs.com or the Rebelle website. Well . . . none of the new Secrets and Spies blasters have popped up on the official website.

The Spylight does look like a Strongarm with a flashlight attachment as expected. I left this one on the shelf, but I can see the appeal for some. I think I may stick with the Firestike if I want a light and the Hammershot if I want a revolver.

It lists at $19.99 - so you're spending another 7 bucks over the Strongarm for the flashlight and the Messenger darts.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Diamondista. It's modeled after a crossbow like blasters across the NERF branding.

At $9.99, this is the most basic blaster in price and size in the Secrets and Spies releases. The original description NERF sent describes this as a blaster for missions that require elegance.

We did grab one of these too, so some more info will be on the way.

I don't know what happened to my picture of the Messenger blaster, but you can see it to the left in this shot of the Knock Out Gallery. All of the Secrets and Spies blasters come with the tech to "decode" messages from this one. It's S14.99 for this one. Obviously, you seem to be paying for the new "secret messaging" tech here.

As for the Knock Out Gallery, it's a basic target-shooting blaster. Meet the Jolt, Rebelle version. When I was in store, they had a deal running where you could buy the Knock Out Gallery and get a 12-pack refill of Rebelle darts for free.  Turns out they are running a promotion online where you can get the free 12-pack with ANY Rebelle blaster that costs $9.99 or more. Note that its the regular dart refill pack and not the Secrets and Spies version.

Target was running a similar deal today in Colorado Springs where you could get a free 12-pack of elite darts with any qualifying N-Strike, MEGA or Vortex purchase.

Hanging Out With NERF HQ

Some inside news coming your way, warriors! We had a great opportunity to sit down -albeit digitally- with NERF team members this week and ask some questions that you've been throwing our way. It wasn't only us though. We had the chance to join forces with Adult Fans of Nerf, Blasterlabs, Basic Nerf, Foam From Above and Shining Foam too. Everybody had some great questions to pitch and members of Design and Marketing at NERF were willing to play ball. As promised, details on a new contest are at the end of the blog! Now, here are some of the highlights from the hangout:


Up front, the team made sure we knew that not all the tricks were out of the bag this year. They told of a new big release coming in Fall timeframe (in time for the Holidays). There is at least one big blaster that hasn't been announced yet.

With that said, let's get into some of the questions!

Road Trip

Hey Warriors!

Writing to you from the airport in Seattle right now. Moved my brother out this way over the weekend and decided to include a couple of blog-related stops on the way.

Sadly, I missed being able stop in at Dart Zone Meridian in the Boise area. They had a glow-war night on Friday that I wanted to check out. Such is the life when making a road trip. I did get to take a selfie in front of the sign and will be back to check it out!

The Dart Warz/Dart Zone warriors tell me that the Nerf Ninja was out in full force this weekend. I'm in the process of editing some commercial work for dartwarz.com and some war footage for the blog too! If you never got the chance, you should see the video episode about the Dart Warz folks here:

Yesterday, I got the chance to swing by The Tag Zone in the Seattle area. Tag Zone is another indoor NERF battle business, but built with a slightly more militaristic approach. We'll have to tide you over with these images while I catch up on all sorts of other work and life.

I fly back to Colorado Springs tonight and get right back to work at the day job. Keep your eyes open, though. Rumor has it that I'll be heading to the other coast soon! ~Chris

Brand New - AirForce BlowGuns

Warriors, have you heard of AirForce Blowguns? I started watching these guys develop a few months back after an article that popped up in a search. The article was out of the Daily Herald in Utah and was titled Family works together to create fun foam gun for all ages.

The writer gives a lot of the background of the family and the start of their endeavors. But, of course, you're going to want to get a lot more on the operation of the gun and how it works. Well, we'll get that covered!

Check out the unboxing and be assured that a review is in the works:

Soakage

Warriors! Want to check out an experiment with me? We decided to pull out some food coloring with some of the new blasters that NERF hooked us up with. Food coloring, white t-shirt . . . You can see where this is going.

More videos will come. This season is a busy time in my day-job life, but we should be finding time to get tests on all these great blasters in the near future! ~Chris