And so, to the Future... Nerf N-Strike Elite

Towards the end of 2011, we heard whispers that Hasbro were about to release something big. Something that would shake Nerf to it's very foundations and take blasters to a whole new level.

Now, I could waffle on for ages, telling you what I know, what I've heard, what Hasbro has told me and what I have read in the forums but I think it best if I try and keep this as coherant and factual as possible. I hope you enjoy reading.

In February 2012, Hasbro made an announcement that confirmed everybody's hopes, the new N-Strike Elite range would boast ranges of up to 75'.

Over the next few months, Hasbro would release teaser videos of the new blasters on the Nerf YouTube channel which received mixed reactions. As you will see, three of the new blasters will be based heavily on models that already exist. Some members of the community felt that this was a bit of an anti-climax, personally I think they look the nuts.


Speculation as to how the Elite range can achieve these ranges was rife until SG Nerf got his mitts on one early and confirmed what we had all hoped... These blasters use a direct plunger system similar to that of the Longshot CS-6. This, combined with the new 'Elite Dart' (slightly denser foam and a heavier tip), help to achieve the 75' stock range boasted by Nerf.

According to Hasbro, the Rampage, Retaliator and the Stockade will be released around August 1st with the Stockade's release in the UK preceding the rest of the world by quite a few months. The Hailfire won't be out until 9th September.


Having said all that, certain Toys 'R' Us stores around the US have already been selling the Rampage and Retaliator so there is now quite a bit of information on the series floating about on the net.


A brief overview of the range is as follows:

Retaliator

 

The Retaliator looks almost exactly like the N-Strike Recon CS-6. However, the Retaliator comes complete with some new accessories. The new stock is infinitely better than that of the Recon. It looks far more sturdy and aesthetically, it is a massive improvement. The fore grip is also new. Not unlike that of the Stampede ECS except it lacks the bi-pod. It looks like it will be way more comfortable than that of the Stampede. Finally, the Retaliator comes with a new 12 dart magazine. At first 12 seemed like a strange number of darts. On reflection, it is the best of both worlds since the 6 dart mag is too few and the 18 dart mag is too bulky. The new Elite magazines are also transparent on one side providing an easy way to keep an eye on your ammo levels.

The best review I have seen so far is by a lovely chap called Bobololo and can be found here.

Rampage

The Rampage is (as you can plainly see) a revamped Raider CS-35. It comes with a fantastic new 25 round drum mag which will hopefully be an improvement over the Raiders 35 round drum. The most obvious difference in the drum design is that the clip is centred. As you can see from the picture below, this will make the drum a lot more practical in other blasters as it makes the clip symmetrical to the blaster. Unfortunately, the Rampage doesn't come with a shoulder stock which is a little disappointing, but only a little.

With the Elite range's direct plunger system it will certainly out perform the Raider, hopefully they have sorted out the jamming issue as well.

Stockade

Very little is known about this blaster other than the obvious association with the Barricade RV-10. We know that it does come with the awesome stock we can see in the picture and we know it will be released in the UK first. Other than that, we're pretty much in the dark about it.


Nerf never really acknowledged it's existence until a few weeks ago, after images were spotted on the Toys 'R' Us UK website. Only then did they make an announcement on the Nerf Facebook page stating the date of release, and that it would not be for sale in the US for "quite some time". 

Hailfire

The Hailfire is the only 'unique' blaster in the Elite range. It's pretty massive and is going to be quite a formidable force on the field. It is a flywheel blaster that utilises a very innovative system to reload. The carousel underneath can hold up to eight magazines. Obviously since the Elite magazines are compatible with that of the N-Strike series, this blaster can potentially hold 8 of the 18 round magazines giving it a maximum capacity of 144 darts! Once a mag is empty, you can switch bu moving the handle on top. This causes the carousel to revolve, snapping to the next mag.

According to a few accounts, this blaster is far more wieldy than a Vulcan EBF-25 so it should be quite tasty on the battle field, providing you don't mind sitting out every other round to reload the beastie.

Conclusion

The Elite range is looking pretty cool. It will certainly be an improvement in terms of range. I have been informed that the Elite range will eventually succeed the N-Strike range as more older blasters receive the Elite treatment. It has been leaked so far that it is likely we will see an Elite Jolt and the Firestrike, and Elite Nitefinder at some point next year but other than that, we don't know. We have been told that there will definitely not be an Elite Longstrike, much to many people's dismay.

Personally, I'm dead excited about this release. I know it's a bit of a downer that the blasters aren't completely new, but the real point to these is that you don't have to do much modding at all to make something spectacular. For me, that takes a little bit of the fun out of it. Pretty much doubling the range and power of what is essentially a toy is what I do it for.

The truth is that we won't know the true modding potential of these until they are officially released and lots of people have messed about with the internals. We will see all sorts of crazy stuff happening, some ideas will work, others won't. That's what it's all about.

It's like being back in 2003 with the release of the original N-Strike range. Everything is new and uncertain. Hope, speculation and rumor, it's like being a kid again.