Rant: Nerf in Australia-to be fair....

I know we whinge about it a lot, but I have to admit stock levels of Nerf in Australia have never been so good. If you want to get yourself a Stampede, Vulcan, Maverick, Nitefinder or Recon, they're quite common in most toy stores, and adding to that we're doing pretty decent with Longshots, Barricades and Raiders too. Last year we were pretty quick on the Sonic Series variants, but pretty behind on the Clear's, VERY behind on Deploys and the weird scattering of Barrel Breaks, AT's and more recently, Spectres.

I think the issue is more that once the cool stuff gets snapped up, there's such a delay in replenishing new stock that all that happens is stores run out and have to resort to filling their shelves with Mavericks:) While I mockingly give a lot of stick to the die hards who buy 5 ATs on release (although i understand how tempting it is to do so!) leaving the same ol' old blasters collecting dust on shelves for the late adopting parents to sit and stare at them for ages; the argument is it's more about the fact that we just don't get sent enough stock of the good stuff to meet that demand. That being said.. we DO get a LOT of Longshots... (the only reason why we'd think they're discontinued is Americans tell us so- because they're coming out here in droves!)

It's also the lack of knowledge from the stores about the new gear- try asking any staff member at Toys R Us or Target if they know anything about the new Dart Tag 2011 series and watch them give you a glazed look and try to sell you a grip ball (velcro catchy pad ball thingy) set...