Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm: Nice shootin' Tex!

The N-Strike Maverick REV-6 was the poster child for Nerf for ages; it was the blaster that got many of us into the world of multi shot foam dart goodness as it was the ultimate 'bridge' blaster from a basic single shot to taking things just a little bit more seriously. With the new Elite series, it made sense that there needed to be a successor to it, and rather than just a repaint/reshell (and gawd knows we didn't need ANOTHER Maverick repaint) dem good fellas at Nerf have released the Elite Strongarm; sort of the love child of the Maverick and Spectre, with influences from Uncle Raider thrown in:D 

8-1-13: Apologies for the minimal info on the Strongarm, I don't actually own one yet nor have I seen them released here for now. Neil of the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew offered me his Strongarm to quickly write up so these are my initial thoughts but I generally don't get too stuck into a blaster for testing if it's not mine. (I'm mindful of wear and tear and if I bust it, I can't easily replace it) As with most of my posts, they often evolve and are updated as I have more time with the gear.(especially once I get one for myself)

Nerf N-Strike Elite Roughcut 2x4: Fun but flawed

Of all the all new N-Strike Elite series of blasters, the new Roughcut 2x4 has been the one blaster I’ve been waiting for since the 2nd round of Elite gear was announced/leaked; it sounded the most interesting and I liked its general design. 

Given its form factor, it’s a suitable successor to the old N-Strike barrel Break IX-2 being a shot gun styled unit complete with the simultaneous dual round functionality but also holds 8 rounds with an added bonus of slam fire. Sounds cool? It is. Sorta..

Although not due for domestic release till mid 2013, we still got our hands on one (Thanks to Neil from the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew) to have a bit of a play.

Nerf Jolt: Elite colours.. sans Elite performance

So much buzz over these lil "noisy crickets"- the Jolt was the blaster that came out of nowhere and very quickly captured the hearts of Nerfers all over with their direct plunger-in-the-palm-of-your-hand design and impressive performances for such a cheap and small lil thing. When the Elite series was announced, a few pics surfaced to suggest the Jolt would get the Elite treatment; then there was the confusing release of the Triad EX-3 which followed very similar design aesthetics albeit a 3 round shooter. 

Well, yes, the iddy biddy Jolt HAS been given a BIT of a workover with its aesthetics, but it's still considered to be an N-Strike blaster both with it's branding/badge and performances. Sure it's got the blue and orange and white colour schemes, an updated muzzle and hell even a grey trigger (WTF?) but as far as performances go, it's the same as the orange Jolts we know already. Not much else I can really say about them, but several more pics after the jump:)

Nerf N-Strike Elite Firestrike

The Nerf N-Strike Elite Firestrike is a single shot blaster seen to be the successor to the much loved N-Strike Nitefinder EX-3. It bares similar traits to it's older brother with the ring pull priming arm and red dot targeting light but in a more refined, compact styled form. Naturally the domestic model bares the grey trigger aesthetics and the de-tuned performances but we still found it ok to use. More after the jump.

Rumours: More on the Elite Alpha Trooper..

Ok, so something brought to our attention by one of our readers 'Iamiamomo' has me thinking twice about my previous post. Firstly, zooming in to the name plaque of the blaster shows not 'CS-18' but "CS-12"..

 Secondly, scrolling down the Baidu post allegedly shows some internals of this "pre-production" Alpha Trooper. I'm not into opening blasters myself, but apparently, it's actually NOT the same as what the traditional Alpha Trooper CS-18 has. Here's an internals pic of the AT from SGNerf:

The back blaster is a Raider- disegard that:P

Thoughts?

Rumours: Elite Alpha Trooper? Nahhh..

It was spotted on Chinese site Baidu and we've received several emails regarding it: it's touted as a "pre production release Elite Alpha Trooper" and while the idea is appealing, I'm just not convinced. I normally like to just post this info and leave the readers to decide, but for the want of NOT looking like a gullible idiot..

From this image, you can see it's brandishing the original 'N-Strike' logo- something that we now know doesn't occur on Elite blasters (The Jolt and Reflex are featuring repaints, but aren't presented as Elite gear).

The orange on the rear of the blaster looks like it's been painted over a darker colour- grey perhaps?:)

It's still called an "Alpha Trooper CS-18". Other than the Rayven (which is still pretty recent in release, as opposed to the AT which has been around for 2 years) you'll notice every other Elite version has been renamed.

I do love the idea of my all time fav blaster being released in Elite colours and performance; I just don't think this is it. Thanks for all the emails regarding it though- everyone loves a good rumour:)

Rumours: Stampede 50 round drum?? AGAIN?

If you've been following us since the early days of UT, you'll remember the original talk regarding the release of the Nerf N-Strike "Stampede ECS-50"- some people even had original Stampedes with the "ECS-50" name plate on the side, though the '50' never actually made any sense. It started to of course, with some strange box art that emerged (as seen above) and we wrote about it way back in December, 2010. To date, it's one of the only rumours we've covered that never came to fruition, even despite it popping up again in March 2011 and even January 2012. Many sources (even official ones!) revealed it was just an idea that wasn't meant to be...

 So why mention it again you ask? Well! What seems to be circulating like wildfire (though I attribute it to our pals at the Canberra and Southern NSW Dart Tag crew's Facebook page) is the patent doco regarding what looks like a Stampede with.. yup you guessed it, a FIFTY ROUND DRUM. Some pretty detailed pics of it, in a patent that was filed back in 2010, but seems to have only recently been approved...

More pics after the jump, or check out the actual patent doco here.