Review: Nerf Elite Rampage and Retaliator

Release dates that Nerf set don't really hold much integrity anymore, especially since anyone can pick up some of the N-Strike Elite line way early from amazon.com. By way early, I mean, if you live in the U.S, you could have had your hands on these about a month ago, but I had to wait for longer shipping times due to me living in Australia. Oh well, sucks to be Nerf I guess. Now, I present the Rampage and Retaliator, the first announced blasters for the N-strike line. Let's start with the Retaliator.



The Retaliator is basically a remodel of the ever popular Recon. I loved the Recon, if you couldn't tell from my review of the gear-up version, So I was pretty optimistic about the Retaliator. Nerf made quite a few changes on this blaster, really the only things that are the same is the barrel shell and the blaster shell itself. It features a foregrip instead of the light, no top sight, a 12 dart mag, barrel with top and bottom rails and a totally new stock, all of which are removable. While the stock is pretty short, it is very solid, and the fitment of all parts is very good. All these attachment points mean you can build this blaster in to just about any style of blaster you see fit. Internally, it's had a massive upgrade, a direct plunger system in place of the feeble reverse plunger, similar to the Longshot's system but shrunk down to fit the shell. This increases the efficiency by a hell of a lot, more air pushed with less dead space equals more power!

"They said I could be anything I wanted, so I became awesome!"

Performance from this blaster with the new elite darts is insane for an out of the box blaster. I do have the 75ft version, and it is definitely hitting those ranges with angle. At close range it will certainly hit pretty hard with great accuracy. Longer ranges gain a fair amount of spread, but nothing like the inconsistency of the old streamlines. (This is actually taking a long time to write this post, because I keep getting distracted by the Retaliator next to me, because I keep shooting impromptu targets in the room... like coke cans and doorknobs...) The downside to the Retaliator is that it still features the same clumsy top slide priming as the Recon, but that can be fixed with this bolt handle mod, or possibly the Xplorer recon slide. Speaking of mods, there are already a few mod guides circulating YouTube and a nice write up on the Modworks blog. Aftermarket mod kits are available through Xplorer, and apparently Orange Mod Works is working on their own kit too. It's really too early to tell what sort of potential can be achieved from these blasters, but I'll say that 90ft+ is totally possible.

Now, on to the Rampage. Not unlike the Retaliator, the Rampage is also a remodel and lovers of the raider will go nuts with this. Unfortunately, Nerf opted to not include a stock, but offers a much more sensible centre feed 25 dart drum mag instead of the massive offset 35 dart drum, so you do lose a bit of capacity, but 25 darts is still a decent amount and mobility is greatly improved. Internals are pretty much the same as the Retaliator's, but it features slam fire capability and is built for side feeding of darts rather than bottom feed. The build quality is again very good, in fact I'd say this blaster's priming mechanism feels a little smoother than the Raider's.

I do feel like this is now the ultimate rush blaster, as it touts the same insane power and accuracy as the Retaliator, although slamfiring will obviously increase the spread of your darts due to the movement. For indoor wars and restricted spaces, dart spread at range wouldn't really be an issue, as the benefits of the short frame and overwhelming slamfire capability coupled with ridiculous power from stock blaster far outweigh any loss of accuracy. Mods are essentially the same as the Retaliator's, however as far as I know, no aftermarket mod kits are available yet, although that's likely to change in the near future, and again, I'd suggest that it's potential could possibly be 90ft+, but no one really knows how far this will go yet.

Intimidating?

Both blasters are very impressive releases from Nerf, and although I had hoped that more new designs would appear rather than remodels of old basters, I can say I am very glad they revisited these two. The Recon and Rider were actually the very first Nerf blasters I had ever used, and feel a little nostalgic every time I pick the Rampage or Retaliator up. But then I pull the trigger and realize that it's halfway through 2012, and these Elite blasters mean serious business. Before anyone asks, yes that is an upside down 35 drum mag in the last picture, I find it kind of a compromise between practicality and massive ammo capacity. To find out how to do that mod, see the links below. To sum up, I need to give out a pair of scores. For the Retaliator, I'll throw out a 9.5 out of 10. I would have liked to see slamfire appear on this one and that's what makes it fall short, but really, it's still impressive as hell. The Rampage gets a 9.5 also, basically because of the lack of accessories that come with it. A shield or stock (or both) would have got it all the way home, but alas, Nerf skimped. I do look forward to seeing if Nerf come up with something totally new again in the new year apart from that god-awful Hailfire ..."thing". I can bet that these two blasters here will sell very well, and will be extremely hard to beat.

Links:
Reverse clip mod
Orange Mod Works
Xplorer Recon rapidfire grip (May fit Retaliator?)
Xplorer Xpower kit for Retaliator