Limey Tactical: Tacticool Nerf gear!

Finally! pouches and vests that look cool and are designed for Nerf gear!

I stumbled across this blog selling tactical nerf gear on the Remedy Metal facebook page, they are selling custom pouches for Nerf mags and drums, tactical vests, dart holder wraps and all sorts more. Most of the gear is modular to work with the Limey Tactical vests and belts. Anyone who's gone along to a few nerf wars will know that being able to carry extra gear on field is a big advantage, but if it's not secured in a way that it doesn't impede on your movement, it's clumsy and not really worth doing (tried carrying a bunch of drum mags in a bandolier? it doesn't work.)

The page is definitely worth checking out, I'll be ordering some gear when I can and reviewing it here, but from what I can see it is of very high quality.

Limey Tactical

Edit: HAPPY BIRTHDAY STREET-TAG WARFARE! I just realised that 3 days ago, it was this blog's 2nd birthday.

I would like to say that the last 2 years running this blog, though now not as often as I used to, has been great fun, especially with getting among the Brisbane based nerfing communities for wars and sharing ideas, as well as getting to know little bits of the international community (Bazookafied of Tactical Tag - thank you for mentioning my blog every now and then! If I had the means to thank you properly I would!). I hope the next chapter of this blog features more growth and readers, because that's why I do it! to entertain you guys!

Corrections and ommissions

...Regarding the post about the Centurion. It seems there's been a mix up in Hasbro's PR team which led to MyLastDart's post having to be taken down. Unfortunately, soon after this post, I will follow suit. Not that I have any relations with Hasbro whatsoever, but I'm doing it to not be a jerk to them so that one day, this blog might actually catch their interest (and then maybe one day someone will actually send me some damn blasters to review!).

Anyway, Nerf Centurion is a blaster coming out with no confirmed details and no current "released" information.

Setups: Elite Rampage

Alright, second installment of setups is covering what I usually work with when I'm using my Rampage for speed foam warfare type Nerf wars. This setup is geared towards being able to collect ammo on the fly, high capacity and fast, accurate, rushing.

Starting at the front, there is no shield or other attachment on the side rail I have mounted. There is little point of a shield unless you want to bunker down and defend, where you can hide your body behind cover and have your face protected by the shield, but that's not for this type of strategy. This means the front end is easy to point and keeps a nice field of vision. On the top rail is a Slydev high drop iron sight kit. This serves the purpose of lining up longer range shots quickly if you need to, but retains the open field of vision that you would lose with a scope.

Moving back, and it's all about capacity. A 25 round drum gives a decent capacity to work with the slamfire capability of the Rampage, allowing you to move up and storm opposing player's positions. The clear back lets you see a rough idea of how much ammo you have without taking your eyes away from the action also. But, nothing is unlimited, so the use of the bandolier with a couple of spare 6-mags lets you quickly swap in some ammo when you need to reload the drum, and that's where the stock comes in.

The Stockade stock is light and sturdy, assists in aiming with the iron sights, and best of all has storage for 10 darts. I use this to grab and store darts quickly while behind cover before I move up again. and when the drum runs out and you swap to the 6-mags, you can pull darts from the stock and the bandolier and almost fill the 25 dart drum straight up.

Finally, the internals have been tweaked with AR removal, all moving parts greased and a slightly stronger spring, which pushes the maximum range to about 85 feet. I have had thoughts of doing a brass breech, however, I'm not sure how much gain there would be. So that wraps it up, this my personal setup for a Rampage that allows for high capacity slamfire rushing!

Toy fair time! -The Toy Spy's Nerf showroom preview

New York Toy Fair is my favourite time of year, where I sit back and check out all the new releases and quietly wet myself a little with excitement. This year looks to be a pretty sweet year with more Vortex releases, more N-Strike releases and a whole new line for girls called "Rebelle". The video below is from The Toy Spy, which takes a quick look at the Nerf showroom this year, as well as shows some firing tests. unfortunately the Nerf Rebelle gear is not in this video, but some really awesome blasters like the Blazin' Bow is shown. Enjoy!

Setups: Gear Up Recon

Before I get back in to the action here on this blog, I'll need to do an announcement. The reason why I've been away from this blog lately is a very special reason; on the 7th of November 2012, my long time partner and I became first time parents to a beautiful baby girl. I know that most of my readership probably aren't parents, but those who are will definitely understand that Nerfing becomes a back seat project when you become a parent, but you do learn to balance all aspects of your life eventually. Perhaps one day we'll share the same interests (my dad and I are both motor racing fans and well in to bicycles) but for now, her priorities are firmly set on eating, sleeping and burping (tough life much?).

But don't fear! For I am still here. Today I bring a setup to the floor, my personal Gear Up Recon. Over time, this has seen a few different changes but with Slydev 3D products starting to gather steam, the options are ever expanding and it's now possible to have enough accessories on a Recon to sink a ship.

For this set up I have here, I've used a Slydev triple Nerf rail adapter on the lower rail of the Longstrike barrel to be able to mount both a light and a foregrip, as well as anything else I want on the other side (Jolt connector perhaps?). Top side I've got a Slydev phone mount on the slide rail. This piece can be bought with an Iphone 4 case already glued on, or bought separately to glue your own phone case on. You can then record footage from your phone as a gun mounted camera, or if you're really keen, use it for communication between team mates (send a photo of the opponent's base back to your team?). Moving back, You'll notice the duct tape mag pouch, an adaptation of HDingo's YouTube tutorial. Top all that off with an N-Strike bandolier and a 12 dart elite mag in the blaster, and that is how you load the Nerf Recon like a pack-horse. hope you enjoy! -Rolley

Links updated

I have finally updated the links page, adding an Australian based Nerf blog, Outback Nerf, Skurl's lazer tag page, The Hive Mind, Lasagna678's mod blog, and finally added the forum and group I'm a member of, Oz Nerf and Brisbane Nerf Group. Head on over and check out the blogs and groups, as well as the Slydev store.

Speed Foam Warfare: 23/9/12

If you know me personally, you'll know that I'm always struggling to get to or organise private wars, let alone  make it to a public war held on a set date. However, I did manage to finally make it to my first public foam warfare event held on the 23rd of last month.

This war was organised through Brisbane Nerf Group and was a speed foam warfare event, so high powered air blasters were not allowed. For $15, you got the use of aftermarket darts (informer snap cap darts) and a raffle ticket for a prize to be drawn during the day. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect, nor what to bring, so I just threw in a Rampage and Retaliator in to my bag, along with a bandolier strap and a hell of a lot of clips. As it turned out, that was a pretty good choice but I still had a lot to learn.

The event field was set up in parklands at Spring Hill, near Brisbane. When I arrived I helped set up under the direction of Thahn and Clem, who were well prepared. The field came together as an array of markers and flags for objectives and spawn points, cardboard boxes as semi destructible cover and tarps strung between trees. Every effort was made to provide an even field for both teams and to create interesting flanking pathways and places to hold down in. All this allowed for a bunch of awesome game types and some pretty intense shoot outs.

The back half of the field

When I got in to the action, I quickly found out that you don't want to be rocking up with a stock blaster. these guys were serious, with blasters that well out-ranged my elite gear and with aftermarket darts, were also incredibly accurate. That said, the limitations on air blasters did allow for anyone with an under powered blaster to still be competitive, it just took a little more careful planning and tactics. The games moved very fast and I did find myself using the Rampage to rush hard, but quite often my attempts were thwarted early on by being sniped by someone well out of my range, and when that happens to be from someone's heavily modded Longshot or Triple Shot, you certainly know about it! So, this is when I learned to play smarter. If I didn't have range, I would have to rely on flanking and the element of surprise. So I resorted to sprinting to cover as soon as the game started, wait for a gap, then move up to cover closer to my target, and hold it down. The slamfire goodness of the Rampage made it difficult for anyone to get past me and allowed me to get a few tags on people who would normally have nailed me with their sniper cannons from way off.

That damn maniac with that Retaliator pistol! Oh, wait, that's me.

This didn't work for every game mode, however, and I couldn't use a Rampage in pistol rounds, which were good fun as well. That's where the Retaliator made it's mark. A clip fed pistol in a pistol round is almost as great as a volt modded stampede in an ordinary round. The high refire rate is handy when you're facing 3v1.

The whole day was well run, and the use of referees helped keep everything fair. Getting an opportunity to meet the Brisbane nerfing community was awesome, and taught me things I didn't even know about yet. It's safe to say that the community is very friendly and welcoming, which gives me a great deal of faith in this young and developing sport of foam warfare. Anyone interested in future events around Brisbane should join Brisbane Nerf Group and start getting involved with the community and keep an eye out for upcoming events. Get into it!