QUADRANT
ACCUSTRIKE
If there’s one staple of Nerf blasters that always comes back, it’s revolvers, ok, revolvers and jolts, but let’s stick with the revolvers for today. All things considered, it’s a good design. There’ve been so many iterations that pretty much any issues have already been ironed out, but if you look at Nerf Revolvers over time, they have this odd trend of steadily getting smaller and smaller cylinders, and in turn, lower capacity. Today’s blaster is the first example of a 4-shot revolver I can think of, but as we’ve seen from Toy Fair last month, it won’t be the last.
THE BLASTER ITSELF
Ok, first things first, I know I give Nerf a decent amount of ribbing over the naming conventions for their blasters, but when the other 3 blasters in a line have names containing “falcon”, ”hawk”, and “raptor”, there’s a pretty clear theme that they’re going for. With that in mind, what the double deuce kind of name is Quadrant? I get the name references the 4 barrels in the cylinder, but it throws off the whole bird-of-prey thing they set up. Anyway, the Quadchickadee was released in 2018 as part of the Accustrike series. As mentioned before, it is a 4-shot revolver that works more or less like any other revolver at this point. The construction is all new and pretty solid, like you’d expect from a Nerf blaster of this size, and the ergonomics are good. The proportions are kind of weird, what with the top half of the blaster being rather large and bulky. 
At the very least, it’s not terribly top heavy which is a concern I had before it was released. What I don’t quite get is why the barrels are so far apart in the cylinder. Typically, the benefit of lower capacity in a revolver is a lower profile, but the cylinder for the Quadbearded-tit is barely smaller than the one in the Hammershot, which holds 5 rounds normally. But in addition, modders have shown it can handle 7 rounds in the same space quite handily. It just feels needlessly limiting to cap the capacity at 4, especially when it doesn’t even enable some other gimmick or function in the blaster. The performance is on par with other Nerf pistols. It doesn’t have the most power or range ever, but no one expects it to. Being in the Accustrike series, there’s nothing mechanical that separates this from any other blaster, all that means is it’s orange and comes with Accustrike darts as opposed to standard Elites. The darts do actually make it a little easier to hit targets from further away, so they’re good for surprise pot-shots at your younger siblings, with or without busting into their room first. The QuadAndean Cock of the Rock (it’s a real bird, look it up) comes packaged with 4 Accustrike darts.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
Once again, I feel it’s important to make the point that I do actually like this blaster. I’ve gotten my money’s worth of fun out of it. Are there some issues? Sure, but I can be critical while still enjoying something. My primary complaints are that I wish it had more capacity or that it had some other gimmick going on. Maybe next time we’ll get one of those things, and you know there’s going to be a next time. There’s always another Nerf Revolver.
Sometimes Nerf will announce or unveil a blaster with a particular gimmick to it and all you can do is nod in acknowledgment and hope it at least shoots well. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it really doesn’t. Not to give anything away prematurely, but this week’s blaster is the latter of the two. I’m talking about the Modulus Battlescout. Let’s scope it out.
The Battlescout ICS-10 was released in 2016 under the Modulus line and was intended to bring 2 cool new features to the brand. The first was the use of a new horizontally-feeding clip as opposed to the more traditional Nerf magazines (despite Nerf themselves referring to them as “clip systems”). The clip holds 10 rounds and automatically advances one position when the blaster is primed via the angled front grip. This means the clip starts by sticking out the right side of the blaster and eventually ends up sticking out the right side or potentially even just fully ejecting from the blaster itself if you’re a little too vigorous with the pump action. I was reasonably interested in having a Nerf blaster with this style of feeding mechanism when I first heard about it, and I still think it has potential, it just seems like the execution left a little to be desired. The clip is just too bulky for only holding 10 rounds, and the ratcheting mechanism in the blaster doesn’t hold onto the clip very securely so it’s possible for it to get bumped out of position. The second feature the Battlescout was meant to showcase was the included attachable Nerf “action cam” that could clip onto a Nerf accessory rail. I’m pretty sure no one was excited about this. After the Elite Cam ECS-12 blaster, everyone was familiar with the quality of cameras Nerf was working with and they weren’t great. At least the Cam blaster had a screen so you could pretend the camera was just a scope instead of a dedicated recording device. Not so with the Battlescout. I only took a couple test videos just to see what it was like, but the picture quality was dark and grainy, the sound was tinny and sounded like it was being recorded through several blankets, that is, until you tried shooting the blaster while recording upon which you were treated to one of the most 
horrific sounds I’ve experienced as the noise from all the blaster’s mechanical parts moving was transferred through the plastic to the mic. There also seemed to be some discrepancy between the video and audio recording, as every time I played back a recording on the computer, the longer the video went on, the further and further out of sync the audio got. Long story short, the camera was just bad. What was worse, though, was the fact that its inclusion jacked up the price of the Battlescout to almost $70. Yikes, indeed. “But does it shoot well, at least?” I hear you ask. Well, dear reader, no. No it doesn’t. I can’t quite tell where the problem is, but it’s one of the weakest shooting blasters I can recall from recently. Flaccid is a generous term. More than once, I’ve had shots just tumble out of the barrel followed by the slab of orange plastic getting spat out the side of the blaster, sometimes travelling further than the dart. Not great. I can’t say I’d recommend this one for attacking your siblings unless you’ve got enough of a presence that you don’t have to actually shoot to get your point across, because at the very least, the Battlescout looks cool, and with places to attach a barrel, a stock and anything else besides that camera onto the top rail, you can really dress it up. The Battlescout ICS-10 comes packaged with the Camera, a 10-round clip, and 10 Elite Modulus darts.
Sometimes, it is pretty clear when Hasbro, and more specifically Nerf, take criticisms to heart and fix problems with their products. The Recon Mk.II comes to mind. Other times, it seems more like they hear the criticism and offer a solution that isn’t exactly what people had in mind. One of the most widespread gripes about Nerf lately is their tendency to only paint one side of a blaster, leaving the design lopsided. I can’t help but feel they heard this and said “You don’t like how we paint our blasters? Well how about we just don’t?” Introducing the Surgefire. Ok, there’s more to it than that, but I just had to get it out of the way. On to the review!
The Surgefire was released in 2018 as part of the core N-Strike Elite series. It operates on a pump-action revolver design that holds 15 darts in the cylinder. It’s hardly the first time we’ve seen these mechanics used in a blaster. I suppose if you wanted to make the leap, you could say it’s an update to the Furyfire from the old Dart Tag line, though most people go with calling it the Elite version of the MEGA Rotofury. Both descriptions work. The shell is all new work and features one Nerf attachment rail along with some pretty interesting body detailing. The dark grey area just above the trigger assembly actually has the word “Elite” carved out of it revealing the blue plastic underneath through the letters. The use of dark blue text sunken into a dark grey panel does make it probably a little more subtle than they might have intended, but I do like that it suggests more intricate builds and sculpts to come. This also plays into the aforementioned lack of paint, save for the Nerf logo and the name “Surgefire” above the barrel. All variation in color is achieved via layering and inlaying separate pieces of plastic. It does lend itself to a higher quality feel to the blaster over something that might rely on paint or decals. Overall, the style is 
pulled off pretty well with just a couple drawbacks. First and foremost is in the pistol grip. Along the front seam where the two light grey halves meet, the screws are placed just far enough that the plastic can flex and produce a hard edge where it splits. At the best, its abrasive over time or if you’re holding onto the blaster tightly, and at worst it can actually pinch my fingers. It seems like adding another internal support wouldn’t have been too much trouble so it’s irksome to find it absent from the design. Ultimately it’s a minor complaint, and my second complaint is even more so. I’ll sum it up here: “By the goddess, that’s a lot of orange in one place.” Yes, it might have been nice to see some other colors on the front end, but it is what it is, I guess. Barring the issue with the grip, the blaster feels good in the hand. It’s stout but solid, giving it a sort of combat shotgun kind of feel. I do wish the cylinder could be loaded from the rear and that the ratchet on the cylinder could be indexed by hand a little easier, but ultimately it’s functional so I can’t really complain. For all its petty aesthetic and operational quirks, the Surgefire actually makes up for most of it in performance. Shots feel like they have more energy behind them than a lot of other recent blasters, flying far and hitting hard. You should really think about whether or not your younger sibling has earned it before you bust into their room and open fire with the Surgefire. Not as much as with, say, a Rival blaster, but more than just popping them in the head with a Jolt. The Surgefire comes packaged with the cylinder which snaps into the blaster and 15 Elite darts.
“Hang on a minute, didn’t we just have a Rival review, like, two weeks ago?” I hear you ask. Why yes, sharp-eyed viewer, indeed we did. Ordinarily I’d try and spread stuff out and keep you guessing about what the next blaster will be, like a game, but this is new and hot. The new hotness, you might say. So this week I’m looking at the Kronos. Something that bears the name of the father to the Olympians must be a behemoth of a blaster, right? Actually, it kind of goes the other way, but trust me, it’s not the size that counts, it’s all about the balls.
The Kronos XVIII-500 was released in 2018 as part of the Phantom Corps subset of Rival blasters. I was initially under the impression that Phantom Corps was a Target exclusive line, but this blaster was purchased from TRU which confounded me to no end, at least for a few minutes. No idea what the deal with that is but whatever, you’re here to read about the blaster. The Kronos is a spring powered pistol with a 5 round integrated magazine à la MEGA Magnus or Star Wars Rey (Jakku) Blaster. Like both of those examples, the Kronos is loaded through a port on the top of the blaster that opens when the slide is primed back. The Kronos also has an additional flap covering the port which I guess isn’t really necessary but it does preserve the silhouette of the blaster a little bit. The shell of the blaster is all new and sports functional front and rear sights as well as 2 Rival accessory rails, one on the slide and one just above the muzzle. Interestingly, while the blaster is labeled “XVIII-500” on both sides, the name Kronos appears nowhere except on the packaging. Something to note about the rails on the Kronos is that, after attaching the Rival red dot sight, I noticed that it could slide back and forth just a little bit, just a few millimeters at most, and the nature of the attachment mechanism means it wasn’t in danger of falling off, but it’s just something I’d never had 
any of my other Rival blaster do. I doubt that’s going to make or break anyone’s opinion of it, though. Aside from that, everything about the Kronos’ construction is solid. The grip in particular is very comfortable and secure in the hand as it follows much more organic lines than the more hard-lined rest of the blaster body, which is a style I quite like, visually and practically. The slide has a surprising amount of thought and engineering put into it. Priming the blaster is fairly easy with the grip panels that add a good amount of traction as well as providing a more defined surface to pull back on. On the underside of the slide, there are a couple of telescoping flat panels that extend when the slide is pulled back, I assume to either keep the mechanism clean or to prevent kids pinching their fingers in the internals. The very rear of the slide also has a cutout so you can see the orange plunger when it’s primed as well as a button to release the lockup if the blaster jams. Like all other Rival blasters, the Kronos has a safety which locks the trigger when engaged. Unfortunately this particular safety has the same after-the-fact addition kind of feeling that the Zeus’ had. It’s hard to describe verbally, but it feels like it’s flexing before it clicks rather than pivoting and is generally unpleasant to operate, not that it’s a necessary feature per se. For its size, the Kronos holds its own surprisingly well against other Rival blasters in terms of performance. Shots fly and hit with the expected Rival accuracy and power, making it a 
real terror for younger siblings, especially given how low profile and nimble it is due to its smaller size. I’ve even found that it fits rather handily into standard jeans pockets for holstering, just so long as you have jeans with actual pockets (why are fake pockets even a thing? Sorry, side-tracked). The Kronos comes packaged with another set of red and blue Rival flag/ribbon things, provided you got the Phantom Corps version and didn’t shell out $70 for the Deadpool variants, as well as one Rival round- what’s that? It comes with 5 rounds? Ok.. if you say so. Scratch that, I guess it’s supposed to come with 5 rounds. Hmm…
Sometimes a really good idea isn’t something entirely brand new, but rather, a refinement of something that already exists. Up till this point, we’ve had the Raider CS-35, the Alpha Trooper CS-18, the Rampage, Elite Alpha Trooper, and Stormtrooper Deluxe blaster (the first one) that all fill the role of pump-action magazine fed blasters. Well, with Nerf’s latest wave of products, we have yet another to check off those boxes and then some. Let’s have a look at the Modulus Mediator.
First things first, I have no idea why they went with “Mediator” for the name of a blaster. It doesn’t have quite the same sort of imposing punchy quality as something like the Rampage or Retaliator. Even in the context of a conflict, a mediator is supposed to be a neutral third party that gets two opposing sides to agree on something. I don’t know, just feels like a weird choice, but that’s what it’s called so I guess let’s just roll with it. The Mediator was released in 2018 as part of the Modulus line of products, Like I said, the Mediator operates much like other pump mag blasters but with 2 major differences. I would say they’re improvements, but I’m sure there are people who aren’t fans. Probably the same weirdos that thought The Last Jedi was the worst thing ever, but that’s neither here nor there. The shell of the Mediator is all new work apart from the standard Nerf barrel and stock attachment points. That actually brings us to the first big improvement, that being customizability. While you could expect to find a stock attachment and a rail on pretty much all other pump mag blasters, what you never found was a second rail (I’m counting the Raider/Rampage’s rails as one big one, fight me) or a barrel attachment lug, both of which the Mediator provides quite handily. The extra rail on the right 
side obviously grants you greater potential for decking out your blaster with tactics. That’s all well and good, but the inclusion of the barrel lug is really what’s new. Given blasters like the Rampage and Alpha Trooper needed already pretty lengthy front ends to accommodate the pump action, extending the barrel further doesn’t make much sense as it would only work to slow the dart after being fired. As such, they never had barrel extension lugs, but the Mediator pulls it off thanks to it’s second major improvement over previous blasters. The whole thing is super compact with just a short little barrel. This means adding extra barrels doesn’t drastically reduce performance, which in turn means even more customization. The ergonomics of the Mediator are pretty great. I’d say it’s probably the best we’ve seen from the Modulus line so far. The pistol grip is a good size and has a really nice grippy texture to it that I haven’t seen before but certainly hope to see again. The same texture is also on the pump grip, which is a little short, but not enough to hinder, and I can understand the desire to not have it protrude too far from the body of the blaster. Everything feels nice and solid, though I wish the ratcheting on the pump grip was a little quieter when cycling the bolt. Nothing a little light modification can’t fix, though. My last gripe is purely aesthetic. I wish the blaster had a raised front sight parallel to the very prominent rear one. While this would have looked better in my opinion, it turns out the little stubby nub at the front end IS a front sight and is even relatively well calibrated to give slightly arced shots for a subtle boost to the range. On that note, the performance of the Mediator is decent. Shots fly and impact right on par with those of other comparable blasters. The ability to slam-fire is also a plus when busting into your younger sibling’s room and laying down heavy fire. The Mediator comes packaged with the magazine well detached (needs to be installed to operate the blaster), a 6 round magazine, and 6 white Modulus styled Elite darts.
Alright, I know it would have been thematically more appropriate to do this review last week what with the whole Christmas thing that happened, but this is my (subsection on someone else’s) review site and I will do what I like. Besides, Ethan is still working through his annual haul, so it’s fine. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s have a look at the first Nerf blaster I’ve received for Christmas in, like, 8ish years. That would be the Rival Helios XVIII-700.
The Helios was officially slated for release in 2018 but as you may have figured out, they slipped into circulation just a little early. So far it is only available in the Target exclusive Phantom Corps subset which means white is your only color option for the blaster itself. At first glance, it looks like just a revised design of Apollo and I suppose that’s not far off, functionally, but it’s certainly not just a reskin. Only the Jolt can get away with that. Like the Apollo, it is a spring powered blaster that uses standard Rival tube magazines loaded through the pistol grip. What’s different about the Helios is the addition of proper fore-grip and stock pieces, a jam door, and a new style of priming handle. Instead of being a vertical pull and push bolt handle like on the Apollo, the Helios has a side-mounted bolt handle with a spring return, so you just pull it back and let it snap forward again on its own. The whole motion is very satisfying and makes the Helios feel like an SMG or machine pistol. The fun doesn’t stop there, though, because those crafty folks at Hasbro worked out how to make the bolt handle removable and reversible, making the blaster 
completely ambidextrous for all you sinister people out there. Either that or if you’re one of those Ghost Recon/Sam Fisher Ubisoft properties who might need to switch hands at a moments notice. Besides the obvious benefit of just a better priming action, the orientation of the bolt handle means there’s an actually usable line of sight as well as a bunch more rail space for attachments. As with all Rival blasters, it should be noted that it’s not an N-Strike style rail, so only Rival accessories will work. They’ve also changed the style of safety from a push button on the Apollo to a switch on both sides of the blaster, sticking with the ambidextrous theme. All put together, you have a very compact, solid blaster that is just a joy to operate and feels good in hand. The blaster runs very smooth, like how you would expect an improved Apollo to run. The power of the blaster is right on par with other Rival blasters, flying straight and hitting hard, definitely not something to use lightly when busting into your younger sibling’s room. Maybe save it for when they’ve actually earned it. The Helios comes packaged with a 7 round magazine, 7 Rival rounds, and, specific to the Phantom Corps line, two colored team flags, one red, one blue. I believe the purpose is for them to be attached to your person or your blaster to denote your team when playing competitively, but I just like putting them on my bag so everyone knows I’m a huge nerd who plays with Nerf blasters.
The Figure In Question 