MEDIATOR STOCK
MODULUS
A couple things recently came to my attention. First, today is Sunday, but there’s not much I can do to change that. Second, however, is that I never finished talking about the 3-part kit that composes the Modulus Mediator. That, I can change, so today I’ll be looking at the third and final piece of the Mediator ensemble, the stock.
THE BLASTER ITSELF
“How can a stock warrant its own review?” I hear you say. Well, dear reader, this is no ordinary stock. It uses a never before seen set of intricate mechanisms in tandem with what I must assume is some kind of ancient magic to achieve the results we can observe. Not really. They made it big and hollow and stuck a pistol inside. Complex? No. Useful? Eeeehhhhmmmmmmaaaaaaaybe. Anyway, the Mediator Stock was released with the other 2 components in 2018. It came in two parts, the stock/holster, and the pistol. The stock itself is pretty straightforward. It attaches to any Nerf blaster with a stock attachment lug and is simply a fixed stock albeit with a rather long length of pull for a Nerf stock and some extra rubber overlays on the back end to make it grippy. The rear end of the stock is open to allow the pistol to be inserted or removed and this makes it feel a little odd when pressed against your shoulder, but it’s not uncomfortable. Just takes a second to get used to. There is a belt clip on the left side of the stock that allows you to attach it to your pants or belt to act as a dedicated holster for the pistol, if you so choose. The pistol is functionally identical to the Doublestrike from the Zombie Strike line, using a hammer primed, 2 barrel smart AR setup. Sure, it’s not much, but I get the feeling this is meant as a backup blaster rather than your primary. 
The shell of the blaster is all new and has been sculpted to allow a fairly firm friction fit into the stock/holster. The performance of the pistol is about what you’d expect from a backup blaster. The range and power might not be quite on par with a larger blaster but if your younger siblings don’t know that you have a second blaster, the surprise can be rather entertaining. The Modulus Mediator Stock comes with the stock/holster, the pistol and 4 Modulus Elite darts.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
As soon as I bought the first 2 components of the larger Mediator set, I was basically guaranteed to grab the last one eventually. If I recall, I got mine from a local TRU, which is something only Canadians can say now. There’s really not much to say about this set. The stock is pretty decent quality and is a good size. The pistol shoots. Really, the one thing I might have liked to see is if they had redesigned the grip of the pistol to have a stock attachment lug so you could put the stock on it rather than it just being a holster on its own. Stocked pistols are totally a thing and I would have been so excited to have that as an option, but oh well. It does what it does well enough.
I know what you’re about to ask, so let me go ahead and answer it before you do.
It’s not the case, it’s a made up word.
itself is an interesting design in which you open the loading gate with the release levers just above the trigger and load rounds in the side of the blaster rather than the top or front like we’re used to seeing on dart blasters.
slow down as they fly through the air and end up floating a bit near the end of their flight path.
I had an idea for a game show the other day.
The Vagabond was released in 2015 as part of the Border- Doomlands 2169 series of blasters, a full 154 years before when the name suggests.
makes me wonder why they didn’t just shorten it down and have it load from the front like a normal revolver style blaster, not to mention all the plastic and weight they’d save by getting rid of the enormous front end.
You may have heard that Vortex is back.
Ok, while this is a Vortex blaster, it’s not part of the VTX lineup, so I’m less of a passenger on the hype train and more of that guy with the accordion who just walks from car to car demanding money in exchange for giving you tinnitus.
in the tray, and hitting the slide release lever on the side of the blaster.
Hang on a minute… Haven’t I already reviewed this blaster?
The First Order Stormtrooper Deluxe Blaster (I’ll call it the Heavy Blaster for clarity’s sake) was released in 2017 as part of the lineup of Star Wars branded blasters in conjunction with the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
unique blast sounds, the FOSDHB has a single “pew” but it is just randomly modulated into one of three pitches which sounds less like laying down suppressing fire on some rebel scum and more like you just suck at playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
For the last couple rounds of Star Wars Nerf products, it seems like Hasbro has really settled on the formula of releasing a big show off blaster, a medium one with some features, and then a dinky little pistol that is really just there to have a cheaper offering.
Hi guys.
disappointing that this blaster couldn’t get its own unique sound, but if it plays into Hasbro’s game of halfway decent but still economical Star Wars products, I can get over it.
Changing gears only slightly from last week, I have another movie tie-in blaster for you. I mean, it’s mine, it’s for me. You can’t have this one. The review is for you, though, so you’re welcome. With the building hype surrounding the upcoming Solo film, of course Hasbro brought some goodies to the table. Today, I’ll be looking at the supposed primary weapon of everyone’s favorite space-faring shag carpet, at least for this movie (we don’t like to talk about the Nerf Bowcaster). As a bonus, I’ll be reviewing this blaster entirely in Chewie’s native tongue.
Rara arrarRA RARA rara rARAAA rrrrrr aa A r AR A a RR r RRRR A AAAA ra ARRAARAA aarararra raar ar ra rarar rrr aa ra raa rarra ararr aara ok, that’s enough of that. What I said was, this blaster was released in 2018 as branded merch for the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. Despite its size, it’s actually a very simple blaster, mechanically speaking. It’s effectively a muzzle-loading shotgun that fires two darts at once. It might have been nice to have a staggered trigger on the blaster like the Roughcut, but that would have added a significant amount of additional bulk and moving pieces, and subsequently driven the price up. It does seem like Hasbro are trying to be a little more wallet friendly with this round of Star Wars products, probably after seeing how slowly the more recent Deluxe Stormtrooper blaster and its $80 price tag moved. As with all Star Wars blasters now, the Chewbacca blaster features lights and sounds and uses the Glowstrike darts to approximate the feeling of firing a laser weapon. The sound effect in this blaster is fairly satisfying and bass-y which is definitely fitting. The use of real-world firearms as the bases for the movie props once again gives this blaster pretty good ergonomics. This blaster in particular is built on the receiver and stock of an M60 machine gun. I feel confident that the Nerf version is substantially scaled down from the original but they’ve kept the grips a good size so it’s not bad. The stock of the blaster has a storage area under the butt plate, and is removable, using the 
standard Nerf stock attachment lug. There’s also a rail on the top of the blaster for the included scope if you want, or you could remove it and leave it off forever. That’s valid too, especially with a scope like this. At least you have the option to take it off without using a hacksaw. I know it’s meant to look like the movie prop, so I can’t fault Hasbro for including it, but it’s just a narrow tube in a weirdly shaped shell. The scope on the Han Solo blaster pistol has a sight front post so you can at least pretend you’re aiming it properly. It might have been nice to have something like that here, but sadly no. Something noteworthy about this wave of Star Wars blasters is that the boxes actually advertise range claims. Historically, Nerf only bothers doing this if the performance is at least halfway decent, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when that turned out to be the case here too. It’s almost even more impressive when you remember this blaster fires two darts at once using a single plunger tube (we also don’t like to talk about the DoubleDealer). Having to reload 2 darts for every trigger pull does slow down your potential for follow-ups, the decent amount of power, the lights, the sounds and the Glowstrike darts make this a great blaster for ambushing your younger siblings, especially at night. The Chewbacca Blaster comes packaged with the stock, the scope, and 6 Glowstrike Elite darts. Batteries are only required for the lights and sounds, and the Glowstrike functionality. Fortunately, they come already installed in the blaster.
The Vulcan EBF-25 was released waaaay back in 2008 as part of the original N-Strike line. No Elite here. The whole thing is just… I mean, it’s a machine gun. What more do you want? Instead of using a magazine or rotating cylinder, the Vulcan actually uses a belt to feed darts into the action which, itself, can be operated in two ways. The primary method being full auto because come on, it’s a machine gun. Provided you had installed the 6 D cell batteries in the tray, you could then load in the belt, flick the switch just above the firing grip, and hold the trigger down making the blaster fire repeatedly with a rather noisy “wheeee-CHUNK! wheeee-CHUNK! wheeee-CHUNK!” While it was technically full-auto, the rate of fire was not exactly impressive. With good coordination, you could easily out-pace it by cycling the bolt manually which had the added benefit of not requiring the aforementioned 2 cubic tons of batteries to work. You could, in theory, run the blaster entirely without batteries. Just leave them in a little pile over there… just 2 cubic tons. While it undoubtedly made the internals of the blaster a lot more complex, it is a feature I’m disappointed didn’t make it to later electronic blasters like the Stampede. The ammo belts, I feel a little differently about. There is a certain level of novelty in using a legit ammo belt in a toy blaster, but man, are 
they a pain to reload. Maybe if there had been another blaster that also used the same belts, I might like them a bit more, but the novel factor goes away after the third or fourth time you have to reload the dang things. It’s not just a matter of putting the darts back, when the belt is emptied, it falls out the right side of the blaster, or if you want to reload without firing off all 25 shots, you need to pull the remaining belt out of the action in order to reset it. Once you have a loaded belt, there’s still the process of setting it in the ammo box attached to the left side of the blaster in just the right way that the feed gear can actually pull the belt into the blaster, and THEN you have to open the top hatch on the blaster body to seat the first link onto the feed gear, close everything up again and prime the bolt. Once you’ve done all of that, now you can shoot. BUT WAIT! Now you have to decide, are you going to carry the blaster by hand and fire from the hip like some kind of sexual tyrannosaurus, or are you going to mount it on the included tripod, realize the tripod kinda sucks, and opt for the Blaine method anyway? But what does Mr. “The Lovebird” Ventura have to say about that body? Probably something rambling and largely incoherent about having to keep him away from it, but it’s worth noting that the Vulcan has all original sculpt work which includes a 
hinged top handle for use in the “Old Painless” style of carry and a detachable ammo box for holding the belt while in or out of use. The front end of the Vulcan also sports 3 Nerf accessory rails, but I can’t honestly think of what you could possibly want to put on them. There are, in fact, a set of sights along the top of the blaster that you’re welcome to use if you think it’ll help. Sadly, these days, the Vulcan doesn’t quite stand up to other blasters in terms of range or power. If you play your cards right and rely mainly on the shock value of busting into your younger siblings’ room holding this, they might not even notice that the shots aren’t hitting very hard. The Vulcan comes packaged with the tripod, the ammo box, two belts, a sling which I have since lost, and 50 whistler micro darts.
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.
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 Figure In Question 