STORMTROOPER DELUXE BLASTER
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (GLOWSTRIKE)
Hang on a minute… Haven’t I already reviewed this blaster? Not exactly. This is really just another example of Nerf running out of names for their products. It’s hardly a new problem, just ask the Hornet, Snapfire, or Secret Shot, but this is indeed a different blaster from the previous The Force Awakens model. Being a Stormtrooper blaster, we already know the accuracy is going to be abysmal, but let’s not start the review off biased. Who knows, maybe it’s actually ok?
THE BLASTER ITSELF
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. It’s built on a standard electronic flywheel setup, albeit with the magazine sticking out the left side of the blaster instead of straight down. Functionally it operates just like any of the other semi-auto flywheel blasters out there, but it does it with more pizzaz, just so long as pizzaz doesn’t include good performance (spoilers). The FOSDHB does the same song and dance that all recent Star Wars Nerf products have been doing lately with the Glowstrike and the lights and sounds. Pressing the rev switch turns on the UV LEDs in the chamber of the blaster as well as revving up the flywheels. Pulling the trigger activates the lights and sounds regardless of whether or not the rev switch is pressed. The lights and sounds are decent but could probably have used just a little refinement. The lights along the barrel flash in succession when the trigger is pulled, creating a kind of laser pulse effect, but given how spread out they are on this blaster, they feel sluggish especially for something that should be traveling at light speed. The sounds are similarly disappointing. It seems like Nerf wanted to set the FOSDHB apart by giving it more than one blaster sound effect which sounds good on paper, but less so from the actual blaster. Instead of having three distinct and 
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.” Turns out Stormtroopers cant even hit a note. (HOOOOOO!) That joke has probably been made at least a million times but I still went for it. You can’t stop me. The construction of the blaster is mostly pretty solid. The stock feels a little flimsy but I haven’t had any actual problems with it yet. At least it has a nifty feature where it can act as magazine storage if you have a spare lying around somewhere. The ergonomics aren’t bad but it does seem like this blaster has a more modern style grip on it. After digging around online, I believe this blaster is built on a Lewis Gun which has a very different grip and stock shape. The blaster in the film also has a neat foldable stand that extends from the underside to create a mounted machine gun kind of setup. Sadly, the Nerf version doesn’t have this feature but it does at least have a mounting bracket which can be used with the tripod from the Vulcan or RhinoFire if you have one of those. I probably don’t need to say anything about this blaster’s performance given the enormous barrel, single set of batteries powering all the lights and sounds as well as the motors, or just the track record of Star Wars blasters’ performances, but I will anyway. It’s bad. It’s real bad. 
The darts that leave the barrel when you fire are just not motivated at all. I almost wish that instead of laser pew pew sounds, the blaster just had Alan Rickman’s lines from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. They don’t go far, they don’t hit hard, and by the time they’re out of the barrel, most of the glow-in-the-dark charge has faded. It’s just really not a great blaster. I would not recommend this one for use against younger siblings. It does not have the power to back up how obscenely big and noisy it is so you’re more likely to come across as clownish rather than imposing and scary. Even after all of these issues, I haven’t gotten to the biggest one of them all, the price. I don’t usually mention the price of blasters unless there’s a good reason to, and in this case, for a vastly underpowered, unwieldy, pew pew Stryfe, an MSRP of $80 is imbecilically high. It comes with 4 AA batteries already installed, so I guess you can deduct that from the price, but still. The FOSDHB comes packaged with a 12 round magazine and 12 Glowstrike Elite darts.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
Thankfully, I did not pay full price for my blaster. As with so many new purchases these days, this came from ToysRUs, the UK to the toy industry’s European Union. Based on what was said, we really thought they’d be gone by now. What was I talking about? Right, politics, that’s what you want from a toy blog. This blaster is really disappointing, but that being said, if you want one, TRU still has plenty in stock and they’re getting cheaper, so there’s that. Now let me tell you about Trump. What’s that? Ethan has just informed me that I’m fired if I start talking politics. I suppose that’s reasonable. Yay toys!
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.
