Why I Want the Stryfe - A Little Rant on Tacticool Accessories

The recently released Elite Stryfe is a prime candidate for the art of tacticool. Originally one of the best contenders for tacticool was the Recon, because it was clip (mag) fed, could accept barrels and stocks, and had a tac rail ideal for sights. However, anything on its tac rail caused potential issues when priming the Recon, resulting in sights generally not being used. The Stryfe solves this problem by being semi auto (and thus not requiring priming), as well as one-ups the Recon with an extra under-barrel tac rail. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that people will end up using the Stryfe as a clip (mag) fed pistol as a sidearm rather than the multitide of blasters it could be.


When people buy Longshots nowadays, they often almost immediately discard the LSFG and LS Scope. This is for very good reasons, considering Longshots are a common blaster for high performance wars. The LSFG has an extremely small reverse plunger, meaning that even with a ridiculously strong spring it won't get enough range to be useful in wars Longshots are used in, thus is discarded as useless or for parts. The LS Scope on the other hand is discarded because of its lack of magnification or useful aiming ability. It only has a single reticle, and thus without a reference point it is extremely difficult to aim accurately with the scope. Thus the LS Scope is also discarded as useless.

This may seem just Longshot-specific, but this in fact happens to many tacticool blasters. The Recon is often criticised for having a number of relatively useless accessories, thus is often gutted down to just a clip (mag) fed pistol. Likewise, people rarely use the Stampede shield, the Longstrike is often gutted to a short rifle (or not used at all), the Spectre is gutted down to a simple pistol, the Nitron losing its scope (or not used at all), the Praxis losing its stock in favour of a better one, many cool and fun accessories are wasted by a number of people.
There are, however, a few accessories which are valued as useful. Such accessories include but are not limited to the Raider/Barricade stock and the Stampede and Retaliator foregrips.

What exactly am I getting at here? Well, Nerf blasters, as much as they have been matured for an older audience, are at their core toys. They are meant to be fun. The accessories that come with them, as useless as they may be in a Nerf war, are simply fun to use and tool around with. The compatibility of various attachments with a large number of blasters is an even bigger bonus, as it means you can create all sorts of Frankensteins with a set of different blasters. Sure you might create the dumbest, most senseless combination possible (like my Stupid Longshot outfit), but if it's fun or amusing, who really cares?

The cool and pointless accessories are one of the key fun factors of Nerf. When you're done shooting your friends and getting shot, you can all rest and tool around with the multitude of accessories Nerf has made for N-Strike and N-Strike Elite blasters (and a few more in other sub-brands). You can attach a number of different stocks, all with different functions, a number of various length barrel extensions, and a large number of tactical rail attachments to fill up all the empty rails on your newly tacticooled blaster. It's a waste to simply discard some of these accessories, because as pointless as they are, they can add a new look and feel to your blaster, even if you have absolutely no intention of using it. The more attachment points there are on a blaster, the more ridiculous and fun creations you can make with it.

Which brings me neatly back to the Stryfe. I already have a Rayven, which makes the Stryfe somewhat redundant as I don't intend to dual wield, and the Stryfe and Rayven essentially serve the same purpose. However, the Stryfe offers customisation options beyond the Rayven. You can attach 2 tac rail attachmentsand a barrel extension to the Rayven, but with the Stryfe, you can add all that as well as a stock for an all new set of different outfits.

So what exactly am I saying? I'm saying that many people overlook the fun of having gratuitously customising your blasters to look awesome, and waste the opportunity provided by the extra stuff given with blasters.

If you've gotten this far without yawning, have an e-cookie.
Also Nerf, if you're reading this (which you probably will) please start releasing accessories separately. The more accessories you can get, the more ridiculous and fun combos you can make.