Nerf Strikefire Dart Tag Blaster

The Strikefire is not a blaster. It is a boxed game. Two pistols, two scoring vests, two pairs of safety glasses and 12 velcro-tipped darts. That makes it the only thing on this site you can open and play with straight away, nothing else needed. Here is what it actually gives you, and where the 30 foot figure comes from.

The short verdict

• A complete 2-player set, not a single blaster. Everything needed for a game is in the box.
• 2 pistols, 6-dart capacity each, plus 12 velcro-tipped darts to share between them.
• 2 adjustable scoring vests with multiple target patches, which is what turns shooting into a game with a result.
• 2 pairs of safety glasses included, which almost nothing else on this site can claim.
• 30 feet is the stated figure in our archive, and it is stated rather than measured.

Buy it if you want a self-contained game for two people, especially as a gift where you cannot rely on anything else being in the house.

Skip it if you want a blaster to take to a war. The Strikefire pistols are short-range game pieces. They lose to a clip-fed blaster at any distance.

What you get in the box

This is a complete kit, which is unusual. Most Nerf products give you a blaster and a handful of darts and assume you own everything else.

The blasters came in a range of colours across the run: red, blue, orange and green. So a used Strikefire may not match the photos you find online.

What is not in the box is spare ammo. 12 darts between 2 people, outdoors, disappears faster than you expect. The darts are the thing you will want more of on day one.

The vests are the point

Take the vests out of the Strikefire and you have two ordinary pistols. Leave them in and you have a game. The difference is entirely about arguments.

Every backyard Nerf fight eventually stops for the same argument. Did that one actually hit? There is no referee, foam bounces, and everybody remembers it differently.

A velcro dart stuck to a vest ends that conversation. The evidence is physically attached to the person, and it stays there until somebody peels it off.

The vests adjust, so they fit a range of sizes. They also carry several separate target patches rather than one big panel. That gives you scoring zones, and a reason to aim at a specific spot instead of anywhere at all.

This is the idea the whole Dart Tag line was built on, and the Strikefire is the smallest and cheapest way into it. Everything about the design serves the scoring, not the shooting.

Velcro darts, and why they matter

The 12 darts have hook-and-loop tips instead of the usual soft foam heads. That one change drives most of what is good and bad about this set.

The good is obvious. They stick to the vests, firmly, and stay stuck. There is no ambiguity about a hit and no scoring system to remember.

The bad is what velcro does to everything else. These darts stick to jumpers, fleece, blankets and sofa fabric. They also pick up grass, hair and dust the moment they land.

They also do not fly like ordinary darts. A velcro tip is heavier and rougher than a smooth foam head. Expect a shorter, more curved flight than the same blaster gives with standard foam.

And in practice they are line-specific. Ordinary Nerf darts fire from these pistols perfectly well. They just will not stick to the vests, which turns the Strikefire straight back into two ordinary pistols. The velcro darts are the product.

That is the thing to check before buying used, and it is covered further down.

Range and accuracy

Our archive records 30 feet for the Strikefire blasters. It is a stated figure rather than a measured one. We do not publish numbers we did not take.

What matters more than the number is that 30 feet is short on purpose. This is a game built for a garden or a large room, where two people can see each other and the darts land somewhere you can find them.

Accuracy is what you would expect from a small single-shot pistol firing a tip-heavy dart. Fine at conversational distance, unreliable beyond it.

The velcro tips are part of that. A rougher, heavier head sheds speed faster and drifts more. Real range sits below whatever the box claimed.

None of this is a criticism. The Strikefire is not competing on range. A scoring game where both players stand 60 feet apart would be a worse game, not a better one.

Loading, and the one real advantage

Each Strikefire pistol takes 6 darts and loads by hand, and our archive makes a point about the speed that is worth repeating.

A dart can be loaded and fired in a couple of seconds. No clip to seat, no magazine to line up, nothing to jam. The reload is about as simple as a reload gets.

That sounds like faint praise until you compare it with the big battery-powered blasters in the same line. The Swarmfire holds 20 darts, and feeding all 20 barrels by hand takes a genuinely long time.

So the trade is capacity against simplicity, and for a 2-player game simplicity wins. You are never far from your darts, because you can see exactly where they landed and there is nobody else collecting them.

The habit worth forming: reload from the vest. Peel the darts that hit you off your own vest and put them straight back in the pistol. The game keeps moving and nobody walks off to hunt foam.

The safety glasses, taken seriously

The Strikefire includes 2 pairs of protective glasses, and that deserves more than a line in a spec list.

Foam is soft and the tips are soft. Neither of those facts makes an eye safe. A dart fired at close range into somebody’s face can do real damage to an unprotected eye. That is exactly why organised games require eye protection, and why every serious loadout on this site includes it.

A set that puts the glasses in the box is a set that makes the right thing the easy thing. Nobody has to go and find eye protection, so nobody skips it.

Use them. Both pairs, every game, including the short indoor round that was only going to last 5 minutes. That is the rule for this set and for everything else on this site.

If a used Strikefire arrives without the glasses, replace them before you play, not after. Ordinary safety glasses from a hardware shop work perfectly well and cost very little.

Setting up your first game

The Strikefire needs about 5 minutes of setup and most of that is the vests.

Fit both vests before anybody loads a blaster. A loose vest swings when the wearer moves, and hits slide off instead of sticking. Snug is the setting you want.

Split the 12 darts 6 and 6 so both blasters start full. It sounds obvious, and it is the step people skip. A game that starts 6 against 4 ends in an argument.

Then agree the boundary before the first shot. A Strikefire game works best in a defined area, because the blasters are short range and a big field just means two people walking towards each other.

Glasses on, both players, before anything is loaded. Make that the last step of setup rather than an afterthought and it becomes automatic.

One tip that saves a lot of hunting: play on a hard surface or a mown lawn if you can. Velcro tips grab long grass and gravel, and they come back wearing whatever they landed in. A fouled tip stops sticking to the vest properly. A quick pick-over between rounds keeps the Strikefire scoring the way it should.

Already own a bigger Dart Tag blaster like the Speedswarm above? It works against these vests too. The Strikefire set then becomes the gear half of a larger game rather than the whole thing.

How to actually play it

The set gives you the equipment and leaves the rules to you, which is either a gap or a feature depending on how you look at it.

The simplest version: first to a set number of hits wins, count the darts stuck to the vest, reset. It takes 10 seconds to explain and it works.

The better version uses the separate target patches. Give different zones different values, so a hit on the centre counts for more than a hit on the shoulder. Suddenly players are aiming rather than spraying.

Round-based play suits the Strikefire best. Six shots each, then both players stop, collect and reload. That rhythm stops a 2-player game turning into whoever brought more darts.

Our Nerf war game modes page has formats that scale up if you buy two sets and run 4 players. That is where the vests really start to earn their keep.

Where it sat in the Dart Tag line

Dart Tag was Nerf’s attempt at a scoring sport rather than a free-for-all. The vests were the whole reason the line existed. The blaster above is the Quick 16, a much bigger member of the same family.

The Strikefire sat at the entry point: the cheapest complete set, aimed at two people, with the smallest blasters in the range.

Above it were the bigger blasters bought individually, from pump-action pistols up to the battery-powered Swarmfire. Those all assume you already own vests, which is exactly what this set provides.

That is the sensible way to think about buying into the line now. Get a Strikefire for the vests, glasses and darts, then add a larger blaster if you want more capacity.

The full range is laid out in our guide to the Dart Tag blasters, including the scoring rules and what happened to the line.

If this one is not it

You want more capacity in the same game. The Swarmfire brings 20 darts and a motor to the same vests, at the cost of a very long reload. Our Swarmfire review is honest about that trade.

You want the scoring without this line. Vests and gear are still made, and our guide to Nerf gun vests covers what is available now, though modern vests are for carrying darts rather than scoring hits.

You want a blaster rather than a game. Almost anything else on this site is a better blaster than a Strikefire pistol. Start with the full blaster list or what is on shelves now.

Buying one secondhand

Dart Tag is discontinued as a line, so every Strikefire on the market is used. There is no current-shelf version of this set and nothing new replaces the scoring vests.

Count the velcro darts in the listing photos, not in the description. They are the part that makes this set work. They are also the part that gets lost, and nothing on sale today replaces them properly.

Look at the vest target patches closely. Velcro loop fabric wears out with use. A patch that has gone smooth and shiny will not hold a dart, which quietly kills the whole game.

Check both blasters prime and fire. They are simple single-shot pistols with very little to go wrong, so a fault usually means the plunger seal has dried out.

Ask whether the safety glasses are included, and replace them if not. That is a cheap fix and it is not optional.

What to buy now that Dart Tag is gone

Dart Tag is finished as a line, and the Strikefire went with it.

Start with the part nobody can fix. Nerf does not make scoring vests any more. No velcro patches, no hit that sticks to a person, no built-in referee. That idea left with the line and nothing has replaced it.

So if the scoring is what you want, buy a used Strikefire with its vests intact. That is the honest answer and there is no way around it.

You can rebuild the rest of the box, though. Piece by piece, from things that are on shelves right now:

• Two players, one box. The Nerf N Series Party Pack is 5 blasters and 15 darts in one box. That is 5 players armed instead of 2, and Hasbro rates it 8+. It fires N1 darts, which only work in N Series blasters.
• The eye protection. The Strikefire putting glasses in the box was one of the best things about it. YSCare protective goggles are Nerf compatible safety glasses made by YSCare, not by Nerf. Cheap, and not optional.

Now the trap, and it catches everybody searching for this. Look for a Nerf vest today and you will find plenty, like the POKONBOY tactical vest kits , which are Nerf compatible gear from POKONBOY rather than Nerf products.

Those are dart-carrying vests. They are not scoring vests. They hold your spare foam in loops on your chest. Nothing sticks to them, nothing counts a hit, and buying one expecting the Strikefire game is the single easiest mistake to make on this topic. They are genuinely useful. They are just not the thing you are looking for.

Where to buy

As an Amazon Associate and eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases.

The Strikefire is discontinued, so these point at the used and third-party market, not a current shelf item. Prices there move around. Treat anything you see as a snapshot.

• Nerf Dart Tag Strikefire on Amazon, the 2-player set, used or old stock.
• Velcro-tipped Dart Tag darts on Amazon, the search worth running before you buy a used set
• Used Strikefire listings on eBay, usually the better hunting ground for a discontinued set, and the place complete boxes with both vests turn up.

If a discontinued set is not what you are after, our guide to the new Nerf guns covers current products, and our guide to Nerf ammunition explains which dart types fit what.

Frequently asked questions

What comes in the Nerf Dart Tag Strikefire set?

2 dart blasters holding 6 darts each, 2 adjustable scoring vests with multiple target patches, 2 pairs of protective glasses and 12 velcro-tipped darts. It is a complete 2-player game with nothing else required.

How far do the blasters shoot?

Our archive records 30 feet as the stated figure. We did not measure it, so treat it as a ceiling in ideal conditions, and expect less outdoors because velcro-tipped darts shed speed faster than smooth ones.

Do the darts stick to anything other than the vests?

Unfortunately yes. Hook-and-loop tips grab jumpers, fleece, blankets and upholstery, and they pick up grass and dust when they land. That is the price of the scoring system working as well as it does.

Can you use normal Nerf darts in a Strikefire?

They will fire, but they will not stick to the vests, which removes the entire point of the set. Keep the velcro darts for the game and treat ordinary darts as target practice only.

Is it any good for a Nerf war?

Not really. These are short-range single-shot pistols and they are outclassed by anything clip fed. Buy the Strikefire for the vests, the glasses and the 2-player game, and bring a different blaster to a war.

Are the safety glasses actually necessary?

Yes. Soft foam does not make an eye safe at close range, which is why every organised game requires eye protection. The set including 2 pairs is one of the best things about it, so use them.

How many people can play?

Two, out of one box. Buy a second set and you have 4 players with matching gear, which is where the scoring format starts to get interesting.

Do the vests fit adults?

They are adjustable and they cover a reasonable range, but they were sized for younger players first. An adult can wear one, though it will sit higher on the chest than intended, which changes where the target patches end up.

Can you buy replacement vests?

Not new. The scoring vests were made for this line and nothing currently sold does the same job, which is why a used Strikefire with intact vests is worth more than the blasters alone suggest.

Can you still buy Nerf scoring vests?

No. Nerf stopped making them when Dart Tag ended, and nothing on shelves does the same job. The tactical vests you find today are for carrying spare darts in chest loops, so nothing sticks to them and nothing counts a hit. If you want the scoring game, a used Strikefire with intact vests is the only route. For everything else in the box, the N Series Party Pack covers the blasters and a set of Nerf compatible goggles covers the eye protection.

Is the Strikefire worth buying now?

If the vests still grip and the velcro darts are present, yes, because nothing currently sold replaces a complete scoring set at this size. If the darts are missing or the vest patches are worn smooth, you are buying two ordinary pistols at a collector’s price, and that is not worth it.

It’s Nerf or Nothin’!