My Nerf LMTD Halo Needler Review

By: Jeremy Alden

This is a review of the Nerf LMTD Halo Needler. It is a blaster by Nerf that is a fully-automatic 10 shot blaster that resembles the Halo Needler. 

This Nerf dart blaster is an exact replica of the original, right down to the flexible needles that light up when you hold the handle!

The fully motorized blaster quickly launches ten darts in a row from the rotating, 10-dart drum. observe how the needles go dark to simulate launching from the blaster as you play, exciting visual presentation is enhanced by other light-up accents.

Includes 10 Nerf Elite foam darts. Switch to display mode to illuminate the blaster and showcase it on the included stand. Includes a game card with in-game content in the Halo Infinite game.* Eyewear recommended (not included). Requires 6x AA 1.5v alkaline batteries (not included).

Nerf LMTD Halo Needler Review

What's Included:

Included is the blaster, darts, blaster stand instructions, game card add. Six double-A batteries are required.

Looks & Performance

A lot to go over mostly cosmetic stuff because it looks flippin awesome. But I'll start up at the front, it has a very cool game realistic front end right behind that as the cylinder or drum and it holds 10 darts.

To load the cylinder you pull back on this little latch that opens up like that which makes it a little easier to manipulate the cylinder to load in your 10 Nerf Elite Darts.

It came with pink Nerf Elite Darts but of course, it's compatible with all aftermarket darts. your These pink ones do resemble the needles from the video game. And opening up this little hinge piece at the top allows you to get your fingers next to the cylinder to rotate the cylinder like this, which lets you access the barrels to load up all 10 shots.

Now this front end looks really cool, but it's pretty slow to load and it's a little bit cumbersome after you're loaded up with 10 darts, you can just push this piece right back in place, just be careful only the left one is designed to do that the right one is not a hinge component, don't pull on that or you might break it that is a cylinder now moving up to the needles

These are like a translucent pink color. And they're made of this rubbery material. So they're pretty bendy and they have LEDs on the bottom which light up and it looks awesome in person. It's hard to capture on film really well. But even in a pretty well-lit environment, it looks super cool.

And these lights also act as something of an ammo counter. As you start shooting, the lights will turn off from back to front. And once the lights are completely out, that means you've shot 10 times it's not one needle at a time.

Like in the video game. It is a little bit more vague than that. But it's still super cool. And it's just rubbery material, which is pretty forgiving. But it's totally not safe to use as like a melee toy, they're not foam.

And if you buy one of these, be careful about how you store it because if you set it down flat on a table, you put a little bit of pressure and bend the side needles, I left it on its side for a few hours and the needle sprung right back. But if you put it in your closet for like a few months, you might permanently damage the needle.

So I don't think that's too big a deal. And it does come with a stand to mitigate that issue. But it's worth noting for super detail-oriented people.

Firing The Nerf LMTD Halo Needler

Now I'm going to bounce around in the overview a little bit because front to back doesn't really work for this blaster getting to the power switch there are three settings off display mode and fire mode in the middle is off, then you move it to the right and you're in fire mode, when you put it into fire mode, the lights actually don't turn on until you touch the little hand sensor, there's a little sensor on the grip.

So once you touch it, the lights turn on, which is really cool, like recognizing that you're holding it and it turns on for you which is awesome.

And when you're in fire mode to fire, all you have to do is pull the trigger there's no rev switch on this blaster even though it's fully automatic, you know after your lights are out. That means you fired off all 10 shots if you're shooting when loaded.

And when you go to reload you open up this little latch as I already showed you to load in your darts. And when you do that in shut your latch the lights turned back on so your ammo counter resets and you can fire off 10 more darts and it keeps resetting every time you reload.

This brings me to the propulsion to the blaster which is really interesting. I haven't opened this one up and I don't plan to but I'm pretty sure this is running on a system just like the old stampede, which means it's fully automatic, but it's also spring powered.

It uses an electric motor to prime back this spring. But the spring itself is pushing the air to shoot the Dart so it works and it is full auto and it's super hassle-free.

There's no rev switch, you don't have to understand the mechanics you just pull the trigger and it shoots which works for Prop oriented people but the rate of fire is so slow the rate of fire but out of Hasbro it's the best we're gonna get at least it didn't make it a spring or like a bunch of the fortnight blasters at least it's full on so it looks super cool and the ammo counter is super fancy.

But using the blaster is actually really simple.

You just front load and then pull the trigger and it works down to the trigger. It's a pretty small short trigger, but it works just fine since it's full auto but now down to the grip. This grip is not comfortable at all.

Grip

Now, this grip is probably more comfortable than a Real Dealer grip.

But the Needler is not made for humans. It's literally made for aliens.

So yeah, Hasbro actually improved the grip based on the original Needler but it's still a piece of crap, but it's very short. There's not a whole lot of space here so the bottom of my hand keeps catching into this ridge. I don't know why they had to put this stupid ridge right here. It's very uncomfortable.

Price

It seems like the target demo of a blaster like this is an adult audience with disposable income to drop $100 on something like this. I don't think they're going after the younger market with tiny little hands in its not very adult friendly.

So I'm not sure prop people are gonna hate it as much as I do. But as a nurturer, this is obnoxious. However there's a second mode display mode so if you push it to the fourth position, all the lights will turn on and this is if you want to set it up on your stand and make it look really cool.

Now if you pull the trigger it's not going to shoot this is display only it's only turning on the LEDs so that's pretty cool if you want to shoot it or just display it there's a mode for you.

The last part of the overview is the batteries, but they are installed under here loading these batteries is a little strange because you want to like set it down.

Loading these batteries in was a little less convenient than most Nerf guns.

You might be interested in: Best Batteries for Nerf Guns - for LONG-Lasting FUN!

A few other things just to point out in the back there's a super cool LED back here that looks just like the video game.

This isn't an ammo counter, it doesn't change anything as you shoot though and it also has little pink lights on each side by the handle and all sorts of coolness.

This is so cool how it looks. So they used a bunch of clear plastic underneath here and then backlit everything with pink light so it looks rad and more on the cosmetics. The purple part have this cool honeycomb texture pattern built into it.

It's not just paint that's etched in so it feels good when your hands run across it and also when the light catches it, it's not just a flat finish it's etched in just a little bit so it looks really cool.

I've really cool shell lines back here the little fins are very similar to the video game Needler overall, just a super cool-looking blaster that has an external overview of the blaster itself.

Now a quick overview on the included stand the assembly was super easy, you just snap these little pieces right in place and they painted it clear so it's not super distracting so your eye goes straight to the Needler, and then you can place it in there like that but it's super simple and design it's just clear plastic and the height of these little stands is set up perfectly for the Needler so it looks cool when it's set up.

That's an external overview of the components included now I'll show you the blaster firing

Firing

Overall super positive play experience however not so much as a Nerf gun just as a prop toy to compare the firing velocity to other blasters.

I put it up on my chronograph and achieved an average velocity of 68 feet per second which is pretty average compared to the 70 FPS elite power that we can expect out of most normal Nerf blasters on the market that is the objective information I can provide on this blaster.

Now to my personal opinion overall, I am blown away by this product. I think it is an amazing prop style blaster.

It looks awesome. I love the lights. I love how just out of the box ready it is for display.

A lot of the prop-style blasters that nerf make require a paint job to look halfway decent compared to what you're trying to replicate this one the box nails it the colors look great, the lights look great everything you take it out of the box and you display it you don't have to mod it, touch it or do anything so as a prop toy, it's amazing.

I love that they included a display stand because this is something I really do want to display it's the perfect size for a display piece big enough to be substantial and impressive but not too big to just be bulky and annoying.

So overall opinion on this one as a prop toy super positive.

Should you buy it?

If you're a halo fan if you see this Kneedler and you just get that dose of nostalgia and your brains just lighting up and you want to look at this every day.

Consider buying this however if you're on the fence if you're looking at this and you're like I don't get it why do you want to need like don't buy it, it's not for you.

That's the purchase recommendation to prop people or Halo fans, however purchase recommendation to Nerfers if you're just trying to effectively fling foam definitely do not purchase this blaster it's a 10 shot last year with a super slow rate of fire.

I can't complain about this grip enough but it's obviously not designed for competitive nerves.

This is designed for Prop people and as a prop blaster, its ability to fire is actually pretty cool.