On June 26th and 27th, Chicago was the first stop to a new experience… the Nerf Dart Tag League (NDTL). Videos to follow, but let’s get the skinny.

Starting this weekend, the NDTL is an attraction inside the Mt. Dew Action Sport Tour’s Festival Village. This means at each of the following events:

Nike 6.0 Open Chicago, IL – June 26-27 (COMPLETE)
Skate Open Boston, MA – July 24-25 (NEXT)
Wendy’s Invitational Portland, OR – Sept. 17-20
Toyota Challenge Salt Lake City, UT – Oct. 15-18

There are two divisions, 8-12 and 13-17. Each division has a regional champ selected from the competitions at each Dew Tour event, and the regional champs from each division then square off at the Dew Tour’s final stop. Let’s do some quick math:

Each regional – 8 teams x 5 cities for each regional champ = 40 teams in the total field, @ 4 members a team = a possible 160 people total, in EACH DIVISION ALONE.

The final showdown at the NDTL World Championship:

Playstation Pro Orlando, FL – 10/15-10/18!

Each regional champ squares off against each other in their respective divisions, going to having one final World Champ in each age group.

Grand prize: Prestige, and $25,000 split four ways.

I participated in the free-round scrimmages, and this is what I can tell you about the rules:

GEAR:
– Furyfire per player, fully loaded
– NDTL Jersey, covered with velcro strips for the darts to stick to
– Eye protection

RULES:
1) Timed round of continuous play. Siren starts/stops the action.
2) Players start each round in a “penalty box”. More on this in a minute.
3) A team’s flag is kept NEXT to the penalty box.
4) 3 refs in the arena with the players, whistles signal a hit.
5) When a player is hit, they return to the penalty box for a 10 second penalty. They hit a button and a red light inside the penalty box flashes. When the green light flashes, a player is allowed to reenter play. Inside the penalty box, there are ammo stations with darts attached, allowing the player to reload their blaster and remove all darts for a clean start while they wait for the penalty to end.
6) If a player is hit carrying the flag, the flag must be DROPPED right at the point of contact. Obviously, the refs are there to determine when and where a hit occurs to place the flag.
7) HITS ONLY COUNT IF THE DART STICKS TO YOUR JERSEY. If it bounces off your hand, blaster, whatever, the hit is not counted.
8) The only hits that count are darts to jerseys. Melee is not allowed. If you run out of ammo in blaster players HAVE to return to their base to reload.

These rules are what I figure after going through some scrimmages. The official ones from the Hasbro website may say otherwise.

SCORING:
– Hits on opposing players = 1 pt.
– Flag captures = 10 pts.

Whoever has the higher score at the end of the round is the winner.

PICS:

Full gallery available soon!

-VasTheStampede