Review: Tania Tanker from Raging Heroes

I'm going to start by apologising to Raging Heroes for having taken so long to get round to painting this figure and writing this review post - sorry guys! I hope that the wait was worth it.

So, where to start with this review? I guess a bit about the company. Raging Heroes are a "boutique" miniatures company based in France, specialising in (mainly) female character figures for fantasy and SciFi gaming. The figures are digitally sculpted and the masters are 3D printed. I believe that all of the figures are available in resin, with some available in metal as well. Prices aren't cheap (character figures cost 13.95-24.95 Euros/£11.89-£21.26; "grunts" cost 19.95 Euros/£17.00 for 3-5 figures), but you aren't likely to buy many of them so maybe that's not an issue. You can buy direct from the company or through some distributors/retailers (there is a listing o their website).

There are three main factions in their "Toughest Girls of the Galaxy" range - the Iron Empire, the Kurganovas and the Jailbirds - Tania is from the last.


This is what came in my package:

Blister contents

The figure sprue

Let's open up the baggie and get a closer look at the sprue:

Cutting the pieces from the sprue was quite easy, although do take care as some of the parts are quite brittle (such as the pistol grip on the smaller weapon). Clean-up of the flash was also quite quick. I did encounter some mould-line flash on the figure after I'd primed it. There wasn't much and it was quickly removed with some light filing (then washed off and re-primed).

Assembly was simple using superglue, although I did find that the straps were a little bit short - that might have been me slinging the weapon a little lower than intended. The gaps were easily corrected using some small slivers of venting flash.

It seems that I forgot to take a pic of the primed figure before I started painting (or I did but it's not in the folder with the rest of the pics...). You'll just have to take my word that I primed black with the airbrush.

I did a lot of umming and aahing whilst trying to decide how to paint her up. I could have followed the scheme on the packing. Or I could have gone for a more military look (like the ones Kyle painted up in "Catachan" style during the last Challenge). Or, given the pose, I could have gone for a "Rosie the Riveter" scheme - I went with that, but with some little touches that I thought would look good, like the red boots and the dark pink dungaree straps. I also painted on a bracelet just for that little extra touch.

Anyway, here are the pics of the finished figure:

Finally to round off this post, my opinions. The sculpting is excellent - the right combination of smoothness and sharpness, which made painting fairly easy although some of the recessed detail on the metal arm was a bit soft. This figure was resin, which I'm not a fan of, but it is also available in metal, as are most of the character figures.

Would I buy other figures from their ranges? Possibly, but only for the challenge of painting them as I don't have any gaming use for them. There are a couple I have my eyes on.

Would I recommend them to other painters/gamers? Yes, if you are after some excellent character figures to add some variety to a gaming force for a certain system from a certain Nottingham-based company who shall not be named here, or simply for the challenge of painting something a little different. Price-wise, the character figures are comparable to that certain company, but the "grunts" work out about double the price.