Friday, February 17, 2017

Raging Heroes Review

First of all, I love these models.

I think they're absolutely gorgeous.  To the right you'll see Doctor X.  I don't have a name (or backstory) for her yet, but the model is so cool it's hard not to love it. You've seen the model I've been using for Althea (in fact, the model that helped inspire the fluff, rather than the model that fit the fluff).

Additionally, I find that Games Workshop is very poor at putting out good female models. Was there even a single plastic Imperial model before Greyfax, Celestine and Celestine's pair?

Not only does Raging Heroes have plenty of female models (seeing very clearly that niche that GW left open), but their models have an awesome aesthetic.  They have plenty of women with boots and armour who are clearly out there looking to kick ass.

However, I have one very serious beef with these models that may prevent me from ever buying from them again.

You can see the primer peeling on the inside of the coat.
There is something about the mold release agent that they use that just does not work well. I followed the prepping instructions provided by RH for the commissar.  Let soak in simple green for an hour and then rinse in warm water.  After the lightest of brushes while I was applying a wash the primer started to flake from the inside of her cloak.

So I took further steps.  I put the commissar in a bath of simple green and let her sit there for days and days.  I took a tooth brush to her and scrubbed off the primer so that I could start again.  In fact, I put all of the rest of my models back in there too.  I let them all soak in the simple green for quite a while, occasionally taking them out and scrubbing them with a brush.  Finally I rinsed them all in warm water, again with a tooth brush.  I primed them and went to paint and then .... well take a look at the sniper below.  It's rubbing off again. I even let the models sit in the air for a while (another step they recommended).
Again, except this time after much prep.

So the models are gorgeous, but what good is a model that you can't even paint?

I don't know that I'm going to buy any more until I hear that they've fixed this problem.  I heard another blogger refer to them as "trollcast", and it seems appropriate.


5 comments:

  1. Amazingly enough, Trollcast really is the name of the material Raging Heroes use! This is the site of the company that make it: http://trollforged.com/store/trollcast.html

    I've had very similar problems with the material, and according to RH they had at least one batch where the release fused with the model, which makes them even harder to prepare. Apparently this issue has now been fixed- fingers crossed!

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    Replies
    1. Do you know if there is anyway to get replacement models if you have this problem?
      -G

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    2. I'm not sure. They talk about the resin problems in this blog post: http://www.ragingheroes.com/blogs/news/tgg2-update-66-pledge-manager-re-opens
      Look for the bit titled 'Resin'. There's also a contact email there as well as a messaging system on the site, so they may be able to help. I found the paper towel rub-down method helps too.

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    3. If they fixed the issue, I would definitely order from them again (their new sisters of battle-like models from their TGG2 kickstarter are incredible). But if they don't fix the issue, I would rather pay more and be able to paint them...

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