So a while back, I was feeling adventurous and placed an order through Raging Heroes, a French third-party miniature company that almost exclusively does female models that are compatible with most 40k armies. While their model line is kind of renowned (if not infamous) for their overly sexualized female models– I’ve seen one person on Facebook deride them as “Raging Hormones”– I have been able to find a few models in their catalogue that in my opinion are more badass than sexy. I went ahead and ordered two such models– Sister Ardanna, the Pillar of Faith, and Silkeeriss the Huntress.

And lo and behold, tonight they arrived:

Both are resin minis, which I’ve had mixed results with in the past due to its troublesome interaction with most glues (please don’t ask me about my Avenger Strike Fighter). No matter how much I try to rinse resin in soap, on some models it absolutely refuses to stick. It is for this reason that I know that both models will be tricky to assemble. Which is just as well, since the last thing I want to do is damage either of these finely detailed models with hasty clipping or some sort of gluing disaster.

Speaking of details…

Ardanna looks like she will be fairly straightforward to assemble, with the only tricky bits being her sword and the arms holding it. I plan on using her as one of the Canonesses of my Sisters of Battle Order, specifically one wielding the Blade of Admonition (Because come on, look at that sword, it has to be Damage 3). I know I’m going to paint her in my order’s scheme of white armour, blue tabard (yes, I know, white is hellishly difficult to paint), and I am eagerly looking forward to the end result.

Silkeeriss, meanwhile, will be trickier. Her left leg is in two pieces, her head looks like it will be hard to clip free without damaging the horns on her helm, and her fun arm looks like it will have to balance against her helm and shoulder. She will definitely be a trickier assembly job, and one that will be attempted second.

I plan on using her as a blaster-armed Archon for my Drukhari (not the only one, mind you, but a prominent one). At first I was torn between her gun-toting sci fi version and her sword wielding fantasy version, which looks equally badass. In the end I figured that a blaster would serve me better than what looked like an overly elaborate huskblade…although this purchase was made well before the new Drukhari codex was announced, so knowing my luck, they will probably get an awesome melee relic that the sword-toting version could have represented.

I am still uncertain of how I’m going to paint her, especially since I’m currently re-evaluating my army’s colour scheme, though her mask practically screams to be done in ivory, silver or porcelain.

I’ll try to post progress pics of these lovely ladies as I work on them. Merci beaucoup to Raging Heroes, you guys are awesome!