RAFM Survivors 01

A very happy new year to you all. I hope you had a great time over the holiday period and that Santa was kind to you. He was to me, although I didn't get much gaming related stuff. My dad bought me a beautiful card model of the Tower Bridge, London, but sadly it's too small in scale to use in my batreps. I ordered 16 Recreational Conflict 28mm scale zombies from the states a couple of weeks before Christmas, hoping I'd receive them before the 25th but I'm still waiting for them. A couple of days ago I stocked up on Citadel paints to beat the VAT increase, which comes into play on Tuesday. A curse on our government! I foresee troubled times ahead for this country as Dodgy Dave's and his fag, Nick the Liar's austerity package kicks in.
Anyway, I don't want to get on my soapbox about politics so I'll resume normal service. I was asked if I could do more reviews of survivors so I'm going to kick the new year off with just such a review. I plan on doing lots of reviews of figures that may be useful for survivor types, as well as more reviews of cops, gangers and the military. But first, here's a look at four very usable survivor figures from Canadian company, RAFM.

 

These are part of RAFM's range of 28mm scale USX Modern Day Heroes. At the far left of the photo is RAF02816 Harold Smith, white collar survivalist. This figure is clearly based on Michael Douglas's character William "D-Fens" Foster from the film Falling Down. But to us followers of zombie blogs, he's Mr. Whiteface, alter ego of Oliver/Whiteface who runs the wonderful Obviously Zed blog. I can see the attraction in wanting to choose this particular figure as a hero player character. The pump-action shotgun is a nice weapon to have but the way the figure is holding it makes it very easy to replace with something different. Best of all, the figure is carrying a big sports bag, which could contain any amount of weapons and/or equipment. If you wear glasses, as I do, this a great figure to use, as very few figures wear glasses. If you don't wear glasses ( I believe Oliver said he doesn't) then paint them as sunglasses for that added cool factor. I'd say this is possibly the best figure on the market to use as a player character.

Next up is RAF02803 Hanna the survivor. What I particularly like about this female is that she's left handed, which is something you rarely see on weapon carrying figures. Her weapon of choice appears to be a .44 Magnum, which I'd class as a BA Pistol in ATZ. She kind of reminds me of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from The Terminator films. She looks like she could take care of herself in a fight and I do like her choice of pistol. Dirty Harry meets Dirty Hanna!

Third in line is RAF02802 Desiree Dark the mercenary. She's dressed to thrill in a leather basque showing an impressive cleavage, skintight leather pants, long leather boots and a leather duster. Yep, she's a real heartbreaker! She's armed with twin pistols, but it is the big combat knife slung across her lower back that I particularly like. She is a beautiful figure whom I see in the LTL Mom mode, i.e. do not mess with her!

Lastly, is RAF02804 Briggs the rogue cop. He certainly looks like a rogue, with his crewcut hair, designer shades (well, they'd have to be. He wouldn't wear cheap tat!) and chomping on a cigar. Moreover, he's armed for maximum overkill with a minigun! The closest equivalent in ATZ is the Squad Automatic Weapon or SAW. This is another figure with oodles of star quality who'd make an ideal group leader for any party of survivors.

Harold, Desiree and Briggs would be more suited as Stars in ATZ, whereas Hanna seems more appropriate as a Grunt. Each figure costs $4.95 from RAFM's website. When I ordered these in 2009, they were only part of my order. When the package arrived in the UK our Customs and Excise chaps slapped on a £16 fee! Unbelievable! I paid up but I was not a happy bunny. I've ordered figures from abroad many times but this order to Canada was the only time our Customs Office intervened. In hindsight, I should have sent two small orders instead of one big order. So I'd caution you if you're thinking of ordering direct from RAFM. I have since found a few companies in the UK who sell their figures but sadly none of them have the complete range. I will order from RAFM again, I'm sure, but it won't be a big order like last time. I've learnt my lesson.