Zombies are still cool if a little over done at this point, and miniature Zombie games are plentiful if that’s a particular itch you need to scratch – Zombies the board game, Zombicide, The Walking Dead miniatures game etc.
I’ve recently been gifted many Caesar zombies in 1/72 scale. One box of camp, three of modern… which is a rather large amount!
And while a large zombie project wasn’t something I was planning on (I’ve already got enough on the go already!) there’s certainly an appeal there, plus I’ve already got some figures that will make good survivors.
WW2 Partisans or Commandos, Vietnam Americans and Cold War Soviets. Not to mention the boxes of 1/72 Zombie Survivors I could buy.
I like the idea of zombie rules and the solo-playability of a zombie game as the zombie ai would be pretty easy to write – move at max speed towards the closest visible human.
But what Zombie rules do you play by? Running or walking, headshots only or normal damage, are they undead, nuclear empowered or rage virus zombies?
What’s the best zombie movie?
That was of course a trick question, we all know it’s Nightmare City. Closely followed by Zombie Flesh Eaters and Zombie Creeping Flesh.
Deathzap 
A rapid fire, weapon will quickly immobilize a zombie, head shot or not, as they won’t be moving far if their legs are blasted off. Flame throwers would also do the trick.
How zombies work is an interesting question, with many answers… I think when you’re looking at true undead there has to be some kind of supernatural element at play. Even Romero’s classic zombies don’t make too much sense considering how quickly brains would decompose, how muscles cease to function without working respiratory and circulatory systems.
Flamethrowers could be a very interesting example of a weapon that may or may not be effective against zombies.
I guess (is there research on such things?), that flamethrowers are particularly effective against humans, because we breathe, which causes us to inhale fire and killing us an awful lot quicker than zombies which may not. There’s also the element of panic at play, a human goes into full panic the moment they are engulfed, whereas a zombie, now on fire, may continue moving towards you until it is chemically shut down. Avoiding slow movers should be easy enough once they’re set on fire, and I assume rage zombies, or nuclear enhanced guys like those is Nightmare City breathe like humans and so die equally quickly. However fast moving undead, such as the zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake, or Return of the Living Dead, if set alight may be on top of you rather quickly, clawing and biting, while also being on fire.
Dark Alliance make terrific zombies and survivors in 1/72. I like the USEME rules. Dawn of the Dead is of course the film title you were looking for.
John
Thinking about picking up the USEME rules! Remake or Original Dawn of the Dead? I personally prefer Day of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead out of Romero’s films.
Definitely do. They’re cheap and cheerful. Original/ BW film.
It has often struck me that Zombies are the last reliable victims for the movie industry. I remember films like Beyond Mombasa, made in 1956 where the heroes could gun down a vast number of unpleasant natives (throw in a witchdoctor for luck). Obviously we had the cowboy films where you could gun down a vast number of natives, pleasant or otherwise. Now Zombies are probably the only suitable victims for that sort of genre 🙂
Interesting comparison to draw! Especially as the first Zombies were the voodoo kind, and based around black people’s fears of being enslaved. Romero changed the formula after being inspired by I Am Legend and The Last Man on Earth, but still ended Night of the Living Dead with the murder of a black man, something he didn’t turn around until Dawn of the Dead. There’s a supposedly harrowing scene in 28 Weeks Later where a group of military snipers have to shoot indiscriminately into a crowd of civilians as it becomes too difficult to distinguish between the normal and the ‘infected’. It’s supposedly a tragedy when a normie is killed, but as soon as a human is infected it’s open season, even if (with the speed the virus is transmitted) that person was a normie less than a minute ago.
The concepts of contagion and infection are prevalent within racist ramblings, or the supposed threat of communism in the Red Scare, even the Satanic Panic. Maybe Zombies just represent the ‘other’. So maybe Zombies in a subconscious sort of way, still are those unpleasant natives. Maybe we still are gunning them down?
Another interesting tweak is I’ve seen games (never watched the films) where you can chose to ‘upgrade’ the zombies to be more cunning. Which of course makes them into a ‘more human’ opponent 🙂
I await with interest the arrival of gun toting zombies :-0
Left 4 Dead has quite a few cool upgraded zombies. Tanks, Boomers, Hunters, Smokers and Witches… which all do mostly what they say on the tin.
(My favourite ‘Nightmare City’ has the gun toting kind)
I’ve never seen the films (rural and very bad broadband) so my ‘experience’ is mainly based on youtube adverts for games and wargamers rules I’ve played 🙂
Good point, Jim. Zombies and the ever reliable “xenomorph” the list of bad guys in cinema has shrunk over the years.
(I think I was originally thinking Night of the living dead.)
Zombies, Nazis and any alien that’s completely inhuman… I think that’s the list.