Zombie Miniatures Gaming - a Genre Review by Doctor Bedlam
...so I don't suppose anyone here plays All Things Zombie, from Two Hour Wargames? How about Dead Walk Again, from Planned Movement Production? Zombie Plague, from Fortress Figures? Not even ZOMBIES!!! from Twilight Productions? ...then rejoice, O Debauched Ones, for I am here to enlighten you. The first, All Things Zombie, is a specialized version of THW's Chain Reaction 2.0 system, a miniatures rules system that mixes the cinematic with the realistic. It includes most of the CR2.0 rules as well as an excellent "campaign" system for post-zombie-apocalypse adventuring, as well as ways to "level up" your miniatures! It also plays remarkably well SOLO, oddly enough. It has only two flaws: (a) miniatures sold separately, and (b) they expect you to pay for it. The neat part is that THW will email you the whole thing as a PDF file in your email for a discount, if they don't have to ship you the whole thing. Talk to 'em at: http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/ Dead Walk Again is also a great squad-level living-versus-dead game, although it won't work solo -- zombies need their own player to run them, in part due to a hidden-movement system. It's not as open-ended as ATZ, nor does it allow for ATZ's breadth of scenarios, but it does have one major advantage: it's free. Available at: http://www.pm-production.nu/pmp/products/dead_walk_again/downloads.php ...although once again, you have to buy your own miniatures. Lastly we have an internet favorite, Zombie Plague. It, too, has the advantage of being free, as well as being a remarkably simple game -- more a beer and pretzels sort of thing than a strategic thinker. It is the most limited of all the games discussed here: the board consists of one yard with house, garage, and car. The object of the game is for the human player to (a) barricade the house to keep the zombies out, and/or (b) find the car keys, get to the car, and make a run for it. Survivors in the house divide their time between searching the "search spots" in order to draw cards, whereas the zombies (who get reinforcements each turn) gleefully attempt to batter down the doors and devour the living. Added features can be found at Zombie Plague's Yahoo! group, which has a passel of fan-made expansion sets. The original can be downloaded free at: http://www.fortressfigures.com/zombieplague/ Again, you have to find your own miniatures, although the Fortress Figures people would kind of like you to buy theirs. We finish with ZOMBIES!!!, a great screw-your-neighbor boardgame from Twilight Productions. http://www.twilightcreationsinc.com/ It's not free; they want about $25 for it... but it has the advantage of includine 106 plastic miniatures, as well as the tiles, chits, cards, and dice you'll need for the game. Finally, a zombie miniatures game that includes the miniatures! The hell of it is... after a few games, you'll want to go out and buy a hundred MORE plastic zombies; you'll need them, especially if you invest in the expansion sets. I recommend the glow-in-the-dark ones. ZOMBIES!!! opens with the players' miniatures in the city square. They must find their way through the darkened streets, amidst the zombie horde, to the Helicopter Launching Pad and escape! The kicker? You don't know where the launch pad is. When the game begins, you draw a map tile from the stack, and hook it to any map tiles already played. The helicopter is somewhere in the bottom half of the stack of map tiles! In the meantime, you'll loot stores for weapons and equipment, slaughter zombies left and right, and play cards to confuse and confound your opponents (in one game, the entire table conspired to keep me from moving off the Town Square tile for five entire turns). ...you STILL don't know what I'm talking about? Click on the LINKS, man!

I play All Things Zombie and Zombies. I'm painting some special hunters for Xtreme Zombie Hunter from Grimey Games http://www.grimeygames.com/index.php?index So I'll be trying that too in the near future. There's a write up of my first ATZ game here: http://tinyurl.com/85h8x And a gallery of my zombie figures here: http://tinyurl.com/ccxm4

Ok i have played ZOMBIES!!! from Twilight Productions quite a bit and own all of the suppliments... (except the one that is just coming out) but still havent figured out which system to use for my modern zombie hunting fixation. At the moment I am playing using the Gothic Horror/Rippers rules sorta mixed to get the best of both worlds but dont know for sure how it would do with a more modern feel.

Its Matakishis fault :D I have over the last month been busily painting zombies, hunters etc. I had the first game on Friday using Dead Walk Again. I had 5 squads with objectives and I played the zombie. I added some odds and sod s and a bit of artistic license to make the game multi player :twisted: . Went like a dream. Will produce a write up once have a chance. Looking to develop players squads for when I get into ATZ :P Regards Karl

@Matakishi: Great stuff. What scale of cars do you use?!?!?

The cars are usually 1:43 scale but for busses and trucks etc. I use 1:50 generally.

I keep forgetting to bring a mini with me when I check out the cars with my kids at the stores... what brands would be the right size?

Diecast manufactureres aren't too accurate on the scales as you'll have noticed, quite often something is right if it 'fits in the box'. If you're really bothered by this then taking a figure along is a good way of checking. I buy off e-bay so can't do that and so far only a Ford truck has arrived and looked too big, everything else hs been ok. There is a Chinese company whose stuff is on the smaller side that's particularly good but I can't find their name at the moment, begins with 'C'. They don't put their name on the models and I throw the packaging away. You can't miss them though, they're really cheap and come on a black plastic base with a hard clear box over them, car's name in white on the front of the base. My Thunderbird was made by them. http://www.displacedminiatures.com/Matakishi/image.aspx?image_id=5055&from=All%20Things%20Zombie Since wargames figures are out of scale with themselves, they're all dumpy little people with huge hands and heads generally, a 1:43 car is in scale with their bulk but not with their height. If you actually put a 1:60 scale vehicle next to a 25mm figure which is the correct scale it looks ridiculously small even though the height is right. Therefore it's all a judgement call as to what's right for you. Buy what you're happy with and if someone comes along and complains during a game then you can suggest that they sort out the vehicles for next time and see how they do. (Some people delight in telling you how wrong you've got it from a distance, over the internet for instance, these people deserve short shrift and need to be sent packing with a flea in their ear.)

Hi, I noticed the discussion about the die-cast vehicles. As Matakishi rightly said it's not really an exact science when finding a suitable scale. The Thunderbird you quoted as being from a chinese manufacturer was distributed by NEWRAY in the US as part of their XTREME MACHINE series. I picked up the entire range on EBAY for very little. They are slightly smaller than your average 1:43 scale and are spot on for 28mm gaming. Another good manufacturer is YAT MING. They make some hard to get American Vehicles ( Caddies, T-Birds etc ) at very reasonable prices. A UK distributer I've found is at: http://www.carinabox.com/index.cfm? Just go into their search facility and look up Yat Ming in 1:43. Most are going for £1.99 a piece. Regards AL

ooo, thanks for the heads up Midnight! Some of those classic cars would be great! btw, here is a bunch of zombie games I have came across. Its not exhaustive and so far I only tried one of them! haha http://www.displacedminiatures.com/fatgoblin/article.aspx?id=127