Judge Dredd Miniature Game: Zombie Horde Review

[obsidian3d]

Re-posted from my blog at (http://obsidian3d.blogspot.ca/2013/02/judge-dredd-miniature-game-zombie-horde.html). The original article also has more pictures.

Sitting around on a quiet Sunday evening is one of the few times of the week that I actually have to myself. Often I'll just sit and watch some TV and try to decompress a bit before Monday morning responsibility thunders back into view. Last Sunday I didn't even watch what was on the TV, I merely listened while I put together some more models from my ever-growing mountain of lead and plastic!

The Zombie Horde pack is, to my knowledge, the only Judge Dredd set that comes with plastic components. Interestingly enough, the plastic parts in this kit are zombie sprues by Mantic Games. The pack contains a zombie mistress, a zombie judge, a sprue of metal heads and two sprues of metal shoulder/elbow/knee pads, a few pouches, six identical metal torsos, eight bases and two sprues of Mantic zombies.

I received this pack as part of my Council of Judges pledge on Kickstarter from before Christmas, so they arrived without retail packaging. That said, I'm uncertain if this is exactly what you would receive when purchasing in store or directly from Mongoose Publishing.

The number of parts included is really good and provides a lot of options to customize your shambling horde of flesh-eating undead. I tried to make good use of all the bits and mix up the metal and plastic parts as much as possible. In fact, if you were to throw in a few more bases one could squeeze a few more completed figures out of the parts included.

I have a few very minor complaints about the zombie pack. Keep in mind...these are definitely minor issues:

1. There aren't anywhere near enough lower bodies provided to make use of all the heads and upper bodies. With some additional parts from your bits box, or a little sculpting handiwork, that could quite easily be remedied. If not then you're simply left with some extra zombie parts.

2. All of the included metal torsos are exactly the same. I didn't consider it to be a large issue, as the left arm is fairly easy to reposition and thus squeeze slightly different poses out of.

3. The bottom base of the mantic zombies are designed to go in...Mantic bases. You'll need to use lots of ballast or some green stuff to make them not look funny on the provided 25mm bases. As it is, they'll stand pretty tall compared to similarly scaled models if you don't trim those off.

4. There are no female zombies included, just the horde mistress. Maybe the women of Mega-City One can all run faster than the men...?

I really like the look of the zombie mistress. She definitely has a necromancer / witch vibe to her, but with a few little touches like the metal finger-cap gloves that say she could be a resident or exile from Mega-City One.

There isn't much to say about the zombie judge, he's just plain cool.

I posted a few shots of Harold the Cit-Def zombie some weeks ago, but here he is with the rest of the horde (third from the right). As you can see I've tried out some different colours as a basis for their flesh tones. I tried to get a good cross-section of paint lines and colours that I thought might work well for undead flesh. From left to right I've used: Army Painter Necrotic Flesh, P3 Thrall Flesh, Army Painter Skeleton Bone, P3 Jack Bone, GW Kommando Khaki and GW Bleached Bone. I've definitely noticed that the P3 paints have the best coverage over black, only requiring two coats where the others all needed three or even four.



I really do like the colour of the Necrotic Flesh, but I think it's a little bit too green for how I feel my zombies should look. Thrall Flesh or Skeleton bone is probably a little closer, and might work nicely using the necrotic flesh as a shading colour underneath it. I'm not going to repaint any of these. I plan to complete them all with the flesh colour they have, to see which one turns out closest to my mental image. Which one do you folks think looks best?

And here's the whole flesh-munching family!



I took my own advice and created a few more zombies from the remaining parts. All that I need will be two extra bases to glue them to.

And finally...I mentioned that the hands on the metal torsos are easily repositioned. I simply couldn't resist creating a Johnny Cash-style 'ef you' zombie! The focal length on my camera didn't cooperate, which is probably good, because now I don't have to blur out his hand!

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/Obsidian3d/Judge%20Dredd/file_zpsb006e200.jpg

[Argonor]

If you need female zeds to mix in, have a look at Wargames Factory's Zombie Vixens for a not-so-expensive approach.  

As for the flesh I think variation is nice. I use a lot of foundry rawhide triad for zombies (or I used to - haven't been painting for quite a while), which gives a slightly darker tone than khaki coulours. Will be interesting to see the finished results of those.

EDIT:

For miniatures with integral bases, washers are a good alternative to slottas; the finished result takes the minis down to approximately same eye-level as slotta-based ones. I mix washers and slottas, and as long as the bases are textured/painted in the same fashion, I don't think it ruins the overall look (many will disagree with me on this - a matter of personal taste).

[obsidian3d]

Thanks, that's good advice about the washers, I haven't really used them but a few of the local hobbyists that I game with do. I personally don't have much complaint about mixing bases. Some figures just look better on the 30mm rounds, others I like the 25mm ones. I do try to keep squads or groups on the same bases, but I will play a game with whatever suits the scenario or rules.

I'll definitely be looking into the zombie vixens. My horde definitely needs a feminine contingent. I'm all for gender equality in my ranks of the undead!

[Commander Vyper]

Those vixens are 20th century not MC1 so maid's outfits and suits might not cut it unless your zed meggers are retro.

Still waiting on mine hopefully will surface tomorrow.

[Argonor]

Yeah, but if you look at some the male (Mantic) zeds, they don't have much MC1-style about them, either.

Of course, if you want stylistic coherence, they may not fit the bill too well. Personally I would have no problem using them, as I presume they are just meant to be mindless shamblers (?), but I don't have the rules, so I don't know the importance of gear on the minis. 

[Commander Vyper]

That's what the kneepads and shoulder pads are for  but I take your point.  I've added the old  gomc1 plastic perps/gangers to mantic zeds look good and in keeping with the theme.