No more. No more! Please, I need to get by this assault on my brain by the undead. I already had serious issues regarding zombies since I was about 9-10. It traumatized me dearly, if that is what you call it. Years afterwards, I was unable to sleep a whole night through without waking at least once from a nightmare relating to me defending my family and friends from hordes of roaming countryside zombies. Why did I have to go see Romero’s “Night” alone and so young and impressionable? It has truly screwed my brain. It has fried it! I am no use to society at this point with zombies in my brain.
I spent my summers in a house not unlike the one in the Romero movie, not in PA but in the North of Spain. It was quiet, rural and very isolated. I mean you could hear a car miles away that is how quiet it was at the summer place. Now I have a chance of bringing back all this in my hobby. I fuse Undead, FOW, my life and Nazis all in one.
When I examine that time now, I realize why the movie “Night of the Living Dead” had such a profound effect on my psyche. First of all, zombies hadn’t really existed in that form-swarming hordes of nextdoor neighbor type cannibalistic zombies in a modern 1960’s setting. You have a couple of obscure earlier films depicting Hatian voodoo type zombies but nothing like this. The first time you are introduced to something it has more of an impact on you-it’s new! Next, the movie was in black and white kind of the way I saw society cause I wouldn’t get my first color TV for another year or two so I pretty much understood the adult world in black and white. Thirdly, you really didn’t totally recognize the zombies as friend or foe until you really looked. This terrorized me. They were monsters that looked just like us. They could be standing next to you and you wouldn’t really notice until they took a bite out of you. I mean you had to really look. Finally, the movie created a feeling that there was just no way out and that this was it-the end. That was very scary. No way out??? Romero you bastard! You have a sick mind!
Now back to minis-Rebel Minis puts out a very inexpensive blister of 15mm metal Nazi Zombies-about 7 poses I think. The poses I like. They communicate zombie to me so that is good. As 15mm they are not too big and not too small. Fit pretty well with battlefront. They are easy to convert. I took one and cut him at the waist. If you get the one dragging the rifle, his base is big enough for two so you cut that and attach the torso of the zombie to the new base. Although it is not shown here in the pics, I will have it for my next batch of Afrika Korp Nazi zombies. Also, it is easy to cut arms and just raise or lower them to produce a variation and change their appearance a little bit so you are not looking at the same mini over and over. Nobody I know makes these and with all these cool Nazi Zombie movies coming out-”Outpost,” ” Dead Snow,” “Blood Creek,” and such it is good to have them around.
It was about 1977 and the Late Show on CBS would show “Shockwaves,” eerie as hell and always managed to scare the hell out of me. It is about a group on a three hour boat tour that end up stranded on an island inhabited by , you guessed it, Nazi zombies! Anyway, I digress so back to the minis; these little bastards are fine specimens except that I find the belts are not raised enough from the figures so you need to guess and make your own which I really am not a fan of doing that when I paint.
I mentioned this to Mike at Rebel Minis and he said he would do that in future releases. I also mentioned how I thought that a pack of heads with small pins attached to minimize the drilling and such would be added bonus and would be great to create diversity in the zombie pack. Also you can beat the price. He now has platoon packs you can get for $14 or something like that which is cool. Anyway, here are some pics of the zombies I did using Flames of War inspired basing and organization.
