Blue Moon Zombies 01

It's my birthday today - happy birthday, me! Coming up soon will be one of the biggest ATZ batreps I've ever done. I spent four days from  last Friday to this Monday playing it. The scenario is called Blackout and it lasted far longer than I expected. It's so long I'll have to use two posts to cover it. In the mean time I'm going to review 40 zombies that I've just recently painted. These guys helped push my horde over the 500 mark to its current total of 525.

These zombies are made by Blue Moon Manufacturing, an American firm, and are part of BMM111A Box 7 "I Just Can't Seem to Get a Good Night's Sleep" - a boxed set of twenty 28mm scale figures. Half of the figures in this set are armed with a variety of melee weapons, and they are the ones I'm going to review today.
I'll start with the guy at the far left of the two photos above. He's armed with a meat cleaver and a big knife. He wears a pair of trousers, which are held up by a length of rope. Perhaps, he couldn't afford to buy a belt! His most noticable wound is on his head. The top of his skull has been removed to reveal his brain. He has a bandage wrapped around his head, which seems to be a bit superfluous to me. A large piece of flesh has been chewed off his back.
Next in line, is the first of four nude males included in this set and it was with these four figures that I encountered a problem. All four were missing genitalia and their ears. I can understand the omission of their dangly bits as full frontal nudity upsets more Americans than it does Europeans, but why miss out their ears? Very strange! Well, as you know, I can sculpt figures as well, so I made all four figures anatomically correct by adding the missing bits. This guy is holding a dagger aloft in a threatening pose. His wounds are minor compared to others in the range, consisting mainly of numerous small cuts and bites.
Staying with the nudity theme, the zombie in the centre of this group is a semi-naked female, displaying a fine pair of breasts. A long dress or gown is literally hanging from her. In her right hand is a long knife but I must admit, I have no idea what she's holding in her left hand. It could be a spanner or a two pronged fork or something else entirely. She has a very nasty wound to her right side and her legs are covered in bite wounds.
Moving on, the fourth figure in line is the the first of three zombies armed with a wooden club.I like the stooped pose of this figure. He too, is wearing a pair of trousers held up with a piece of rope. However, he has lost his socks and shoes. His wounds are very minimal, consisting of nothing more than a couple of cuts and puncture wounds.
The last zombie out of this batch of five wields a club that looks to have been torn or cut off a tree. He is dressed in boots, loincloth and waistcoat, which is an odd combination for a contemporary setting but not so out of place in a fantasy setting. Yet again, his wounds are minor in nature apart from the large piece of flesh missing from his right knee.

In the second batch of melee weapon armed zombies, I'll start off with the third of three zombies wielding a wooden club. This guy is almost naked apart from a strategically placed piece of cloth wrapped around his body. This unfortunate gentleman has been subjected to lots of bites, the worst being the one on his left leg, which reveals his kneecap and part of his femur.

To his left is the only child zombie in the boxed set- a young girl holding a teddy bear and a walking stick. It is unusual to see her wearing a pair of jeans underneath her dress. Her face shows real evil and she reminds me of Linda Blair's character, Regan, in the film The Exorcist when she is possessed by the devil. She appears to have been shot or stabbed a few times in the body. She is an ace sculpt.

Next in line, is the second of the male nudes and the first of three zombies armed with a two-handed weapon. Again, I have rendered him anatomically correct with the aid of some small pieces of modelling putty. He has a tight hold of a large scythe. This guy certainly suffered before he died. I counted thirteen bite wounds on him!

Fourth in line is a zombie holding a two-pronged pitchfork. He was also one of Blue Moon's strange mutant nudes. This time, as well as adding his dangly bits and ears, I gave him a head of hair. All four nudes were bald, so I wonder if they were some kind of mutant clones. This guy is also covered in bite wounds although not quite as numerous as the previous zed. 

Finally, I come to the spear armed zombie. His clothing suggests he originates from a Middle Eastern country or perhaps India or Pakistan. His face is almost skeleton-like, with just a thin covering of flesh. His pose suggests he is almost running or at the very least, advancing purposefully. His two-handed spear is almost long enough to count as a pike. He has two deep wounds to both shoulders and to his right knee.

When I first looked at these a few years ago, I was put off buying this set because of the ten figures I've reviewed here. The notion of melee armed zombies for a contemporary setting did not sit well with me. They're fine for fantasy gaming, I thought, but not ATZ. And then THW released I, Zombie and suddenly I had a use for them - smart zombies! I found a firm selling them in the UK and ordered them, along with their other boxed sets of zombies.

It should be noted that these figures come with integral metal bases, which are circular and only slightly smaller in diameter to a 25mm diameter plastic slottabase. I've stuck mine on slottabases, purely to keep them uniform with the rest of my horde, but you might want to leave them as is. There's no reason not to, as their bases are quite chunky and very solid.

I'll review the second ten figures from this boxed set next post and I'll give you the price details then along with my overall verdict, which I can tell you will be complimentary.