Studio Miniatures' Zombies 13 - Left4Dead 1

Here are another four zombies from my favourite maker of zombie figures - Studio Miniatures. These 28mm scale figures are from their "Only The Dead Are Left" set, an obvious reference to the Left 4 Dead (herafter abbreviated to L4D) computer games. Fans of the game should have no difficulty in identifying the different types of zombies in this set.
From left to right are the Tank, the Boomer, the Smoker and the Hunter, giving them their L4D names.

The Tank is L4D's zombified version of the Incredible Hulk. He has super strength and resiliance and is fully capapble of wiping out a party of survivors on his own. Painting him in Foundry Cadaverous Green 46 was my nod to the Incredible Hulk. He has a few cuts to his left arm and a bullet wound to the left side of his chest, but I doubt if he has even noticed them. Note that I have based him on a 30mm diameter slottabase as I thought he looked way oversized on a 25mm diameter slottabase, even though he would fit on it.

The Boomer has two very nasty abilities. First of all, it can projectile vomit on opponents. The bile will attract any nearby zombies to the victim. His second ability comes into play if the Boomer is killed. At that point he'll explode, covering any one too close to him with more bile that will attract more zombies to them. The way this figure has been sculpted gives you a sense that he is just about to explode. He's my favourite figure out of this set, simply because I like obese zombies and there aren't enough of them on the market.

When you first see the Smoker you'd be forgiven for thinking he's just a normal zombie and he's wearing a pink tie. Big mistake! That's not a tie - it's his tongue. He can use it as a weapon to drag victims close to him. If an opponent does cut the Smoker's tongue off, he will grow another one. Smokers don't moan like other zombies do, instead they cough. So, why is he called a Smoker? Well, when he is killed his body emits a cloud of smoke, which will impair the vision of any human close by, temporarily stunning them.

The Hunter is the most human-looking figure in this set, and is not so much a zombie as an infected person, similar to the infected flesh-eaters in the films 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. He is very fast and agile and he uses his hands to rip his victims apart rather than his teeth. In ATZ terms, he is a Rager. However, in L4D, Hunters are a lot easier to kill than ATZ's Ragers. Also, in L4D, Hunters can remain absolutely silent, making them very good ambushers.

I have included this picture taken from one of the L4D websites, showing the concept art for the four types of Infected, and you can see that Studio's sculptor has obviously used these pictures for reference when he was sculpting them.

ATZ does not cater for these types of mutated zombies, although, as I said, the Hunter could double up as a Rager. I may use the Tank as another Rager, and keep the Boomer and the Smoker as normal zombies. For those of you playing No More Room In Hell, there are rules for using all four of these figures under the section, Generating Special Zombies. So, the Tank becomes the Brute, the Boomer becomes the Bloat, the Smoker becomes Dr. Tongue and the Hunter becomes Infected Runner. It looks like the author of NMRIH, Bryan Miley, was a fan of L4D. By the way, in case you're wondering how come I know so much about NMRIH, I recently bought the rulebook. A review of it will appear soon.

This set of four figures retails for £14.99 from the Studio Minis website. I should point out that Studio have just released "Only The Dead are Left II," which contains four more special Infected types from L4D - the Charger, the Jockey, the Spitter and the Witch. I sent away for them a couple of days ago and once I receive them I will paint them up as soon as possible. Look out for a review of them in the very near future, probably sometime next month.