"The War With The Dead Has Reached Its Third Night."

"Don't they know how many corpses there are in the world?"

This 28mm single-piece metal model of a Zombie Mistress is made by "Mongoose Publishing" and could be bought, until very recently, as Code JD20051 from the "Judge Dredd Miniatures Games" range sold by "Warlord Games". Calling upon her dark psychic powers, the Zombie Mistress can both "raise the dead and command them to fulfil her every whim", thereby keeping "the Justice Department off balance for weeks."

Despite predominantly being clothed with a raggedly skirt and flowing cloak, I initially underocated the undead sorceress with “Vallejo” Iraqi Sand and “Citadel” Thrakka Green. This 'undercoating' technique allowed me to see all of the sculpt's detail and identify which areas needed to be painted what colour. As I wanted to try and give the 'zed hag' a grungy dirty look I selected "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna for her skirt and gloves, Heavy Skintone for her decaying skin leotard and Heavy Red for her tattered cape. All these areas, along with her White skull knee-pads were then treated to a generous wash of "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade.

"A... A walking corpse! How do you stop - "

With the zombie's clothing finished, I then applied a combination of "Citadel" Ironbreaker to the razor-blades disconcertingly attached to the fingers of her handwear, and to her ankle armour. Finally I dirtied up her face with some more Strong Tone Quickshade and 'pikced out' her lifeless eyes with "Vallejo" White.

In many ways the Zombie Mistress is my least favourite of the Mega-City Undead range which 'Mongoose Matt' had produced. This dissatisfaction is largely due to the fact that the character didn't actually appear within the pages of "2000 A.D." and therefore isn't official "Judge Dredd" canon in my books. But it's also based upon the fact that the miniature 'headlined' the Zombie Horde $6,000 stretch goal which finally convinced me to pledge big in the company's October 2012 "Judge Dredd Miniatures Game: Block War" kickstarter; a fund-raising project which has astonishingly managed to actually outlive the "Judge Dredd" licence for "Mongoose Publishing"...

"Pick your target and shoot for their heads!"

My final contribution to Zombtober 2016 is another 28mm walking cadaver which has been assembled using plastic pieces taken from the "Mantic Games" "Kings Of War" Zombie Swarm and the metal 'bitz' found as part of "Warlord Games" Mega-City Zombie Horde pack. Painted 'in the main' using my combination of “Vallejo” Iraqi Sand and “Citadel” Thrakka Green, the zed's colourful clothing was created using "Vallejo" Turquoise for his tattered trousers and Verdigris for his tiny shoulder-pad. These areas were then washed with "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade and "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade respectively.

I had recently been hoping to significantly expand my Mega-City One Undead Horde by picking up a few of "Warlord Games"  Zombie Horde Conversion Packs, but as their license for "Judge Dredd" has reached its end and the company "are currently planning the future for its range and game and re-negotiating our agreements with the brand owners", I thought I'd pick-up four Zombie Judge models from "Mongoose Publishing" to disassemble instead. Sadly, I've only so far been sent one of the models I paid for, with Matt Sprange stating that he is "very low on stock across the whole Dredd range at the moment" and only having "two Zombie Judges left" as a result...

Mega-City One Undead WIPs - These models have been primed in readiness for the next zombie breakout...

Unperturbed, I have subsequently taken a modelling knife to the Zombie Judge I have so far received from 'Mongoose Matt', and used pieces of it in order to convert a few more "Mantic Games" zeds into undead Mega-City One citizens. Initially I had simply planned to do a head-swap with one of the plastic "Kings Of War" sculpts. However whilst cleaning the Zombie Judge's gloved hand of flash the entire part broke clean off. Having examined the poorly-cast miniature, its metal is rather crumbly and gritty, so I have drilled the offending metallic fragments out of the broken piece and simply super-glued it onto the arm of a third brain-eating cadaver.