Review: Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens

Sticking with the review theme of the month here come the Zombie Vixens!

This was one highly anticipated box which was just released in August 2012 by Wargames Factory.  Again, different box format, this time it is more conventional I would say in that the box "hugs" the sprues in it instead of having them rattle around loosely. 

The box art is very striking. Just like with the other zombies box almost four years earlier (even though I think they changed the design of the earlier zombies box some time between the release and now) they chose a very moody look, especially in terms of the font used. The artwork actually is lovely and along with the title of the box leaving no doubt what this box is about - this is exploitation and they clearly had fun with the theme.

The back shows a photo of twelve variants you can build from the box - basically what you can make from one sprue - along with a very cheesy blurb of text. Could have done with being printed about 1cm higher up but at least I didn't spot any glaring typos this time!

When you open the box first thing you notice is how neatly the sprues are organized. WGF were critisized in the past for more or less tossing the sprues into the boxes in which they lay around very loosely. In some cases this lead to almost unavoidable damage done to things like spears and more delicate parts. For instance, I got a box of their skeleton warriors. Those came with quite some damage to the more staff like weapons such as spears which is annoying. WGF obviously learned from that mistake and designed the sprues in a way so they can't slide around any more. The new box format also helps that. No way for the sprues to just fly around in the box any more.

As you saw in the earlier picture you get three of those sprues in each box but they are twice as large as the other zombie ones, come with 25mm round bases this time and eleven zombie ladies per sprue plus one "crawler" as the box tells us which basically is a detached torso moving around by using its arms. The cover says that the box contained 30 zombie vixens plus bonus crawlers whereas in fact there actually are 33 zombies in there plus three crawlers. Pretty cool.

High numbers of models don't mean much if they don't look pretty so let's take a look at the individual miniatures now and what extras and options you get. With these models you don't get seperate torsos and legs. This is mostly because there is a fair amount of dresses and such on them and some very dynamic poses. 

For posing options we get no arms attached this time but 32 seperate arms, all different.Well, almost. Two or three pairs of arms are the same but have been mirrored so to speak so really it's very hard to have two zombies have the same combination or positioning of arms. This time around we even get some hands holding things. Two arms with briefcases in hand (there are two zombies with business outfits), two with shopping bags and one even holding a life buoy to go with one of the two ladies in swimming outfits. Yes indeed, it's all there - bikinis, nurse's outfits, a diner's waitress, business ladies, night gowns and so on. It goes without saying that all these ladies are sculpted to look very shapely. As I said, this is all about fun  and recreating a certain degree of exploitation. 

In terms of heads there are 15 per sprue of which one again is positioned in a way that the mould line runs right along the middle of the face. Oh well. The faces look more well defined this time with deeper details than on their male colleagues. 

I don't want to add to the inflation of the term but in my opinion the casting is flawless. No fuzziness around the fingers what so ever, crisp details and even way less prominent mould lines than on the other zombies. A definate step up.

Other than with the other zombies there are even some exra bits in the shape of two handbags and a platter for the waitress one.

Putting these models together is kind of fiddly I have to admit but they fit really well. The necks may need a little cutting-to-fit in the front. In the back the hair cover them up anyway so you get quite some leeway on the positioning there. Other than the older male zombies, there are no ball joints on these, it's all flat joints which actually work better and don't look static at all due to the dynamic positions of the shoulders and the varied arms.

So I put together six of the ladies for testing. As mentioned before, very good fit with only minimal gap filling required on the shoulders.The actual contact with the bases is very small with some of the miniatures but no problem for plastic cement. 

Okay, a little bit of gap-filling and filing will be required but not too much. Next: Painting.

Those ladies are a lot of fun to paint because of the sheer variety you can paint them in you can turn those into a very colourful horde of she-zombies. From left to right you can see a lady who's having problems balancing due to the rather unnaturally repositioned right leg (AND high heels). Her left hand neighbor is even worse off obviously but still tries not messing up her silk night gowns. This one by the way is not one of the "crawlers" but one of the regular zombies. Crawlers are really just the upper half of the torso with arms and head. Next to her a business lady who was much fun to paint, a cheerleader with scarily thin limbs, a diner waitress (love painting blue) and a sporty lady.

 

All in all I'm really impressed with this kit. Not sure if I will keep the round bases because they require more space than on their male counterparts so making the "horde" look work means I need a lot more of them in one place and of course means that I'd have to get round bases for all the other zombies as well so let's see about that.

If you can live with a certain amount of camp in your zombies (and seriously, if you enjoy zombies in wargaming you most probably do) and want some variety amongst your modern-day zombie hordes you can hardly go wrong with this kit. As with the other zombies box, Wargames Factory price this box at very competetive around-15-pounds. With 33 zombies per box plus three "crawlers" and a bunch of extra bits you get a long of bang for your buck. On top of that, it's quality bang too. 

Wargames Factory sometimes get some criticism for their models being stiffly posed and underdetailed. In this kit you can see that they really want to prove these criticisms to be wrong and  it could be viewed as their flagship box indeed, featuring convincing quality on the technical as well as on the creative side of things. I definately recommend this box to anyone who wants to add some variety to his or her zombie horde.

This closes the second part of my zombies review series. Look forward to part three which I hope will be up within the month depending on how quickly I get the rest of my stuff delivered. Hope you enjoyed the review and found it helpful. If so, or indeed if not so, please let me know via the comments section below, via e-mail or Battle Brush Studios' Facebook page.