"Gaming Left 4 Dead Zombies in 28mm" Topic

After reading a recent TMP news article from Black Cat Bases TMP link I started thinking about playing a minis version of the computer game Left 4 Dead.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with L4D, it is a cooperative zombie survival game. There are four survivors that try to make it across various environments (Urban Hospital, Airport Terminal, Train Yards, Farmlands, etc) without getting ripped to shreads by zombie hoards. To complicate matters there are also four "special" zombies (five if you include the witch) that can be played co-op against the survivors. More info can be found here…

l4d.com

Anyway, I think the four survivors are easy enough to find minis for, but the Infected is where I need some help.

l4d.com/infected.htm

I think Black Cat has an excellent candidate for the Hunter
Crouching Ghoul (about a third of the way down the page)
link

… and Reaper has a good candidate for the Tank
Clay Golem
link

The other two (the Boomer and the Smoker) leave me scratching my head. Any suggestions?

The Smoker should have a mutant proxy out there somewhere.

Maybe you could paint some pants on the Reaper Ghoul Lord for a boomer?

link

With a bit of green stuff the fig from Wyrd might work:

link

Great idea and good suggestions.

Duane

I played the game for the first time this weekend. My brother and I made it to the hospital roof, but haven't been able to hold out long enough to escape yet.

The game is INTENSE. There are times it really felt like being in a movie – the immersion factor is very high!

A game based on it would be a hoot. I'd suggest a rule-set to use, but I suspect you probably already know what it would be . . . ;)

Thanks for the comments and suggestions so far. The cool part about this project idea for me is that while you would need a large number of Horde zombies, you would only need four survivors and four (maybe six) specials. With the time I have logged in L4D playing both campaign and versus, there is always a limited number of special zeds at any given time. In fact when we are playing the regular campaign version we call them the trifecta (hunter, boomer and smoker).

In versus there are times when there are four special zeds at once, either two hunters a smoker and a boomer, or hunter, smoker, tanker, and boomer. The real doom comes when the specials coordinate their attacks. Done well it is hard to recover from as a survivor.

So practically speaking, one boomer, one smoker, two hunters, one tanker and maybe one witch is all you need beyond the horde… and I already have ALOT of standard horde zeds.

but you know I think the four layer restriction is more due to limitations on the game consules. I see no reason why you couldn't play with more players and adjust accordingly.

Duane

That is very true. But to be honest, my gaming group would be hard pressed to come up with eight people to play on a given night. So even four players with two minis each would be fun to do.

Or even two players and a ref, with the ref running the horde.

Now what would you use to model and SDK release and more content ? :P

I have been collecting the same thing

Have my eye on the Black cat Ghouls

for the smoker I converted a zombie with greenstuff for a tongue and the boomer was a fat zombie from Griffin with vomit added.

I used the Heresy Ogre with a head swap for the Tank

Love the game, on the PC version we are now playing on expert mode. Playing Death Toll we've done all bar the end chapter on expert. I think we have 1 maybe 2 end chapters of 2 of the four stories to re-do on advance (having done everything else on advanced). Love the game, would be fun to play as a minis game. The computer version needs more content and quickly – I like the look of the work in progress on the day of the dead and shaun of the dead mods :-)

I would check out 28mm mutants instead of zombies. Not sure of any off the top of my head.

Maybe these?
link

For the boomer what about
link

or my Fave,
link

Could nt see the first reaper one second one aint bad

Uesugi – we could wait a while for those to appear :0)

What rules y'gonna use?

What rules y'gonna use?

Good question, and one I haven't answered.

I like both All Things Zombie and Ambush Z!. I will probably try both and see which one works better. : )

without getting ripped to shreads by zombie hoards

I did not know that zombies squirreled things away! Brain piles, I guess?

LOL TVs Frank… I have been on a typo spree lately. : )

BTW – I love the userid.

TVs Frank is indeed an awesome handle. Kudos, sir.

It would be cool to have some RPD S.T.A.R.S.

Ok, here is what I am going to settle on for my Left 4 Dead minis, assuming I don't change my mind.

Tank – Reaper Clay Golem
link

Smoker – Reaper Necropolis Zombie
link

Hunters – Black Cat Ghouls (crawling, crouching and walking)
link

Witch – Hasslefree Zombie Suzi
link

None of these are perfect, and all will require a little work. However, I am confident they will work out well.

When you game L4D, don't forget to model the insane melee damage that the survivors do. If positioned correctly, any survivor can withstand anything short of a witch or tank assault simply by melee-stunning all the zombies away.

Really fun game, but also hilariously broken at points.

LOL… the power of the shove will not be denied. ; )