" Undead ACW" Topic

am toying with the idea of producing a small set of 30mm Undead ACW miniatures. I'd start with 5-10 Undead Civil War models for RPG and skirmish gaming. If there is enough interest I'd move on to a mass Undead infantry, artillery, cavalry, and historical persons, maybe even with a Kickstarter.

Below you'll find a handful of concept sketches for skirmish miniatures. Please let me know what you think, and what you might like to see.

-Solo Sam

That would be pretty nifty! Of course, only make them if you like them and want them because only 1% of the people clamoring that they will buy scores of them will never buy a single one. At least that is the way it sounds from what other manufacturers have said here.

BTW not too keen on kneeling figures though. Not as useful as other poses. And no prone poses. Those are even more useless than kneeling IMO.

I think kneeling is okay if the intention is to make a skirmish game.

Why 30mm? If I want to get "weird" with my ACW, I want figs that match what I have, so in the 25-28mm range.

I see potential in the range but, for me, the potential lessens the more out of scale things get.

I'm in if its 25-30mm also.

I would buy those for my Old West skirmish like a shot.

25mm to 28mm please.

I'd buy some of these for an Old West campaign that I'll eventually get around to doing.

As mentioned above, my first thought was that the Weird West guys would snatch these up.

My thinking is that I would want them to be compatible with the 28-32mm "Heroic" scales, so that they could fit in with ACW minis but not look like midgets alongside larger models like Black Scorpion and Reaper. Dumb idea? It might be impossible to find a single happy medium.

And Mr. Tibbles – I agree prone poses are awful. They are only good for static dioramas.

The problem with making them larger is that they are undead and would look somewhat weird being bigger than the other figures on the table. I'll be using them for Weird West stuff so I don't really care as I'll have all kinds of different sized figures on the table from various manufacturers and like a variety of sizes in my figures, but others might not agree.

Maybe if you made them compatible with the heroic scale Black Scorpion stuff but slightly smaller to account for loss of bulk from being all messed up, as it were.

Reminds of the Great Rail Wars game, which is not a bad thing.

There was an old Weird War Tales comic I had called the "Dead Draftees of Regiment 6" which had ghost soldiers rather than zombies (who took grisly revenge on the men that caused them to be drafted). But this sort of thing always reminds me of that.

Good thing about dead ACW figures is that you can use them for any supernatural scenario from the 1860's onward ;)

If someone wanted to convert rather than manufacture, I'd suggest Perry ACW plastics with Wargames Factory skeleton parts (or any spare 28mm skulls you may have from whomever). Perry have separate hats, so you'd mostly just be head swapping, replacing the odd arm and leg etc.

Those look excellent. Have you thought about doing a kickstarter program for this?

Oh, and now I'm wondering if Frontear has rules for undead…

Kneeling and firing implies that these zombies are actually putting some thought into it. That does not seem to be the case with the recent trend in undead.
Besides, you need eyes to aim with.

Pretty neat … just saw on a paranormal show on Discovery IIRC, where a couple said they were attacked a few years ago by ACW Zombie Soldiers near the Palmetto Hill battlefield in TX that took place just after the ACW link … So … at least you have a paradigm for ACW Zombies !!! LOL !!!

if undead why the canteens?

Note the OP says undead, not specifically zombi. An easy leap to make given current mass media offerings, but there are lots of other kinds of undead. Perhaps this is the 666th Virginia Revenant Regiment. Gives new meaning to "the South will rise again!"

What would make me buy them is if you offer something I can't get by cobbling together a box of Perry ACW's and a sprue of WGF skellies – maggots crawling on the uniforms, decaying/skeletal arms in weapon firing poses, undead faces with beards and muttonchops.

Don't forget the civilians! You will end up with a very well flavored and period set if you have camp followers, civilian functionaries, powder monkeys, and the like.

Along that line, I would probably really like a necromancer or voudon head to go on one of the figures.

With regard to their equipment and shooting and whatnot, I was pondering these things last night. I like the idea of them using firearms, which implies they are at least semi-intelligent rather than brain-eating zombies. As for the canteens, my thought was that they no longer carried about carrying things one way or another, so they just wandered around with whatever junk they had hanging off of them.

A Kickstarter campaign would be ideal, but I don't have the time or expertise to do it on a massive scale. I would need the assistance of a professional company like GameSalute or something that would be willing to handle the business /shipping end of things. I'm open to suggestions.

I think leaving whatever gear they had on them when they were killed would be appropriate.

I'm also pondering what the "Hook" is going to be. I was thinking of just commissioning some generic minis… I'm going to keep sketching and see if I can come up with something to make them unique.

I think there is a video game releasing soon called "The South Will Rise Again" that deals with Union soldiers fighting undead Confederates.

Would be fun to play in miniature.

I don't care for mixing wars and zombies so.. the drawings are very cool though.

Don't make them 30mm. Make them the same size as 28mm figures so any figure line can be combined with them.

Don't do what Sony did with Betamax.

Why zombies? What\s the point?

OSchmidt … Well that is my opinion generally about Zombies, Zombie movies, etc. … it's like most wargaming that is not strictly historical … as Gunslinger mentioned, it might be fun for some. I'm not a big Walking Dead fan, but there are a lot out there that are … so I let'm have there fun … And yes, I agree, as 79thPA said, "I think leaving whatever gear they had on them when they were killed would be appropriate." And John OFM, they don't need eyes to aim … they be zombies !

Why zombies? What\s the point?>>

Because I wanted to buy some and found none.

What is this '30mm' stuff?
I just purchased 'Zombiecide' and they were (apparently) 30mm.
They turned out to be 28mm figs, (discounting their bases).
Let's stick with 25/28mm please.
Will they sell?
I'm sure there would be some interest out there. I'd probably purchase a unit or two for playing Terrible Sharp Sword.
Good luck with it.

Your reason makes perfect sense solosam … Even though I'm not a Zombie-phile, I think those ACW Undead are cool ! Go for it !

While I'm a bit burned out on painting Old West stuff, I'd definitely consider them…just buy a dozen or so for a fun scenario at some point (maybe a Halloween special etc.).

I love the sketches though.

I can see the scenario already.

Skirmish fight around a small farm that was a battle field early in the war. Suddenly, Blue and Gray must fight side by side to survive the night.

If they are in 28mm I'll take 40.

You :) just flogged off my railwars stuff. A good idea and great fun. I converted some old perry types a few years ago and used them as a cursed regiment, the marching types walked through what was to be a normal wild west gun fight. The other players didnt know what to do, shoot or not. They stopped, waited for the train and then got on and road off

The ghoul ones were what came from the train ( I used mantic heads for those)

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Those look great!

Wow !!!

Okay, here is the render for the first prototype, a simple skellie rifleman in 28mm. I've already sent it to Shapeways for production… the hard part is waiting 2+ weeks to see if it turned out right. If it does, I'll finish the arms, weapons, etc and get the ball rolling.

I've only tried this once before, and the result was an unusable shapeless lump with no detail whatsoever. I was very careful with my scale this time, and I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Sorry to nitpick but the round flat part on the top of the hat ought to be about 2/3 the size it is shown.

And the cartridge box sling should be over the opposite shoulder.

I like the look of these very much. I would suggest that the skull is a bit bigger? It looks a bit small proportionally to the size of the body. From life drawing I would say it looks a bit small, although I may be wrong, I hope the production model comes back well, these will look immense, keep going!

Snurl, Ark3nubis, I agree with all of your criticisms. Since this early render, I've re-worked basically every part of the models. Here is a more recent model on which I have made a number of corrections. I will also take another look at my khepi design.

Highly useful in "modern" games too…

But ONLY if you cast them portly enough to authentically depict our aging, over-fed, under-exercised Civil War Reenactors.

Don't forget the Masonic symbols, Irish harps, coon bones, turkey feathers, and, of course, multiple obscure weapons!!

BIG men, tight boots, lil' guns, what's not to love?

Pardon me whilst I retreat to the bombproof…

My first successful prototype. Still need to tinker with the proportions a little bit, but I'm getting closer. It looks like the rifle barrel was either too small to print or snapped off in transit. I'm also looking for a 3d printer that offers a smoother finish than Shapeways, if anyone has any suggestions.