Zombies are the perfect mindless monster, a great threat for any setting. They're some of my favourite enemies for so many reasons, and that's probably part of the reason they tend to pop up in the games I play. I don't consciously favour them, because they can become tedious unless the game is, for instance, Zombicide, but they're great monsters to fall back on. Because they're such a safe bet, it occurs to me that having a bunch of zombie miniatures for your RPG and wargame is convenient. But it can also be a little confounding once you start shopping for them, because when you play a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of modern horror, and little bit of sci fi, you either have to buy two or three sets of zombies, or else decide what single style of zombie to buy that might fit into all three settings. I have a proposal for a few possible solutions.
Military zombies for modern and sci fi
Modern military zombies and sci fi zombies are often interchangeable, barring outlandishly futuristic space suits or uniforms. It obviously depends on your sci fi setting, but 21st century military attire in a 23rd or 25th or even 41st century setting usually looks fine.
Modern civilian zombies, however, usually look like people out of the 20th and 21st centuries. It's the neck ties and collars that give it away. That works in some sci fi settings, but it can look dated in others. That's the big weakness to using the Zombicide game as a source of a zombie horde. It's full of obviously 21st century civilians in track suits and business suits.
Using modern-day military zombies for modern and sci fi settings is a good solution, but that horde doesn't often work with your fantasy game.
Fantasy rags for everyone
What's truly universal throughout the human experience, fantasy, modern, and sci fi, are rags. Zombies are notoriously untidy. They don't darn their socks or sew on buttons. Their clothes deteriorate, but their bodies keep going. So they end up in rags.
A good set of zombies wearing the shabbiest possible clothes are the perfect zombies for literally any setting. Were the rags once the noble livery of King Arthur's court? Or were they once the high thread-count of a Hallenstein's business suit? Or were they a futuristic space suit? Nobody will ever know, because by the time you get around to asking, the zombie has devoured your brain.
This, for me, is the perfect solution, although it's not without complication. Good zombies-in-rags miniatures can be difficult to find. It's not that they're uncommon, it's just that half of them are hard to paint because they're poorly sculpted, and another third of them are a little too fancy to be generic.
For example, this duo of teenage (apparently) zombies from Reaper is quite good, but at $14 a whole horde would be expensive to collect.
On the hand, these cheap zombies from Reaper are only $18 for 5 but the [relative] low quality of the sculpt could make them hard to paint well.
The amazing sculpts of some Citadel zombies are reasonably priced at roughly $5 for each zombie (depending on your global location). However, they're highly stylized and arguably look a little more fantasy than modern or sci fi.
I don't have a URL for an absolute solution for this. I think the solution is to be ever vigilant. If you see a zombie that looks generically bedraggled, reasonably priced, and sculpted to a quality suitable for easy painting, then buy 5 of them. Repeat the process until you have 4 sets of 5 zombie types, paint them each with a different colour scheme to suggest they're actually unique, and you've got your all-purpose zombie horde that'll last you forever. Maybe even beyond the grave.
Update
Two weeks after writing this post, Wargames Atlantic released a box of 28mm zombies, featuring heads themed as:
- Ancient Rome
- The dark ages
- Vikings
- Renaissance
- 18th Century and pirates
- Napoleonic French
- Napoleonic-era British
- Cowboys
- WW1 and WW2 British, Germans, and French troops
- Modern police, firefighter, construction, and generic civilians
- Plain zombie heads
There are also spare arms that you may be able to use to zombify other models you're building. At least, that's the theory. I find that when you mix and match models from varying vendors, scale can get confused. What Wargames Atlantic calls 28mm isn't necessarily what Games Workshop or Mantic calls 28mm. In my experience, Wargames Atlantic tends to produce models smaller than pretty much any other wargaming company, but they're a good fit with most RPG miniatures I've seen. Either way, you learn to be flexible in your interpretation of sizes, which isn't hard because in real life people vary in general size. The main thing to know is that it's not always possible to kitbash Wargames Atlantic models with other wargame kits, because the sizes of body parts and weapons just don't match up. Heck, even Wargames Atlantic kits from two different lines (Death Fields and Iron Core, for example) often don't match.
Aside from sizing concerns, a kit of 30 zombies for $60 is pretty amazing, and I've never been displeased with the quality of Wargames Atlantic sculpts. If you're looking for a horde of zombies, I think the horde has just found you.