Zombie brutes...

The army lists in Apocalypse-Z allow for the inclusion in the horde of zombies who have "for some unknown reason grown to massive proportions. These "brutes" as they have come to be known, have all the same horrifying characteristics as their smaller counterparts, yet can tear a living man limb from limb in its quest for a meal".

Clearly the Wargames Factory zombies weren't going to be up to scratch. I did track down some photos of some old Reaper Flesh Golems that looked like they would do the part but unfortunately the ones I liked were OOP. The Horrorclix Freakshow series had a couple of figures in that looked interesting but would require work to fit in the background I am using (freakshows are so un-British these days!)

First was Herculon, a great undead figure of a zombie strongman holding aloft half a victim he has just torn apart (fitting in perfectly with the brute fluff). However the figure had some chains around the torso and was only wearing a pair of tight strongman shorts.

This necessitated some conversion with the chains being cut away (carefully not clipping away the lovely guts falling out of his stomach) and adding some clothes in the form of the remnants of a torn shirt (helping covering the areas damaged removing the chains) using Green Stuff and some badly torn trousers.

Overall quite pleased with the end result after he was painted and dipped, he towers over the main horde...

The Hungry Bertha figure is truly gross and I really wasn't sure it work in the horde as I am trying to avoid comic elements. The figure is nude apart from a bib, holding a cleaver and sat on small wooden stool.

The cleaver and the stool were removed and quite a bit of Green Stuff was used to build her backside back up! I added some Green Stuff to her back to make it look like she was wearing an ill-fitting vest and around painted Liquid Green Stuff around the legs and buttocks to make it look like she is wearing those horrible lycra leggings.

I positioned her slightly leaning forward which seems to work quite well. Bearing in mind I was very unsure whether she would work at all, I am pleased with the end result, she makes a great brute.