Giant bugs have been with us at least since the 50s' atomic horror movies. These great films promised a future gone mad, where radioavctivity had created hideous mutants and nature ran amok. I for one, grew tired of waiting. I wanted to have my corporate troopers clear out an infestation of monsters but didn't really want to spend a lot of money on minis or extra time painting. My answer arrived in cheaply priced bags of plastic thrift/dollar store toy bugs. Plastic bugs are usually pretty easy to find especially in stores that have low end, junky toys (you know, the place that sells bags of army guys and maybe a super bouncy ball and playing cards). You can often get a dozen or more bugs for a dollar and many brands are already painted to match their real world counterparts. (If their real-world counterparts were randomly splashed with garish colours) Hallowe'en is a great time to find more variety and, again, usually very cheap plastic bugs. Spiders, flies, roaches and other nasty, icky bug toys usually go on sale just after Halloween as stores unload their holiday decorations in preparation for the next holiday. I was lucky enough to find glow-in-the-dark spiders and scorpions in addition to all my 'normal' bug boys. They look extra-irradiated on the game table. As with just about any toy or mini, you can easily paint/repaint the plastics to match a particular scheme. I didn't want to paint my glowing spiders too much so I just dabbed some paint on their abdomens to show 'broods'. I use spaceship flying stands bor flying bugs like bees, hornets and dragonflies. For just a couple of dollars, I have nearly 50 bugs (ants, spiders, dragonflies and scorpions) to terrorize humanity. Ant: 4 AP Toughness n/a* 2d4 Attack Dice/2d4 Wound Dice *Ants always count as 'dropped down' since they're small---even when mutated *Any successful shooting/close combat hit on an ant is an automatic kill---remove the dead ant Spider/Dragonfly**: 6 AP Toughness 6 3d6 Attack Dice/2d6 Wound Dice **Spiders and Dragonflies can ignore difficult terrain Scorpion: 4 AP Toughness 7 3d4 Attack Dice/3d8 Wound Dice (Due to Poison) I typically treat all bug panic results as routs. It's easier to track and kind of fun to imagine yelping dog noises when the giant spiders get shot and run off. I let flying bugs ignore pretty much most terrain so that they can zip in and get a human snack. Bugs also don't usually have sense enough to 'drop down' (even though ants are counted as dropped down to account for their 'relatively' smaller size). The earlier CZ Chronicles rules for zombies and zombie campaigns---especially the ammo rules---look like a good fit for giant bug fun. A tweak here and there and you could build a nice campaign of hostage rescues and general bug hunting adventures in the CZ.

Ant: 4 AP Toughness n/a* 2d4 Attack Dice/2d4 Wound Dice *Ants always count as 'dropped down' since they're small---even when mutated *Any successful shooting/close combat hit on an ant is an automatic kill---remove the dead ant Spider/Dragonfly**: 6 AP Toughness 6 3d6 Attack Dice/2d6 Wound Dice **Spiders and Dragonflies can ignore difficult terrain Scorpion: 4 AP Toughness 7 3d4 Attack Dice/3d8 Wound Dice (Due to Poison) I typically treat all bug panic results as routs. It's easier to track and kind of fun to imagine yelping dog noises when the giant spiders get shot and run off. I let flying bugs ignore pretty much most terrain so that they can zip in and get a human snack. Bugs also don't usually have sense enough to 'drop down' (even though ants are counted as dropped down to account for their 'relatively' smaller size). The earlier CZ Chronicles rules for zombies and zombie campaigns---especially the ammo rules---look like a good fit for giant bug fun. A tweak here and there and you could build a nice campaign of hostage rescues and general bug hunting adventures in the CZ.