A World on Fire - A Zombie Blog

Last night’s matchup went down in a blaze of glory. Well, not much blaze and very little glory. To put it bluntly … it just went down. People overwhelmingly went with the AK-47. The siren call of the automatic machinegun was too sweet to most people’s ears. And while I think a machine gun would a pretty good weapon in the zombie wasteland, I will stand alongside Richard and take the flare gun.

Yes, the AK has better stopping power. Yes, the AK will be able to keep the horde at bay, but the AK can only be fired in quick bursts lest you attract every zombie in a ten block radius. But that’s not the only problem I see with the weapon. With the flare gun … you know you are screwed and you probably won’t take crazy chances as you would with the AK. In short, the AK might provide a false sense of security.

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Here’s a matchup that on the surface looks to be an easy winner, but before you go ahead and cast your vote, take a moment to think about this one because when you do … I think you’ll see that it’s not so clear cut as it appears. The key thing to remember that in a post apocalyptic situation, a machine gun can be a magnet to your location. If you aren’t shooting and moving, you’re basically ringing the dinner bell for all the undead near you. While the flare gun doesn’t have great kill potential, it does have great distraction potential. When the power is out and the dead is wandering the dark streets like lost sheep, a nice bonfire can open a closed road and if the neighborhood gang just happens to be the target of that said bonfire, then all the better.

In any case, as for last nights matchup … the hatchet went down swinging. The machete still reins king. I gotta say, I do like the utility value of the hatchet, but as Garrett mentioned on the Facebook page, a lot of swinging is gonna result in some rubbery arms. Personally, I wouldn’t want to get close enough to a zombie to get into the wet work, but then again, I’d be lucky to survive the first few days. Sure, I can write about the upcoming zombie apocalypse but those skills don’t translate well into survival skills.

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It’s hard to believe that this contest has been in motion for the past six months. It hasn’t been for lack of people making up their minds about what to use in a zombie attack, but rather, the erratic posting schedule of this past year. I will detail more information about the overall changes to the site and future features (you might have noticed some of them already). But for now, let us focus cold steel cutting through rotting flesh.

For the last matchup – break action shotgun versus bowling ball … well, let’s just say the last place you’d look for a weapon is the bowling alley. The shotgun won with a landslide. As expected. Now, onto the matchup:

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Believe it or not, the last episode of Weapon’s Madness occurred sometime in March before the actual March Madness tournament. Our last matchup pitted a lead pipe versus a hoe which drew a lot of discussion from everyone. While people loved the long distance skull cleaving potential of the hoe, the lead pipe won the contest hands down. I’m guessing a lot of people like to get involved with the wet work when killing zombies. Personally, I’m built like a T-Rex in all the bad ways – big legs, little arms, beady eyes ;) – so the lead pipe would tire me out pretty quickly. With the hoe, I could keep the dead at a distance. At least, for a little while.

Well, Weapons Madness is back in play and it resumes with a rather interesting matchup. Here we have a bowling ball versus a break action shotgun. Which do you think will turn out on top and why?

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It’s been a long time since the last episode of Weapon’s Madness, but have no fear zombie killers, I have not forgotten this event. Truth be told, my schedule is overloaded right now so it’s been extremely challenging to keep the site going. So if you’ve been wondering why the daily post count has been dropping lately, it’s not for lack of enthusiasm. That said, it’s not going anywhere. I’m in the process of moving from a corporate mule to a hired gun and if everything works well (fingers crossed), I’ll be able to return back to my old posting ways. Just let me say for the record that March Madness is my least favorite time of year.

In any case, when we last met to discuss general zombie killing, two wonderful weapons butted heads and at the end of the day, the grenade launcher walked away the champ. It was a good matchup with a lot of great discussion surrounding it.

Now to the next one, and a melee one at that. A hoe versus a lead pipe. Here’s the breakdown:

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The last matchup was quite good, coming down to the wire but at the end of the day, a slim majority of people decided to go with the crowbar than use an axe to take out the zombies. Personally, I would have stuck with the crowbar although I do love the fire axe. I just know that after a few close encounters, my arms would likely be exhausted. Granted, I don’t like the idea of being close and personal with a zombie either.

The next matchup returns us to the ranged weapons, pitting two powerhouses against one another. In one corner, we have a grenade launcher. In the other, we have a minigun. Here’s the breakdown:

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Ahh … here’s a matchup that makes the insides of me glow with affection. These are two of my favorite melee weapons. I’m looking to forward to reading the discussion on this one.

But let us backtrack for just a moment to see how the last matchup turned out. Believe it or not, but people actually preferred a gun to a set of throwing knives against the undead. Actually surprised me was that the throwing knives made it to the second round. That said, there wasn’t much to discuss. A tired throwing arm versus a sore trigger finger … which would you choose?

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The last matchup was a very close one, going all the way down to the wire. With all the votes counted, the shovel moves to the next round. The katana is retired for another day.

Not surprising, it was the dual use of the shovel that ultimately won the day.

My choice would have been the shovel. As much as I like the idea of swinging a razor sharp sword at my undead enemies, I would inevitable cut my own head off. Hell, I can terrorize myself with a carrot peeler, nevermind such a finely honed weapon. My wife has been trained to use a katana, so her choice was an easy one. She did mention that by holding the mere act of holding one made her feel like a warrior, so even had she not been trained, she still would have selected it.

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At long last we have finally made it to the second round. There have been plenty of interesting matchups as well as some matchups that have been lacking. These matchups resulted from the randomness of the bracket and the uniqueness of the weapons. This made for some interesting discussions as well as lots of “what you talking about Willis?” moments, but on the whole, I thought it went great.

Before we start down the road of the next matchup, you should know that the RPG beat the blowgun. Surprise, surprise.

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We’ve come to it at last. The final matchup of the first round. I must say, it has been an interesting ride and thankfully, most of the easy matchups are now behind us. With the conclusion of the first round, we start getting into the meat of things. And while some of the initial matchups brought a healthy dose of eye rolling, I do appreciate the good college effort people brought to seemingly ridiculous contests.

The last one pitted a tire iron against a hockey stick, and needless to say, the hockey stick was sent to the penalty box while the tire iron proceeded to the next round.

And now, our final matchup. An RPG versus a blowgun.

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Not surprising in the least, the majority of the group decided to go with the crossbow over the taser gun. Still, there were some interesting ideas raised over the use of the taser gun with these zombies being of the Romero variety. Here’s Kyle’s take on the issue:

Having said that, muscles still work based on electrical impulses, a taser would be an effect way to disable a zombie quickly and quietly. I don’t know about reload times, if it’s faster than a crossbow it would be quite an effective short to medium range weapon. Recharging it (even with a hand cranked generator) would be easier than finding crossbow arrows. Looking at Stun Guns, if those little wires broke, you could probably easily mod the gun, and turn it into a cattle prod. Stun Gun Versus Crossbow, crossbow does win, but if you modded it into a cattle prod, it would make a very effective short range weapon.

Interesting indeed.

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Powerful as the fire hydrant might be against an exposed piece of forehead, most people went for the shotgun butt and in doing so, failed to make any butt jokes in process as noted by Josh. We must strive to do better ;)

The next matchup puts a taser gun against a crossbow. Honestly, I don’t know much about either weapon. I’ve fired a crossbow when I visited a Renaissance fair as a little boy but that’s a distant memory. And I don’t know anything about a taser gun outside of bad movies featuring growling cops, so feel free to add your own pluses and minuses.

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Not a big surprise, but a lot of people liked the idea of putting A LOT of space between them and the walking dead. Yet, people still recognized the killing power of the .22 pistol. Sure it may lack a lot of stopping power, but as many stated, it would just take a simple shot to the head to kill a zed. The bullet goes in but can’t get out, hence, you play pinball in a zombie’s brain. Be that as it may, the scoped rifle took home the gold while the .22 pistol won some lovely parting gifts.

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I didn’t expect the last matchup to be as interesting as it turned out to be. After the dust settled, it turned out to be one of the more even matchups in the bracket. Some people had the idea of attaching the screwdriver to a pole, creating a makeshift spears while others where seduced by the clang of the skillet. At the end of the skillet walked away with the prize.

The Zed Word, an excellent zombie news and review site, had this to say on the matter:

Totally a skillet. What are you going to do when you stab a zombie with a screw driver and can’t get the damn thing out? You’ll get swarmed by the horde.

With a skillet, you can hit and run. Speed and mobility, man, that’s what you need.

Amen to that, brother.

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I think the most interesting thing about the last matchup wasn’t whether the Uzi could be accurate or whether it could jam in a tense zombie situation, but the fact that Jason owns three, er excuse me, four 357 magnums. That’s like one hand cannon for each pillow of the bed. Wow. That is quite impressive. Personally, I think Jason should give out his address so that when the zombies do come, we can all hide under his bed.

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