If you were a fan of imaginative and innovative teams during the late naughties the chances are you were chanting ‘Zombie’ in a quasi Cranberries fashion.

As this issue of GLN is a Zombie special, this article takes a look back at 4 of the most interesting Zombie franchises to hit the green (soon to be red) fields of FUMBBL.

We start off with a wacky team theme veteran: KhorneliusPraxx and his Death Valley Daze team. Playing and winning their first game on the 4th of June 2008, this was to be the first of many for The Daze. They have currently played 715 games.

So what is the idea behind The Daze? ‘Death Valley Days was originally an old American Western TV show, so I originally named all the players after both fictional and historical figures from the Old West.’

The theme for The Daze is quite complex. All players are bought in bulk. The order starts with 2 Mummies, then 12 Zombies, 2 Wights, 4 Ghouls, and lastly 12 Skeletons. This means, the team has had many different builds. ‘Sometimes it takes a long time to get through all my Zombies and Skeletons...eagerly waiting for the day that I can buy new Mummies!’ Once the batch has been finished, it starts all over again with a new group. The Daze is currently on order number 8.

Once they come off the assembly line all players of the same type, are given the same skills. The first skill is rolled randomly, and after this Khornelius picks the most appropriate skills to go suit. However reanimated Zombies are treated differently. It seems they haven’t quite forgotten their old life and always try to get back the skills they used to have. When this is impossible they take DP (being a little bitter maybe).

Highlights of the team so far are winning 2 Smack titles, not easy with a themed team like this and producing some of the best Zombies of all time. WILLIAM H. BONNEY William is the all time number 1 Undead Top Passer and Highest Yardage Passer, more than any Wight or Ghoul. He is also the ALL-TIME top Zombie Rusher and Sundance who played 141 games making it to Legend status with 3 niggles, a –AG and –MA!

Happily, the future is quite bright for The Daze, the production line will keep rolling until they play their 1000th game, and XFLs after that. Be sure to catch them next time you see them in Ranked!

The second theme team on our list is Cribbleobblpie’s Bring Out Your Stars. They played their first game on the 15th of November 2007 and played a total of 211 games. The idea came as Cribble was a fan of and inspired by another entry on this list- the Schmerztal Darkbones, and their raising exploits.

Cribble wanted something slightly different for The Stars however. So with the catchphrase ‘Got too much cash and have no idea what to waste it on? Fancy giving an old Necromancer a bit of sport? Bought a star sneakily and now your opponent has dropped you in it by not playing? Well we want to play YOU, if your team has Star Players! The Stars set out with the ambition to raise the stars that can be hired.

However this was no easy task. ‘Quite a few coaches were willing to have a go, however I soon realised how hard it actually was to kill a star (They could get apo'ed in LRB4 too, remember?)’

The team had many highlights. They won four Smack titles all at different tourney weights and recruited 3 of the toughest stars Grashnak Blackhoof, Morg 'n' Thorg and Ripper. Morg would turn out to be The Stars 2nd most successful star lasting 45 games. This was only beaten by Zara who played 59 times as a Zombie.

Sadly, The Stars didn’t last long when ranked changed to CRP. ‘Do I regret benching them? Well in retrospect, yes. I enjoyed the history and the fluff, but I do think they were an LRB 4 team and had they continued they certainly would have been a different challenge!’

Maybe in the future we might see a hat tipped to The Stars, and a CRP star raising team.

Next on the list, is Habeli’s theme: Evolution. Although not solely about Undead or Necro teams, the theme suited and was best known for the living dead.

So how did the whole evolution thing begin? ‘I wanted to make a nice and challenging team with which I could play whoever whenever and not be afraid of the results. The idea/theme was that the players could reach higher stages by "evolving".’

The idea behind this was based on evolving life forms. Starting off as a basic Zombie or Skeleton, they could then evolve into another type of Zombie/Skeleton and eventually into Ghouls, Wights and Mummies.

There are 5 ways to evolve. Reaching a skill selection of 51 SPPs would allow a player to evolve, further skills would allow them to evolve further. Dying allowed for evolution. Also if a player evolves, he leaves an empty space, which will soon be filled. Raised life forms could start further along the evolution ladder depending on their SPPs, and if they were the same as a type on the evolution chain, they could jump straight to that form of evolved creature.

Quite complicated, but well worth it for those that took part. The evolution theme spawned many teams, a group, and also it’s own League! However it is probably most famous for Habeli’s own team Evolution of Undead Pixels.

Evo are still going strong and have played 233 games to date, the first of which was on the 4th of November 2006. Their 2 most famous Zombies are probably Flarric Zombosis who is one of 2 Larson Zombies on Evo and Ureus Zombosis who played an impressive 192 games, and an original team member.

So far they have won an Elite smack and also a GLT V qualifier! As for the theme, well there are still 1 or 2 around, but you never know with evolution- a new boom of evolving Zombies could happen any time soon!

The last team on this list is Burnalot’s Schmerztal Darkbones. Just the name is enough to send a chill down the spine of most veterans! The Darkbones are possibly the most evil team FUMBBL has ever seen, and one of the greatest too! They have played a total of 1064 games, the first of which was on the 20th of December 2005.

Starting out with just 1 Golem and 12 Zombies, after this the only players the Darkbones ever bought were Golems. Every other player for the team was raised from the dead. At first the goal was survival, however soon Burnalot and The Darkbones started looking at longer term goals.

One was to play over a 1000 games, which they achieved on the 9th of the 9th of the 9th (upside down 6s, I told you they were evil), the biggest goal however was to raise one of every position of every race that was possible in LRB 4. This proved quite a task, the last 4 a HE Blitzer, and Skaven, DE and WE Throwers proved very hard to track, play and kill. However finally the goal was achieved on the 10th of the 10th of the 10th.

Along the way, The Darkbones became the most successful killing machine FUMBBL had seen and also winning XFL I Necromantic. The Darkbones have also had 5 Legend Zombies; Scoring machine Cape Dog Hunting II and Trimmer who were both part of the XFL winning team, are probably the top dogs among this teams Legends.

With CRP, The Darkbones had new goals, and new positions and therefore new players to raise. Sadly, the new rules aren’t suiting The Darkbones style of play very well, and they are in temporary retirement. However, the gate to that dark road hasn’t been locked for the last time, so be sure to look after your DE Runners!

And so, what about the future? Who among you will forge a new path for inventive Zombie teams? Certainly freak_in_a_frock’s idea of borg style Zombies looks great for League but what about Ranked and Blackbox? The summer of 2009 seems such a long time ago, however fashion has a tendency to be recycled. Let’s hope in 2012 it’s hip to be rotten!