So... both BATs and Zombie Vipers seem to serve the same purpose in Cobra. But which one do you think would make more effective combat drones?

- JM

Both, depending on the situation.

Zombies would work in an environment such as a swamp or battleground where the electronics and gears could gunk up and disable the BAT before it got to the target.

BATs on an all out battlefield or urban environment where you want a machine to literally flatten the playing field. Destroy tanks, bust straight through buildings, and so on.

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No comparison.

I always felt the Zombie Vipers were the result of an accident.

I don't see even Cobra transporting Zombie Vipers from Point A to Point B just to let them loose. Too much risk.

BATs are disposable troops when Cobra doesn't see the feasibility of deploying real troops.

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Zombies rot and fall apart, even if you somehow chemically enhance them. They die easily and you need to maintain a high murder rate to keep the supply fresh. BATs are just easier to build, maintain and more effective.

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I do like both, but gotta go with what I love....zombies!

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Both have their uses.

I don't think COBRA would have to transport Zombie Vipers and I don't think they'd have to just use COBRA troops for subjects, as the filecard suggests. . I think they'd weaponize Compound Z so they could drop it on the battlefield (or city) and let it take its course. A localized Zombie Apocalypse. No reason it couldn't be tweaked to have a particular lifespan, so COBRA can sit back and wait and waltz in after everything's run its course. It's a combination instant army, bioweapon, and terror strike all in one. Depending on the strain of Compound Z used, they can infected other targets and actually increase their numbers once deployed. I don't see them using anything more advanced than a club though, and they're soft targets, so they definitely have their limitations.

BATS can engage in ranged combat and would be tougher to take down, I think. They're capable of basic field maintenance one themselves, and while they're much more resilient than a human combatant or a zombie, they do have limits. While not as adaptable as a human mind, their programming allows for much more sophisticated tactics than the Zombie Vipers, probably to the point of being able to pilot and drive vehicles.

Ultimately, I vote Zombie-Vipers.

But what I really want to see is Compound Z get lose in a COBRA base, with BATS being activated and ordered to destroy all organic entities left within, "just to be sure." A rag-tag group of lowly COBRA troops manages to survive the initial carnage, and have to make their way from the bowels of the massive complex to the surface as they avoid killer robots, blood thirsty zombies, and the horrible transformations that the mutating Compound Z strain is creating. One of the survivors, is of course, an undercover Joe, and soon not even the living can be trusted. Operation: TERRORdrome.

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I've never been much for the whole zombie-craze, though I find Walking Dead to be a great show, an honesty I think that zombies are too impractical for a "troop" type application. That hasn't stopped me from buying a couple of the figures as they are great figures and a couple customs I made are of a married friends who are zombie fanatics, so I needed some one for them to fight.

I've always liked the BATs, so I go with BATs. If they get out of control, they have an off button, not eat you. They can be stored in a warehouse for years awaiting use, not have to be kept in a holding tank where they'd have to be given nourishment.

But then again... Robot Rebellion or Zombie Apocalypse, either way, we humans are screwed.

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Gotta go with B.A.T.s they take a beating, but keep on ticking and kicking a$$ !

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has to be B.A.T.s...

i can see B.A.T.s as being mass produced by Cobra, and Zombie-Viper could exist as an individual person/accident, but not in numbers.

that, and except for Toxo-Zombie, I always hated zombies. ugh.

BATs, cheaper to produce, easier to transport, easier to control, easier to communicate with, and easier to override if things go bad.

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How exactly are you going to get a zombie to be effective? The whole premise of a zombie is that they are brain dead (and literally dead). You can't get one to do anything you want unless what you want is them just mindlessly running around eating whoever they come in contact with. That won't end well. Besides, as much as I love Left 4 Dead and the Walking Dead, there is a shark jumping point when it comes to zombies. We have definitely seen that in GIJoe in my opinion.

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Yeah, BATS win. I view them as a poor man's terminator, all the ruthlessness, minus the resilience. But they're still more durable than zombies. The zombies are a bio-enhancement procedure gone wrong. In my 'verse all the "science" type troops, Techno and toxo-vipers, bats, and zombies are all under Mindbender's purview. If there were Data Vipers they'd report to Mindbender too.

Bats.
Robot, you build it, you program it, you control it.
Zombie, you make it, you set it loose, you wake up one morning craving for brains yourself.

My lonely Zombie Viper is the result of failed Cobra attempt at the Super Soldier formula.
The project was conducted on a small island own by some shell corporation which belongs to Extensive Enterprises.

When the experiment failed, Cobra quickly pull the plug on the whole thing.
Key operatives were evacuated while non essential personnel got dealt with by a team of Shock Troopers. The bodies were then taken care of by a team of Hazard Vipers.

The lone ZV is now loose on the small Island and is under constant observation through the island's security equipment. Since no other being is on the island, the creature can't transmit the cause of it's mutation... for now.

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zombies, way easier to produce than bats, and they can keep making more.

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Why not both? Seems the most terrifying of all...