Pulp? Trucks...

Introduction

Yes, I know that I promised to write a battle report for a (not so recent) game of All Things Zombie.  However, it's too hot, I'm too tired and just not in the mood (especially after having spent time this evening arguing with a junk telephone caller.  I was escalated to a supervisor, which scores bonus points, I think...)

Opel Blitz

For quite a while, I've been thinking about ground transport for my pulp leagues.  Some of them could certainly use some wheels and it would change the dynamics of a game somewhat - or vehicles could be used as objectives or just add to the scenery.

Here are a couple of trucks for a league's mooks and whatever top secret cargo they need to transport:

These are, of course, Opel Blitzes (Blitzen?), a German truck that was very common during WWII.  As such, they are exactly right for my Nazi league, even though I tend to think of my Pulp games as being set in the late 1930s rather than during the war itself.  There's no reason why my Safari or the Cult leagues couldn't use them either, though I'm not so sure about Tarzan and his followers (have you ever seen a gorilla driving a 3-ton truck?)

Anyscale Models

Right, some details:

These models come from Anyscale Models.  I had never heard of this company before, but I hunted the Internet high and low for 28mm-compatible German truck models and these were considerably cheaper than any of the others.  Delivery time was excellent as well.

Each truck comes in 3 main parts: the cab, the body and the chassis/rear wheels.  In addition to these bits, there are 4 metal hoops supplied for the rear, plus an optional resin cloth/tarpaulin to represent a folded canopy.

Obviously, these straightforward, cheap kits are intended for wargamers - and that's just what I wanted!  The 3 parts went together very quickly, though some slight shaving was needed on one truck to fit the front and rear sections together.

Casting quality is good, with only a few tiny bubbles that I didn't bother to fill.

Slightly more worrying than the minute bubbles were a few larger blemishes or intrusions, typically in the mudguards or around the wheel hubs.  These could be from deteriorating moulds or from poor master models - I don't know.  For what it's worth, I didn't put any effort into correcting these (by cutting or filing them away), so if you haven't noticed any imperfections in the pictures so far then the imperfections are less significant than I thought.  See if you can spot any, now that you know they are present!

I decided to build the 2 trucks differently; one with a full canopy and the other with an open back.  The canopy was made very simply, by gluing some real cloth over the provided metal hoops.

Conclusion

I have very deliberately not added any identifying marks to these vehicles.  Equally, they're painted in some fairly drab colours, so that they can be used in a wide variety of settings.

Now all I need is a staff car or something similar for the boss.  Plus an important cargo and a hero pursuing the convoy across the desert on horseback...