A lorry too far?

 A wise wargames saying is that "you can never have too many lorries", but I must say that after my latest painting session, I am becoming a bit less convinced.

I scored this lot at Hammerhead a while ago, five assembled, but unpainted, Zvezda Opel Blitz trucks. They had just been pushed together, not even glued, but at a tenner for the lot, they were a bargain (they seem to be 6.50 each these days). After gluing the bits together which were absolutely necessary I set about painting.

What is there to say about these? I've got loads of them already, but they are such lovely models. My only criticism would be that the front windscreen could be recessed a bit deeper to make it easier to paint and not get splashes all over the surrounding bodywork.

Lovely crisp detail on the truck bodies, and the canvas tilts actually look like canvas.

I've currently got more grey Opels than sandy ones, so I did four of them in Dunkelgelb and one in grey to even the numbers. I wanted the sandy ones to be dual purpose for Europe and North Africa, so although I did them in dunkelgelb and not desert sand, I kept the camo very light, with just a few 'sprayed' lines of camo, predominantly red/brown. I did the camo with my stippling brush. The grey one was just plain grey albeit with a couple of white night strips on the mudguards.

The both got tan tilts and a light overall drybrush of Iraqi Sand, and I did the windows mid blue with white highlights. I also did hand painted numberplates - painted white strip and the letters/numbers done with a 0.1mm micron pen.

Unlike before, this time I didn't stick the tilts down! They push fit quite firmly anyway, and I have the option to put troops or cargo in the back, or just cover them up.

I now have fifteen Opels alone in 15mm, let alone all the other German soft transport, which strikes me as quite a few.

To add the madness, the ever generous 'Tims Second Hand Vehicle Emporium', produced a couple more lorries at the Tapton CALF recently. Here they are with the Opels on the dining table. These need a bit of work and will feature in a future post.