Westwind Opel Blitz

I’m sure that many of you, like me have a number of projects on the go at any one time (unless you are Grant who is busy pursuing the life of a minimalist wargamer over on his blog), and thus often find it hard to finish them to any satisfiable degree. Like some of you I enjoy a deadline as it makes complete a project, or at the very least bring it to a conclusion.

I’ve had my Afrika Korps sat in my lead pile (plastic) for some time and recently agreed to enter into a friendly one day Bolt Action Tournament on the 2nd of February. So now I have my deadline I’m busy beavering away on my figures as I hate fielding half painted armies (although I do on occasion).

Now one of the important things to bear in mind is that I am not a “Tournament Player”. I don’t make uber competitive armies nor do I ever make it into the top 5 (or top 20 to be honest). My whole aim in entering tournaments is to cram a good days gaming in and see some nice armies (and thus get inpired!).

Anyway to cut a long story short I decided on a DAK patrol on the basis that it will look cool. So everyone mounted. Damn, that means buying vehicles which aren’t cheap. Perusing the available models there was the Warlord Games options (trucks a-go-go and half tracks in plastic), 1/48 Italeri Opel Blitz, eBob Opel Blitz from their Stalag Luft game and Westwinds Berlin or Bust Range.

I opted for the Westwind for a couple of reasons;

1. I missed out on the Warlord Xmas sale and as such all their trucks were (and still are) out of stock.
2. The 1/48 is probably a little large in comparison to my Perry DAK
3. The eBob model is lovely however I’ve heard reports its fiddly and I’m short on time
4. Westwind had a sale (25% off) and I’m a cheapskate!

So my trucks arrived the other day and I promptly began assembly. They were nicely boxed in blister packs and laid everything out to make sure I had all the bits (which I did). Luckily they’re a mix of metal and resin so not many bits to put together.

There are a couple of niggles that may annoy an inexperienced hobbyist. There’s a couple of significant air bubbles in the canvas cover just behind the drivers cab.

This seems to be on all three trucks. Also there’s a big resin lug on both the cab and the trailer body that need filing/sawing/chipping to get the truck to fit together.

And the rear wheels are a little tall for the fitting and as consequence all the mud guards needed filing across the top to fit under the truck body.

That being said once built up they look nice alongside the Perry plastics and scale up well. The blisters states that they’re 28mm models however the website refers to them as 1/60 and therefore they may look small compared to the more chunky Warlord, Artizan or Black Tree ranges. They would definitely look a little weird along side 1/48 kits from Tamiya etc.

I’ve included a comparison pic of one them with a Perry DAK and a Warlord Sdkfz 222 which all look fine together.

And here's a couple of pics of actual Opel Blitz trucks to give an idea of how they compare to troopers.

Next up are the Kubelwagens!