A long time ago I was on a tear to purchase 25mm to 28mm character-scale vehicles, with the assumption that it would matter because there would be a lot of shootouts between vehicles. On my quest to purchase vehicles that are just the right size, I discovered that plastic trucks were hard to come by.
Part of the problem is that few trucks are sold in a scale that's comparable (1/72) to miniatures of that size http://www.warflag.com/shadow/cast/figuresize/figures.htm. This is likely due to shelf space. You can find plenty of cheap cars on sale at your local drug store, but no trucks.
Enter Mega Miniatures' Semi-Truck 3D Paper Scenery! I bought it for fifty cents, printed it out on 20 lb card stock, and then promptly forgot about it because I realized that almost all conflict happens at chase scale and Matchbox cars will do just fine for that purpose.
Years later, my son is fascinated with trucks. The problem is that he has a pile of hand-me-down trucks with mismatching trailers and cabs. Whenever my son needs a toy we don't have, that's when I turn to my RPG-crafting skills. I pulled out the truck sheet and went to work.
The truck requires a lot of cutting, but I expected that. The cab is considerably more challenging to cut than the trailer. The detail is great, the edges precise, and the truck holds up nicely to inspection – although I decided to forego the mirrors because my three-year-old would inevitably destroy them.
A couple of things aren't great. Fights on a truck of this size usually take place in two places – on top of the trailer or inside it. There's plenty of room to fight on top of the truck, but the ability to add a grid would have been nice. You can of course do this yourself with a little Photoshop.
Less forgivable is the lack of an interior. My son immediately wanted to open the doors to the trailer, which makes lots of sense. Except that the trailer isn't really made to put anything in it. I had to craft a floor (there's only a support piece to keep the trailer together) and cut the doors. Of course, putting miniatures inside the trailer would be difficult without cutting open the roof, but that's easily fixable too.
Finally, there's the wheels. The wheels are pretty flimsy because they are just extensions of the cab and trailer. I reinforced the wheels but I have my doubts that they will hold up to extended play.
Then again, I paid fifty cents for this. And if my son breaks it, I can always make more.
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