Arkhanist

Yeah, I'm a slow painter, with likely enough terrain already to do a full table in boxes but I'm still veeeeery tempted to save my limited time for models and maybe get my kids into combat patrol. I did idly just check how much it would take to double my octarius killteam terrain so at least it would be coherent - £100 plus postage, £180 painted. Plus I'd need still need a mat. Ouch.

Aye, Armageddon is a bit pants as a new starter - no terrain, mat, dice, rulers etc, just some more minis. So for your average newcomer, two combat patrols and terrain is more useful - or a smaller set with some paints to dip your feet in. Launch boxes are aimed at us lot with an existing plastic crack addiction - and as a BA collector, it was definitely fairly bobbins for me and I thought long and hard about it. (Still bought it for the orks, and because I'm a sucker for launch boxes since 2nd edition) I definitely looked for the best discount I could find though. But then, units like more intercessors really aren't for us with likely too many already, but great in an actual starter. Dominion hung around like a bad smell, but AoS is doing great. Every time I think GW has outpriced their market, sales and profits keep going up overall (annual cycle aside) so I've given up predicting what other people will do.

Artist paints are generally excellent, as long as you skip the 'student' grade ones. Soft body do tend to be thicker relative to standard model paints, so they will generally need some thinning on the wet palette; the ones I've used have been about yogurt or ketchup. Fluid ones, depending on the range, can be more liquid. The pots can be a bit pricy as the smallest is usually 30ml or more, but the price per ml is excellent. I'm a fan of Golden High Flow Titan Buff for example - it's an airbrush paint that's a match for wraithbone. (airbrushed over colour forge desert sand primer, and a final white light drybrush is great for a warm zenithal pre-shade). And liquitex inks are outstanding for airbrushing.

For whites, I can definitely recommend pro acryl - my titanium bold white is back in action once I cleared the goop out from under the nozzle (only one it's happened to, dunno why) and their other offwhites like bright ivory, khaki, bright neutral grey etc are all excellent, as is coal black, it's the main thing I bought them for originally. That is a weakness of tone pro, their lightest grey seems to be blackstone void 4, which is only around administratum. When you do a lot of Contrast/speedpaint, those off-whites/light greys are very useful. Kinda surprised they don't have wraithbone/grey seer equivalents in tone pro given its strength for drybrushing.

I'm clearly buying two thin coats from the wrong place, list price is £4.50, or £3.95 per from my usual paint store; £4.10 RRP to £3.28 for tone pro. So 26.3p/ml for two thin coats, 27.3p/ml for tone pro. Obviously pro acryl etc get cheaper too with vendor discount £4.55 -> £3.83, 17.4p/ml for me). Having tried Fanatic for layering/edging and finding it not to my taste, and vallejo/AK difficult to navigate the colour ranges online only, and already having the entire range of mainline Pro Acryl but needing more colours, basically I was looking at Two Thin Coats as my last remaining triad type option. I have a handful - lovely paint overall, edges really nicely, little pastelly at the top end, but bottle lids fill up with dried paint *really* badly. So I've done a pre-order of a handful of tone pro (red, yellow & flesh) - I rather liked them in person, so giving them a shot as layer replacements and keeping my pro acryl (given I already have them, and almost half the price per ml!) for base coating and bulk colours - diluting for highlights is fine, if not outstanding, so I can use for that too. If I didn't have pro acryl, fanatic or AK would also work fine in that role.

WIP - test git was pretty successful, so he's been promoted to first boy of the squad (varnish & basing pending). The other test git had an industrial accident with his hand, so is awaiting a visit to the Mad Dok for it to be reattached and some remedial skin work. I like to try a new painting thing with each new army, so for these it was chromatic underpainting - or in modern parlance, slapchop with colours. Was initially planning it for the skin only, but for a laugh I also used it for the rest of the colours, and it definitely worked IMO, my iffy edge highlighting non-withstanding.

I do find it a little hilarious that no-one is mentioning the new drybrushes, we're just so used to GW brushes being overpriced crap. Apparently the smallest will be £8/$12.50. Hah.

Despite hobbying for 35 years, I’ve never actually painted an Ork! Having acquired Armageddon, it felt like the perfect excuse to finally put my toe in the water this Orktober, so I've cleared the decks of my other projects and been furiously assembling the last couple of days. I’ve done a bit of minor kustomisin', but I didn't want to go completely overboard - yet, anyway! Freshly press-ganged (glue still wet) and ready for paint, 10 boyz - and a 11th test git for the paint scheme. I, Arkhanist, will join the Waaagh! and vow to complete 1 unit of 10 boyz before October 31st 2026. If I do this successfully, I will receive the rank I have earned in the Waaagh! and continue rampaging across the Galaxy. If I fail, it’ll just prove I’m a Snot!

I think CAD tools, and the hardware to run them easily has really improved over the last couple of decades. You only have to look at some of the insanely detailed designs that indies can do on myminifactory, or kngdom death etc. Being able to rapid prototype them with 3d printing does help too. Seeing board game remakes where the model quality has seen a big improvement over the originals. But where GW is pretty unparalleled is translating that CAD work to injection moulded plastic for bulk production, and using assembly to hide e.g. mould lines. The downside of course is models are more complex to assemble with many more pieces, reduced interchangeable parts between models without getting out the xacto (including mutipart kits) and more detail to paint. Personally I like more complex, detailed models, and the availability of contrast-type paints does make it easier to do batch painting, but I can see how having to clean and glue 20 or more pieces to make one terminator is a bit much.

It mirrors what's been happening in AoS and Old World. GW have a real thing it seems about models being tied to only one setting as much as possible. The charitable reading is that they use models sold by a given business unit as a key metric to measure sales for further investment, and buying e.g. 30k models to use in 40k throws off measuring popularity/players of the heresy setting as a whole, especially since they can be cheaper. The less charitable reading is they want you to buy more models overall if you can't reuse/repurpose from other ranges or older ones. It's entirely possible both can be true at once, of course.

Isn't that contrast medium? But it is on the kill list, so maybe it's being replaced with Contrast Tone Pro medium - turn any* paint into Contrast OR Tone Pro depending on how much you add. * Results if used with non GW paint not guaranteed. May kill your dog and burn down your house.

While sold out online normally means 'not coming back', Citadel paints are all being rebranded/relabelled as Warhammer Colour paints so I suspect it's going to be related to that rather than they're ending selling e.g. Contrast Medium and a number of key shades for various marine armies.

If you're happy with fanatic triads, then stick with those, the coverage isn't significantly different. Personally I've struggled to thin them just-so at times (the handful I have) as replacements for my gw layer paints/reaper/old Vallejo for highlights and I already have solid base coat paints in pro acryl or contrast/speedpaint for texture. The big lack in pro acryl is a small range and some big jumps, so there's a fair bit of custom mixing, which I hate for army painting. Pentads plus ready to use out the pot with good flow, decently vibrant colours and coverage that's on par with others, that drybrushes well and is easy to edge highlight with (the two things Vince flagged as strengths) is exactly what I'm after. Price isn't great, but then 2tc and pro acryl are also both well north of £4 a pot, and it's not like I actually finish pots very often so cost per ml is less important to me personally. AK is nice paint, but the colour range feels a bit tricky to navigate when I can only order online. Tone Pro is definitely not revolutionary, and there's plenty of reasons other ranges may suit people better which is perfectly valid, but I think there is a space there for them in the market.

Bolt carbines are the same size as firstborn bolters, so you could always add one maglocked to their thigh or power plant on your knife guys. e.g. there's still the older style with grips knocking around on ebay, or 3d print.