The Army Painter, makers of Quickshade Dip wash and Speedpaint, have just announced a new line of premium hobby paints: Warpaints Fanatic. Let’s take a look at what they are bringing to the market.
The Army Painter has long been the bargain brand of miniature paints. Now, it looks as though they are preparing to enter the high end market and compete with brands like Vallejo and AK Interactive. Never shy about their marketing hyperbole, The Army Painter posted a video to their youtube channel this morning titled “We made (probably) the BEST paint in the world.” This is a departure from TAP’s mission statement; their goal from the start has been to get fully painted armies on the tabletop, as quickly and affordably as possible.
In 2007 TAP released Quickshade Dip wash, which was sold in traditional paint cans so you could physically dip an entire model in it, rather than apply it with a brush. At the time I still preferred the finished product of my traditional three colors up style, but dip washing was an undeniable hit and catapulted The Army Painter forward.
A couple years later TAP started releasing traditional acrylic paints. The Warpaints range of paints has never been in the conversation for best miniature paints on the market, but with 124 colors at $3.50 a bottle they are hard to beat for price and variety. TAP has developed progressively more paints and lines over the years, creating a full line of airbrush paints organized into triads. They continue to develop their washes as well, and you can still get a paint can of dip wash from them.
The assessment of TAP’s quality begins to shift in 2022 when they launched Speedpaint as an answer to Games Workshop’s Contrast Paint, and it was compared very favorably. The original enthusiasm has calmed down somewhat and it seems to be that the two ranges are considered fairly equal, in terms of quality, but at $4.50 a bottle Speedpaint has a nearly a $3.00 advantage over Contrast.
Warpaints Fanatic is the name of this new range of paints. It boasts:
- 216 Colors
- High Pigmentation for excellent coverage
- “Flexible Color Triads” showing six paints. Presumably you can pick three you like?
- Practical Paint Names – I would say this one is debatable
- Reworked Metallics and Effects
- Expanded Wash Range
As of this writing there is nothing posted on The Army Painter’s website about the new range, so there is no news about pricing. TAP’s most expensive paint is $4.75 a bottle currently, so it will be interesting to see how this new premium paint is priced. Will you be trying it out? Let us know in the comments!
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