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Hey folks, just thought I'd post this quickly before I head to work.

I bought GW's Valhallan Blizzard the other day and applied it to a base with some other snow effects so you can compare.

- The end result is a slightly finer grain than Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow (WSSFS) mixed with Secret Weapon Realistic Water**** (SWRW). However it's a rougher grain than Microballoons with SWRW. It depends what you want, Microballons are probably the most accurately scaled, but from a distance I quite like the look of the larger grains of WSSFS (the attached pictures are massively zoomed in).

- It's slightly whiter than WSSFS mixed with SWRW, if I were to hazard a guess I'd say it has the slightest touch of white paint added in to it as it left a transparent white residue on my applicator. It's slightly LESS white than microballons though.

- It seems to have less body to it than WSSFS with SWRW, but more body than Microballoons with SWRW. It ended up a bit thinner on the base, I haven't tested applying it in larger globs or multiple coats though.

- As it dries the medium seems to shrink which leaves little holes and divots, it actually gives quite a nice texture to it.

- It doesn't come out glossy and doesn't give the shiny translucent effect you get from WSSFS and SWRW. That disappointed me a little bit. You can apply a gloss varnish over the top to make it shiny but it doesn't give you that translucent effect.

- Before it dries if you smoosh it between your fingers you can see the grains in Valhallan Blizzard are pretty much identical to Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow. So the fact it comes out with a smaller grain size in the end is either due to the medium they used or maybe there's some smaller grains of something else in it.

- If I were to guess, I wonder if it's made from WSSFW + microballoons + acrylic medium + white paint, maybe without the microballoons or maybe with the microballoons but without the paint.

***SWRW can be replaced with cheaper water effects like Woodland Scenics, it's just I already own the SWRW because it came in a basing pack I bought a few years back.

Overall, not a bad product. Going forward I think I might try and make a homebrew mix of WSSFW, microballons and SWRW as I think it MIGHT give me the effect I want. More testing required though.

If you click on the image it'll take you to a really high res version so you can zoom right in and check it out. I have WSSFW with SWRW applied yesterday and also some applied 2.5 years ago because I wasn't sure if the colour had changed slightly over 2.5 years, it doesn't look like it has.



Just for reference, the DKOK here I used WSSFW with SWRW but also mixed in the slightest touch of white paint. It's a tiny amount of white paint you need, a fraction of a drop, almost as if you hadn't washed your brush properly after using white paint and there was a bit of residue left on it.

I must say from your picture I like the GW stuff best. And for me it's easier to get and no mixing is involved. I think GW is the winner here, at least for the average hobbyist.

I guess it depends what you want, that's why I showed a nice zoomed in photo rather than just saying what I personally prefer.

I like that the WSSFS with water effects has a bit of sparkle to it, it's probably a bit overscaled, but given I usually view my models from a distance I kind of like it.

Microballoons are probably too small scale for 40k models, but I imagine they'd look good on Flames of War (15mm scale) models.

The GW stuff is nice, I'd probably prefer if it looked a bit sparkly, but the texture is nice and it's a touch finer than the WS stuff, it gives an effect half way between.

Price wise, Microballoons was ~$10 and Woodland Scenics ~$20 and they come in big containers, a bottle that is large enough to do several full armies, you could probably do a small table. The GW stuff is $7.50 a pot, from experience you'll probably need a few pots to do an army and they don't go very far at all on scenery.