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Hi everyone,

First, thanks in advance for taking the time to read this post. I have a question for you more experienced miniature painters.
There is now a shop that is getting rid of games workshop stuff and is selling all items at 50% Most of the miniatures are gone but there are a considerable amount of Citadel paint still left (1.73$ / 1.14£ / 1.60€ a bottle). I was considering in purchasing some paint. But after reading a bit and watching some videos I have come with a lot of complaints on Citadel paints (paint drying out, shade line of poor quality, too much medium and less pigment, etc). The paints on sale are new and sealed (new model bottle with the transparent lid). Considering that I won´t be using right now and my technique is basic (I intend to do some dipping/highlight).

Do you recommend me to buy some paint? In that case, which base/dry/shade/wash paints from the Citadel line would you recommend me to buy? Or do you suggest me to go for Vallejo paints and forget Citadel all together?

Thank you in advance

Ps. I mostly going to paint Warhammer skeleton, orc, Skaven, imperial and dwarfs armies.

Newbie myself here, but if they're half off...I say go for it...they have their issues but I find that those issues aren't as bad as they sound most of the time and the washes/shades are amazing. I would have trouble getting anything done without Agrax Earthshade and Null Oil. I still prefer Vallejo because of the price and dropper bottle, but again, if they're half off, why not?

I'm not sure why anyone would complain about the shades, which are excellent.

If you like GW paints (I do) half off is great! If not, it's a waste of money. I think that brand preference is a pretty personal thing, and I use a lot of GW and Vallejo, but my preference at the end of the day is still GW.

Do you need/want any of them?

Personally I wouldn't bother as I've found GW offers very few colours that I can't find an equivalent or alternative for in other lines and of those few I do use I find myself wishing they were another brand. I much prefer how Reaper and Vallejo paints behave.

Well that was fast, thanks for the replies.

The reason of this post is because I have basically no specific miniatures paints. I bought a bunch of basic acrylic paint (red, blue, yellow, black) of the brand Lefranc & bourgeois that are mostly for crafts. Normally, where I live other brands: Vallejo, P3 and other stuff are 1€ or more per pot than the Citadel now. As for the interest, I heard good things about that nuln oil and agrax earthshade. So as I mentioned I would like to know if it is a good purchase or should I use other brands for the dipping technique.

Oh, sorry, I forgot to answer a couple of your questions:

1. Shades -- Nuhln Oil and Agrax Earthshade are staples. They are way, way better than anything from Vallejo, IMO.

2. I despise Valljeo washes. They're terrible. An alternative to GW if you really don't like them, and you just want to do basic washes is Army Painter's dark and light shades, which are very similar to Nuhln/Agrax and the old GW equivalents.

@sockwithaticket -- I must disagree: Vallejo has passable equivalents for most GW colors. If you're going the other way and painting Citadel miniatures to Codex colors, GW also has passable equivalents for most of Vallejo colors that you'd use for 40k/WHFB minis.

The exception would be some very bright and vibrant colors which GW has, that nobody else has an equivalent to, but they are also pretty awesome colors that are nearly impossible to mix, and even if you use another line, if you want those distinctive colors, you don't have a lot of choice.

Nobody else has all the colors of Vallejo for historical & cammo colors. Then again, I own a tons of Vallejo paints that I can't distinguish from each other.

Edit: $1.73 is a freaking awesome price. That's more than 50% discount. If you ever plan on painting GW themed terrain, at least buy colors that would be useful there (like Mechanicus standard grey, dawnstone, administratum, leadbelcher, balthazar gold, warplock bronze, etc.) as well as some of the technical paints and colors you can't go wrong with (like black). Even if you don't like GW paints, they'll work for projects like that, and you'll not go wrong for price.

For half off? Sure, go for it. I would, however, recommend transferring them into dropper bottles to extend their lifespan.

Yeah, do it. I also prefer Vallejo or Minitaire for airbrushing and general layering, but none of the GW paints are BAD - their washes and base paints in particular are great - I've not found anything with as good base coverage as the GW base paints.

For general colours, I'd usually go with other manufacturers, but if you don't have any proper paints at the moment, and the GW ones are half price, you should grab them.

Edit: $1.73 is a freaking awesome price. That's more than 50% discount. If you ever plan on painting GW themed terrain, at least buy colors that would be useful there (like Mechanicus standard grey, dawnstone, administratum, leadbelcher, balthazar gold, warplock bronze, etc.) as well as some of the technical paints and colors you can't go wrong with (like black). Even if you don't like GW paints, they'll work for projects like that, and you'll not go wrong for price.

Even if you don't use them it might be worth buying some to sell on if they are that cheap

 Talys wrote:
Oh, sorry, I forgot to answer a couple of your questions:

1. Shades -- Nuhln Oil and Agrax Earthshade are staples. They are way, way better than anything from Vallejo, IMO.

2. I despise Valljeo washes. They're terrible. An alternative to GW if you really don't like them, and you just want to do basic washes is Army Painter's dark and light shades, which are very similar to Nuhln/Agrax and the old GW equivalents.

@sockwithaticket -- I must disagree: Vallejo has passable equivalents for most GW colors. If you're going the other way and painting Citadel miniatures to Codex colors, GW also has passable equivalents for most of Vallejo colors that you'd use for 40k/WHFB minis.

The exception would be some very bright and vibrant colors which GW has, that nobody else has an equivalent to, but they are also pretty awesome colors that are nearly impossible to mix, and even if you use another line, if you want those distinctive colors, you don't have a lot of choice.

Nobody else has all the colors of Vallejo for historical & cammo colors. Then again, I own a tons of Vallejo paints that I can't distinguish from each other.

Army Painter really are the kings of washes and they've got more to offer than just their Nuln/Agrax equivalents. with sepia, red, blue, green and purple ones too.

To be fair I didn't say there are no colours you can't get from elsewhere (particularly if you look beyond Vallejo as an alternative, though that is the line the OP referenced), just very few, so I don't know that we actually disagree! Both the Game Colour and Model Colour lines offer some pretty vibrant colours of their own, the latter perhaps to a surprising extent with paints like Emeral, Blue Violet, Amaranthine and Blue Green. Whether or not.

I have nearly all the AP washes - Dark Tone, strong tone and soft tone are all good - but for green, purple, flesh, etc, GW are all superior.

As said before, Citadel Foundation paints are great. As are many of their metallics.

I mostly use GW's paints and they've never failed me. I use other paint ranges when there's no equivalent Citadel color.

I'd say GW do washes and 'grey' metallics best (don't like their golds/bronze), and their brighter colours are good as well, they cover nicely even when heavily thinned. With that in mind, I'd pick up the following if you can:

Agrax Earthshade
Nuln Oil
Any coloured washes you think you'll need

Mephiston Red
Averland Sunset
Whatever the current Ultramarine blue is

Leadbelcher
Runefang Steel

I use exclusively GW paints. I would get any colours you need, my other essentials would be:

Liquid Green Stuff
Medium ("lahiem medium" or something like that).

Thanks, plenty of useful information,

I went today to the shop and got a bunch, mostly from the "base" line as i think that they will be more versatile for future projects.
Among them: Nuln oil, waaagh flesh, Imperial primer, screaming skull, The fang, Balthasar gold, Averland sunset, Ushabti bone, Evil sunz scarlet, mechanics standard grey, leadbelcher, Ratskin flesh, Maccrage blue.
I couldn´t find that agrax earthshade but the paints are on two buckets and it takes a long time to browse through so it might be some bottle still. I will abuse of your expertise and ask two more questions;

1. Unfortunately two of the pots I bought (The fang and Balthasar gold) were open. Some ****t open the bottle to see the color and left the bottle closed in the shop. I noticed at home and I doubt that the shop will take those back. So. Should I buy some thinner and pour some drops in the paint? (i wont be use those colors for a while) or do you think that they will stay fine as long as I keep on shaking them?

2. I noticed that there is also some "dry" and "texture" line. Could someone tell me what are they for? and do you recommend those to a novice?
I ask because I have a big amount of skeletons and I was tempted to take some "dry" bone tone , I dont recall the nameof the paint now.

Thanks again

xnachox wrote:
1. Unfortunately two of the pots I bought (The fang and Balthasar gold) were open. Some ****t open the bottle to see the color and left the bottle closed in the shop. I noticed at home and I doubt that the shop will take those back. So. Should I buy some thinner and pour some drops in the paint? (i wont be use those colors for a while) or do you think that they will stay fine as long as I keep on shaking them?

Pop them into a sealed plastic bag, but they should be absolutely fine without thinner. I've had citadel paints for going on a decade and they're not dried out. Some of my friends have older than that. Just make sure you close the lid very firmly.

I use all GW paints and I personally really like them. If they start to dry up I add some distilled water (few dropps at a time) untill the paint comes back to life. I had the same deal (90% off though) and I walked out with over 100 paints. I say go for it!

I would definitely buy a tonnnnnn of paints for that price. Go for it dude!

 sockwithaticket wrote:
To be fair I didn't say there are no colours you can't get from elsewhere (particularly if you look beyond Vallejo as an alternative, though that is the line the OP referenced), just very few, so I don't know that we actually disagree! Both the Game Colour and Model Colour lines offer some pretty vibrant colours of their own, the latter perhaps to a surprising extent with paints like Emeral, Blue Violet, Amaranthine and Blue Green. Whether or not.

I would describe P3 as a problem for color matching (in terms of other companies not having their colors), and Army Painter as having the problem of not having enough colors, period. But, I think Vallejo and GW are ok to work with if you aren't super picky; no matter what brands you choose, you will never get exact matches for most of the colors, but the Game Color/Air and GW colors are close enough that if you paint one squad with one, and another with the other, they won't look terrible beside each other on the tabletop.

But yes, perhaps we just mean the same thing in different words


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xnachox wrote:

1. Unfortunately two of the pots I bought (The fang and Balthasar gold) were open. Some ****t open the bottle to see the color and left the bottle closed in the shop. I noticed at home and I doubt that the shop will take those back. So. Should I buy some thinner and pour some drops in the paint? (i wont be use those colors for a while) or do you think that they will stay fine as long as I keep on shaking them?

Add Lahmian Medium for the best results.

xnachox wrote:

2. I noticed that there is also some "dry" and "texture" line. Could someone tell me what are they for? and do you recommend those to a novice?
I ask because I have a big amount of skeletons and I was tempted to take some "dry" bone tone , I dont recall the nameof the paint now.
Thanks again

Dry are for dybrushing. You can put a small amount on your drybrush (citadel ones work fantastic), rub it off a bit on a paper towel and go to town. They last **forever**. I use Necron Compound and Tyrant Skull tons, and have never even used up even 1 pot, I don't think.

Texture are for basing. They work great, but you go through them like crazy if you actually want to use them to base your models. Sand + glue is a zillion times cheaper (and does the same thing).

Yeah for prices like that I would totally grab those paints. Like what has been said before, GW has great base paints, so if nothing else you'll get a good amount of use out of those.

The dry and texture lines are fun as well, but I wouldn't go too overboard on picking those up. You aren't gonna be going through like 3 or 4 pots of those too fast.