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This is a bit of a rookie question - but what's the best place to buy paints these days if you need to order online? GW online store seems to be out of a lot of paints. I'm also open to non-GW paint (Vallejo etc). Is there any place that provides a decent price on paints or discounts for purchasing multiple paints? Apologies if asking for store recommendations breaks protocol!

Thanks!

I tend to use ebay. Loads of options on there

If you google it you will find lots of retailers, just play games, the mighty lancer, wayland games, there’s loads. And they tend to have better prices than gw and a large stock of other paint manufacturers. Shop around is the best advice I can give.

So I inventoried all of my old paints last night.

What is shocking is that about 2/3 of my paints are really old white lid / hex shaped citadel paints. Many of these I seriously bought over 20 years ago - and the vast majority of them are fine. The slightly newer pots were totally hit or miss, many needed a few drops of water and thorough mixing/stiring to get them back to life. Is this just an issue with the newer pots not sealing or has the paint formulation actually changed? Or both?

Hmm old style paint lids that keep paint from drying up, intriguing!

Best place to buy paint is at your local dedicated mom/pops hobby and model kits shop.
I got 2 near me, one is focused on model kits and all kinds of tools, other is a game shop with room full of tables and terrain.

But in ether one I can not only look at what the paint actually looks like, hold it in my hand, but the guys that work there use the products them selves and will always have advice from experience on what to get.

For all my other specialty paint needs place I get my fancy paint at greenstuff world

 Mezmorki wrote:
This is a bit of a rookie question - but what's the best place to buy paints these days if you need to order online? GW online store seems to be out of a lot of paints. I'm also open to non-GW paint (Vallejo etc). Is there any place that provides a decent price on paints or discounts for purchasing multiple paints? Apologies if asking for store recommendations breaks protocol!

Thanks!

Noble Knight is a great store to order from. They dont always have every single paint in stock but they have most and they refresh their stock pretty often. Their prices on anything in the store are great, a normal GW paint is $4.09 on their site and thats less than the GW website or Amazon. I was buying all my paints on amazon for $6-$10 per paint before I found their website. The employees are super friendly and very helpful, everything ships the same day and arrives well before the estimated delivery date, at least for me and I'm halfway across the country from them, usually only takes 3-4 days. They also take trade-ins of all kinds of stuff. I sent in magic cards for store credit last week and they gave me more than I expected, I give them 5/5.

As for the paint pots drying I'm convinced that GW's pots are designed to waste paint so you have to buy more. Almost every other company uses dropper bottles for regular paints, which are inarguably better aside from like washes or texture paints and stuff like that. And with GW that little dipper thing in the lid the paint slides down the back and gunks up inside the lid between the bottle and can super easily make the pot non-air tight. If it didnt have that damn dipper they wouldnt be so bad.

I think Reaper's KS late pledge is still open, and you can get various sets of paint that way. Depends on if you can wait and how much of a discount you want. If money is an object, also look into Stylerez (sp) colored airbrush primers, sold in 4oz bottles. For advanced tabletop, I use them with washes for my basecoats and shading. Then I use hobby paints for highlights and details.

I highly recommend Reaper paints. They have a lovely range of colors, and great consistency. They're available straight from Reaper-and if you spend $40 or more, you get free shipping and a free mini.

I've also heard great things about Instar, who resurrected some old GW colors.

Of course, support your FLGS first, if you can.

I buy from GSW and from AK interactive and also from scale 75.

In order, AK interactive has great oil paints outside of the Windsor newton artist line.

Scale 75 and GSW have fun metallic paints that are super cool. I love chameleon and colored metals cuz you can do true metallic metal colors in so many ways holy crap.

Vallejo I tend to buy on amazon or wherever they're in stock. GW is usually something I buy in person cuz I hate getting them online as they can come dried out or crappy as with any thicker paint like that.

NobleKnight seemed to have a good stock of new paints from a bunch of different lines, including GW and Vallejo. I ordered a small assortment and will report back with any issues .

Thanks for the suggestions and help all!

I like Michigan Toy Soldiers for Vallejo paints. Things ship fast and arrive on time.

Finding P3 has forced me to really search though suppliers. There's no way to recommend one.

Scale Creep Miniatures is the only US Supplier of Coat d'Arms paints.