Fancy treating yourself to a box of Speedpaints? You can order a box from Element Games!

Army Painter has a multitude of paint ranges now, some of which we’ve previously reviewed. As the resident Contrast Paint fanboy, I was allowed this Mega Set of Speedpaints to review, after Army Painter kindly sent us a set!

A little bit of a disclaimer. I’m not an expert painter, but I liked to think I’m at least a Battle Ready quality painter. This review is based on my usage with these paints.

From the outset, it’s worth stating that these paints come in dropper bottles, and very quickly I sort of started thinking about how much I’d like Citadel paints in these… I can see why people rave about these. I found I wasted less paint using them, compared to dipping into a pot. The bottles also have little steel mixing balls, to help when mix up the paint when you shake before use.

When you open up the box you are faced with 24 paints and a basic Army Painter brush.

There is a good variety of colours on offer, 23 in fact. The 24th bottle is handily a pot of Speedpaint Medium.

As soon as the paint hits your palette, you’ll notice this paint is thinner than Contrast. This is confirmed when your brush is loaded and you start to paint. The paint flows a little too well, so if you are looking to do detail work, or paint on small areas such as belts, you have to be super careful. When I first started using Contrast I found myself ‘learning’ how to control it, using these paints felt like that again. Another note, because the paint is thin if you aren’t careful you’ll have air bubbles on your mini as you paint. Make sure you move around excess paint to prevent this.

When applied to the model, however, the coverage is fantastic. It flows into the crevices really well, and like it says on the box, gives the impressions of shading and basic highlights. Again, like Contrast, this paint loves ‘organic’ models, with lots of detail to run into. It works OK on flat panels, but you need to watch how much paint you are leaving on said panels, and your brush strokes. I found some colours have a pastel look when used in quantity over said panels, which isn’t great, such as Magic Blue.

Some of the colours are lovely, Purple Alchemy, Fire Giant Orange, Camo Cloak and Phasmatic Bolt were my stand out favourites.

I didn’t come across a bad colour in the batch, although some were similar to Contrast colours, and compared to those came up a little short. An example of this would be Dark Wood. I found its closest competition, Games Workshop’s Wyldwood, had better coverage.

I used Grey Seer and Wraithbone as undercoats, and much like Contrast, the colours were more vibrant on Wraithbone, and had a cooler appearance over Grey Seer.

They do take some getting used too if you are trying to do some detail painting, even if you are a veteran user of Contrast, but if you are applying over larger areas, or don’t mind patching up bits where the paint has gone where it shouldn’t, then you’ll really like the coverage and effect these paints give you.

Whilst these won’t replace my Contrast paints, I will 100% be dipping into the range when painting, in particular for those colours mentioned earlier in the article. Previously I’ve only ever used Games Workshop paints, but with these and the Two Thin Coats paints, it’s amazing having an expanded paint toolbox.

They are aimed at everyone, and the results speak for themselves. You’ve just got to get used to the flow of the paint.

You can buy individual Speedpaints and different value sets of Speedpaints from Element Games. Use our affiliate link to help us out!

Published by David Jennings

Born and raised in Crewe in Cheshire, Dave is a geek through and through. Enjoys designing and managing websites. View all posts by David Jennings