Most "what paints do I need" advice is written for an army: buy in bulk, buy for speed, buy the pots you will empty. Warhammer Kill Team inverts every part of that. A team is roughly six to fourteen operatives. You will never empty a pot. You will paint each model once, carefully, and then look at it across a table for a year.
So the shopping list is not a smaller army list. It is a different one.
What actually changes at ten models
- Volume stops mattering. The per-millilitre arithmetic that decides an army purchase is close to irrelevant here - you will not finish a 12ml pot on a kill team. Buy for how the paint behaves, not how much of it there is.
- Coverage stops mattering as much. A paint that needs three thin coats costs you an evening across ten models, not a month across a hundred.
- The finishing pots start mattering. Edge highlights, lenses, battle damage, a decent metallic - the steps you skip on a horde are the whole point of a team. This is where the money goes.
- You can afford one indulgence. One artist-grade paint, one good brush, one technical pot. On an army that is a rounding error you will never see; on ten models it is visible on every one.
The list
Prime and base (three pots)
Your primer, and the two or three colours the team actually wears. Pick them from your faction's own recipe - the faction painting guides name specific pots for every army in the game, and a Kill Team box is drawn straight from one of them.
Shade (two pots)
Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade, or Army Painter Dark Tone and Strong Tone. Non-negotiable at any model count. A third shade earns its place here in a way it does not on an army: Reikland Fleshshade if your operatives have faces, Drakenhof Nightshade if they wear anything blue or white, Seraphim Sepia if they wear bone or leather.
Highlight (two pots)
The lighter partner of your armour colour, and one near-white. Ushabti Bone and White Scar between them highlight most things. This is the step that separates a painted team from a based one - see edge highlighting.
Metal (three pots, and this is where a team earns it)
- Leadbelcher for everything mechanical.
- Ironbreaker or Stormhost Silver for the edges and blade tips - on an army you skip this, on ten operatives it is the most noticeable ten minutes you will spend.
- One gold or brass: Retributor Armour, Balthasar Gold or Warplock Bronze, depending on how ornate your faction is.
Detail (two pots)
One hot accent for lenses, powered weapons and screens - Evil Sunz Scarlet, Calgar Blue or Moot Green - and one grime for the boots and the base rim, such as Typhus Corrosion.
That is around twelve pots for a fully finished team, and about half of them serve every team you paint afterwards.
Sets: worth it, with one caveat
At this model count a set is often the better buy despite the theme problem, because you are buying range rather than volume - a spread of shades and metals you would otherwise buy one at a time. The Warpaints Fanatic Starter Set covers primer, base colours, two metals and a shade in one box; the Vallejo Game Color Introduction Set is a wider spread of sixteen. Both leave you buying only your team's own colours.
The caveat: check the contents before you buy, because a set built around one colour family is exactly the wrong shape for a team. Every paint set is listed with its exact contents and ranked by value.
Skip the speedpaint route here unless you are painting a second team to play with quickly. Contrast paints are a horde technology; at ten models they save you an evening and cost you the thing you were painting a small team for. If you want it anyway, best contrast paints covers the ranges.
Buy one thing that is not paint
Given the choice between a twelfth pot and any of these, take these:
- A wet palette. It keeps paint workable while you fuss over one model for an hour, which is the exact working pattern this game creates. See the wet palette guide.
- One good detail brush. Ten operatives is few enough that brush quality shows on every single one - see best brushes for miniatures.
Then use the model count
Teams like Hierotek Circle, Farstalker Kinband or Fellgor Ravagers are built from distinct sculpts rather than a squad of near-identical bodies, and they reward being treated as individuals: a different base, a trophy, one operative with a red rag or a bare head. A consistent scheme holds the team together; small deliberate differences are what make it a warband rather than a unit.
New to the game entirely? How to start Warhammer Kill Team covers the boxes and the way in, and how to start painting miniatures covers the first model.
Shop paint sets for a kill team
A broad starter set plus your team's own colours is the whole list.
Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Most Wanted Set (22 Paints)
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Vallejo Game Color Starter Kit (16 Paints)
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