There is no single "best" miniature paint - the right range depends on your budget, what you paint, and how you like to work. Most people asking are painting Warhammer, so that is the lens here, but nothing below is specific to it: the same ranges paint historicals, board-game plastic and resin busts. Here is how the main options compare, what each is genuinely best at, and what to buy first.
The main paint ranges
- Citadel (Games Workshop) - the default for Warhammer painters. Excellent coverage and a huge, well-organised range (Base, Layer, Shade, Contrast, Technical), but the most expensive per millilitre and only sold in small pots. Browse the full Citadel colour chart.
- Vallejo - superb value in dropper bottles that do not dry out, with two big lines: Game Color (fantasy and bright) and Model Color (realistic and military), plus Model Air and Game Air pre-thinned for airbrushing. The painter's workhorse. See the Vallejo paint chart.
- The Army Painter - great starter sets, and Warpaints Fanatic is a full acrylic system organised in triads so highlighting is a decision the range already made for you. Dropper bottles and aggressive set pricing. See the Army Painter chart.
- Pro Acryl (Monument Hobbies) - painter-designed, very high pigment load and a matte finish that takes layering well. The range most often recommended by painters who have outgrown their first system but do not want artist-grade fuss. See the Pro Acryl chart.
- Scale75 and Kimera Kolors - artist-grade, heavily pigmented, ultra-matte. Scalecolor blends beautifully and photographs without shine; Kimera is a pure-pigment mixing system for people who want to make their own colours rather than buy them. Both reward experience and punish impatience. See the Scale75 chart.
- AK Interactive and the modelling brands - if you paint vehicles, terrain or historicals, AK and the Real Colors line bring weathering products and authentic military shades no fantasy range carries.
- Reaper, Coat d'Arms and the older ranges - Reaper MSP is a US mainstay with an enormous triad-based range; Coat d'Arms is the direct descendant of the original 1980s Citadel paints, which is why old GW colour names still turn up in it.
Which is best for Warhammer specifically
Citadel, if you want the least friction: every official painting guide, every box insert and most YouTube tutorials name Citadel pots, so following a scheme means buying exactly what it says. That convenience is what you are paying for, and it is worth something when you are new.
It is not worth paying for forever. The colours are not magic - they are ordinary acrylics with a very good colour system wrapped around them - and once you can read a recipe you can buy the same colours cheaper. That is what this site is for: search any Citadel colour and its page lists the closest match in every other range we track, or put the name straight into the cross-brand matcher. Our cheaper alternatives to Citadel paints guide walks through the swaps that actually hold up.
If you want the shopping list rather than the comparison, what paints do you need for Warhammer 40k names the specific pots for a first army.
One-coat paints: Contrast, Speedpaint and Xpress
Citadel Contrast, Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 and Vallejo Xpress Color all do the same trick: a single heavily-tinted coat that pools in the recesses and thins over the raised areas, basecoating and shading in one pass over a light undercoat. For a horde army it is the difference between finishing and not finishing.
They are not a complete system - you will still want ordinary paints for highlights, metallics and anything you want to look crisp - and they behave badly over dark or glossy undercoats. Our best contrast paints guide compares the three ranges properly, and slapchop covers the zenithal-undercoat method that gets the most out of them.
Citadel (Warhammer Paints)
Washes, metallics and primers
Very few painters buy one brand for everything, and these three categories are where mixing pays off most:
- Washes and shades - the single biggest improvement available to a beginner, and Citadel's Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade are genuinely the reference products; the Army Painter Quickshade washes are the value alternative. See washes and shades.
- Metallics - a real point of difference between ranges. Vallejo Metal Color and Scale75's metal sets are alcohol-based and far smoother than standard acrylic metallics, and Green Stuff World and TurboDork make the colourshift and chameleon finishes nobody else does.
- Primer - buy a spray or airbrush primer rather than brushing it on. A grey or bone primer suits most schemes; black suits dark armour and slows everything else down.
Citadel (Warhammer Paints)
Citadel (Warhammer Paints)
Army Painter
Army Painter
What to buy first
For a beginner, a starter set beats buying individual pots - you get a curated spread of colours, often with a brush, for far less than buying separately. The Army Painter and Citadel starter sets are both solid first buys. Add a wash, a metallic and a couple of bright highlight colours and you can paint almost anything.
Buying several colours at once? Start from a set: we rank every paint set by price per paint, with exact contents and current prices, so you can see precisely what you are getting before you buy.
Mixing brands
You do not have to commit to one brand, and almost nobody does - a Vallejo base, a Citadel shade, an Army Painter metallic is a completely normal shelf. If a guide calls for a paint you do not own, the paint matcher finds the closest match in every range we track - by paint name, by hex code, or from a photograph you upload.
The one thing worth keeping consistent is finish. Ultra-matte artist paints next to satin hobby paints will read as two different materials on the same model, which is usually fixed with a coat of varnish at the end rather than by discipline at the start.
Tips
- Dropper bottles save money and paint - Vallejo, Army Painter and Pro Acryl do not dry out like pots, and you can thin on a palette rather than in the container.
- Contrast and Speedpaint ranges are a fast track for beginners - see our best contrast paints guide.
- Buy a wash early - a single shade improves every model you own.
- Judge a range by pigment, not by colour count. A 200-pot range with weak coverage costs more in coats than a small one with strong pigment.
- Never buy a colour you can mix from two you own - unless you will use it on a whole army, in which case buy it and save the evenings.
Shop miniature paint sets
A starter set is the cheapest way to get a usable spread of colours.
Vallejo Game Color Starter Kit (16 Paints)
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£48.99 in the UK at Amazon (UK)
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Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Most Wanted Set (22 Paints)
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