This weeks pledge I am blaming Benn for. I have started Middle earth, I believe he might have brain washed me the number of times he has mentioned on his own youtube video. I cannot blame him fully as the very discounted boxset helped push me over the edge.

Have you ever played something outside your comfort zone (different scale, different setting, different group of people) and how did it turn our for you in the end? Anything you’ve learned from this?

I dont know if I have a comfort zone of such to start with. I suppose I said I would never be able to paint 15mm scale and now I play flames of war. But when i say never it always me putting it off rather than a firm never. I wil pretty open to trying out any game system.

I was rather than shocked on this week podcast that Sundancer has never played historical wargames and has no interest in them. Typically this bug is one that as we get older we drift towards. However years of co hosting with Gerry it is difficult to believe the historical aspect has never rubbed off on him.

Army Painter

Army painter used to be a staple of the hobby with the cheap and large range of paints. I think in the quality vs cost they had a market but with so many companies coming into the game they lost out a bit. I know a few hobby companies in the last few years ditch the range of paints due to the drop in sales. It feels like they stood still while everyone over took them.

They are in the mode of having to catch up and fast and making mistakes along the way in some cases. The launch of speed paint V 1.0 was listed by many youtubers as the GW killer, the product to kill contrast. The product was nothing of the sort and I think it did more harm to the brand. The product sort of did the job but the price came at a cost it was weaker in pigment than the GW contrast and would due to the water content reactivate. Mention Speed paint today and people will still mention this fact. Lets be honest they rushed the product out to market without enough testing and got it wrong. They have vastly improved speed paint but so many companies got it right first time its a difficult market to get back into.

I think throwing the marketing budget at the youtube crowd is an interesting choice. However I do question the subjective nature of the youtubers. Clearly very few actually did a fair test and trail with the orginal speed paints before claiming them GW killers. So how much you can trust them with the new paint range is open to debate.

I am curious about the Fanatic paint. Curious as to the price and quality. I guess the interest is were do they find a market to ? They kept the costs down of the colour paint because the low pigment. The new Fanatic paint is much thicker, so more pigment that means more cost hence price. Then are you up against the GW, Two thin coats, pro acryl. You have speicalist paint coming from Green stuff world doing some amazing colour shift paints, and range of bright inks they are pushing innovation.

You have Vallejo as the bulk standard go to paint for people. AK interative has stolen the wargamers ranges with the accurate paints and mix sets for wargaming of different factions.

I am not sure where army painter sit in this market ? I think the washes are great, the spray paints are good. But i see them as a company that is behind the curve trying to play catch up. Fanatic needs to be a better quality paint but still at the cheaper end of the spectrum to draw people in.

Its difficult for Army Painter with now some many companies, so much choice to stand out today you need to perhaps just having more than a large range of okay paints.