Everyone here acknowledges Mantic Games as the alternative to the major games in our hobby, with affordable miniatures and a fast growing range of games... Not many people know they do paint sets as well.

All right, they're not actually producing the paints... They're the Army Painter range, Warpaints, but they pack them in quite well.

And packed they are... The Mantic paint sets are all DVD-esque boxes that will fit in your shelves (a brilliant idea), just like the packaging for their miniatures, and they're bursting with content. I'm not kidding, I couldn't put everything back in the box after opening it, until I removed the cardboard bit that was holding some of the paint pots, to make some room!

The largest Mantic paint set has nine paint pots, a decent brush, and three plastic sprues which allow you to build six miniatures.

Oh, there's also a leaflet that's merely advertisement. It contains an amusing "painting guide" comprising of a few sentences, basically saying "glue your minis, prime them, then paint them, go to the Mantic website for details"... But no one believes you can learn proper painting by studying half a sheet of paper anyway.

The brush is quite good... It's a basecoating brush from the Army Painter "hobby" range : Its synthetic hair will last just as long as the Citadel brushes (if not longer), and it'll keep its point better... Watch out for my review about this very interesting brush range.

The miniatures aren't any exclusives, they're your basic Mantic miniatures... But you do have a lot of them, and they're quite varied... A nice surprise, as paint sets either provide no miniatures at all, or a single one, or, at best, few miniatures of a single type!

You have enough parts to build two ghouls or zombies, two skeletons and two elves... What I like about them is that you have enough spare parts to truly have options when building the minis! You're not forced to accept the basic pose, you actually have accessories and different arms and bodies to choose from, as well as extra bases !

This set also provides nine paint pots... That's one more than the beginner Games Workshop sets. Furthermore, the pots are drop bottles, eminently practical, and with more paint in them than the pots in the Citadel range.

It's also a very general selection (black, white, red, green, brown, blue, flesh, silver and gold). They're hardly the best paints in the world, but they are just right for the beginner and the layman (see my soon to be published in depth review about Warpaints), and, most of all, liquid enough that it doesn't matter much if you don't dilute them.

As you can see, with this paint set, you're not stuck with the usual "just the colors you need to paint the one species included in the set"... you have options about the colours you want to use, and also about the minis you build. This is what a paint set should be like!

Finally, a sufficiently generic paint set, non themed, ideal for introducing children to the hobby, But it's also perfect for someone on a budget, who wants a basic selection of paints and minis to see what he'll be collecting and painting later on.

Indeed, the value for money is excellent, as per usual with Mantic: you get that large paint set (the largest of the Mantic ones, in fact) for slightly cheaper than the smallest Games Workshop paint set... which contains fewer (smaller) paint pots, fewer miniatures, a terrible brush and no options.

... and of course, you get a Mantic Point with your purchase, to help you get more Mantic goodness.

If you ask me, that's an excellent deal!