The Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Starter Set Review

The Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Starter Set is a good first buy if you want to paint the included knight and learn the basics with a small selection of paints. You get primer, colors, metallics, a wash and a brush, so you can try the hobby without choosing every supply separately.

The catch is the palette. Its seven regular colors give you plenty to work with, but there’s no ready-made skin tone. I’d recommend this box for a first armored miniature. For a D&D character with an exposed face, add suitable skin paint. If you already own brushes and primer, buying colors for your next model deserves a closer look.

What you get in the Fanatic Starter Set

This review covers the base Fanatic Starter Set, SKU WP8066P. It contains eleven 18 ml dropper bottles:

• Seven regular acrylic colors: Matt Black, Matt White, Leather Brown, Ultramarine Blue, Greenskin, Daemonic Yellow and Pure Red.
• Two metallics: Plate Mail Metal and Greedy Gold.
• One wash: Strong Tone, for adding darker color to folds and other recessed details.
• One Brush-On Primer: the first coat that prepares the miniature for paint.

You also get a Starter Brush, a Cephalofair Games Knight miniature, a painting guide and a sticker sheet. A QR code leads to the knight painting tutorial. The included miniature doesn’t require assembly tools before you begin.

That makes the box enough for its own painting project, with a few things from home. Set out water for rinsing and thinning, paper towels, a surface to mix paint on and a good light. A clean white tile or disposable plate can serve as your palette; you don’t need to buy a wet palette for your first session.

Apply the supplied primer in a thin, even coat and let it dry before adding colors. Having a brush-on option means you don’t need to buy a spray primer just to start this knight.

Your next miniature may need more preparation. Clippers and glue aren’t included, and whether you need them depends on the model you buy. There’s no varnish or scenic basing material either. Those are separate purchases if you want a protective finish or a decorated base.

Check listings carefully: a retailer’s “Combo” may add another brush. That extra isn’t part of the base box described here.

How Fanatic paints handle on a miniature

Fanatic paints are a sound choice for learning conventional brush painting: apply the main colors, shade the recesses, then add lighter touches to raised details. Their thickness needs some attention, though. Squeezing out more paint won’t fix a coat that’s leaving ridges.

Shake each bottle before dispensing it. The bottles contain mixing balls, and The Army Painter recommends roughly 30 seconds of shaking, followed by checking a small drop. If that drop still separates, shake again.

Once the paint is mixed, adjust it on your palette. Reported testing on a wet palette found little separation, but also warned that unthinned paint could go on chunky. Add water a little at a time until the paint spreads smoothly. There’s no single water-to-paint ratio worth memorizing for every bottle and every job.

Greenskin provides a useful example from the actual palette. In a reported three-color trial on an Age of Sigmar Killaboss, it needed a second thin coat for an even, opaque finish. The primer and exact dilution weren’t specified. The other two samples, Imperial Navy and Burning Ore, aren’t included here, so their results don’t tell you how this box’s blue and yellow behave.

Separate testing of Daemonic Yellow and Pure Red over black primer found that one water-thinned coat wasn’t opaque. Comparisons after three thin coats showed no clear overall coverage winner against the selected competing paints. Good coverage doesn’t mean you can count on one coat, especially over a dark base.

The metallic findings differ. A direct comparison found Plate Mail Metal smooth and effective after thinning with water. Another painter preferred Speedpaint metallics for coverage, having used Fanatic metallics mainly for highlights and small scratches. That doesn’t tell you how many coats either metallic will need on your knight. Expect to adjust the paint and build up layers where needed.

Strong Tone does a different job: it adds shadows while leaving the underlying colors visible. The official knight exercise shows excess wash being lifted from a fold with a brush dried on a paper towel. Watch for puddles instead of assuming a heavier application will look better.

Expect some sheen. Range testing describes Fanatic as satin, meaning a slight shine rather than a completely flat finish. Also, older bottles labeled only Warpaints are a different formula. The Greenskin trial found Fanatic creamier and more even than its predecessor; returning color names don’t guarantee an exact match to older paint jobs.

How far the Starter Set’s colors will take you

The knight is a sensible match for this selection. Silver and gold cover its armor and ornaments, brown handles leather, and red or blue can distinguish the cloth. You aren’t forced to mix a complicated color before you can paint the largest parts of the model.

If your first Warhammer model is an assembled, helmeted Space Marine, this box could give you a simple blue-and-gold scheme. Use Ultramarine Blue for armor, Greedy Gold for trim, Plate Mail Metal for exposed metal and Matt Black for joints and the weapon casing. Pure Red can pick out the lenses. That’s a suggested scheme using the available colors, not a promise to match a particular studio-painted miniature.

An unhelmeted head changes that recommendation. For a human D&D fighter with a visible face and hands, I’d add the skin tone you actually want before starting. Leather Brown is useful, but it isn’t a substitute for a choice of human skin colors. Mixing can get you further; buying a suitable bottle removes one challenge while you’re learning brush control.

You can also stretch this box without buying whole sets of related shades. Black and white give you grays. Adding a little white to a color creates a lighter version, although red moves toward pink. In a knight gallery on The Army Painter’s website, painters describe mixing yellow and black for an olive green, and brightening green with yellow and white.

The practical limit is repeating those mixtures. A custom highlight is manageable on one figure; matching it across several sessions takes care. If you plan to paint a squad, a separate highlight color can make that easier.

Fanatic’s “Flexible Triad” labels identify related shades from dark to light in the wider range. They can help you choose that next bottle. This small box doesn’t supply complete families of shadows, middle shades and highlights for every color.

How much the Starter Set’s brush and tutorial help

The brush’s biggest benefit is that you can begin without making another choice. I’d start with it for the knight’s main colors and wash, then decide whether its point gives you enough control for smaller details. You don’t need an entire brush collection to find out whether you enjoy painting.

Don’t buy the box on a promise of brush longevity, though. One Reddit owner of this exact set described the brush as usable but reported that its tip deteriorated fairly quickly. That’s one owner’s account, with no measured lifespan or documented care routine. It doesn’t establish a recurring fault, and praise for other Army Painter brushes doesn’t establish this brush’s durability either.

The tutorial is more helpful than a generic shopping list because it follows the figure you’re holding. You can see which areas to paint next, then compare your progress with the same model. That removes some early decisions without requiring you to copy every color choice.

It still leaves skills to learn. In The Army Painter’s own exercise, an employee who had painted one miniature before found highlight placement the hardest part. Highlights are lighter marks on edges and raised surfaces where you want to suggest light catching the model. Knowing which paint to use doesn’t automatically tell you where those marks belong.

For your first attempt, aim for tidy main colors and controlled shading before worrying about tiny highlights. Pause between stages and correct stray paint once it’s dry. If the result looks rough, consider paint thickness, how much is on your brush and where you’re placing it before assuming you need a more expensive kit.

When the Fanatic Starter Set makes sense to buy

Buy the Starter Set if the knight appeals to you, you need basic supplies and your next model suits these colors. Its strongest feature is the combination of a manageable palette, primer, brush and matching lesson. You can make a useful first attempt without planning an entire paint collection.

Supplement it if you like that starting point but already know what’s missing. A skin tone for your fighter or a repeatable highlight for your blue squad is a more focused addition than another large box. Write down the colors you’ll use before shopping; a bottle is useful because it solves a painting need, not because it increases the count.

If you already have a brush, primer and a miniature waiting, compare selected individual paints with the Starter Set plus its necessary additions. Buying separately lets you choose the shades your project needs. The included knight and accessories matter less when you already have those parts covered.

The larger Fanatic sets serve different ambitions. Most Wanted offers 22 paints and is designed to complement the Starter and Mega sets. The 50-paint Mega Set makes more sense if you expect to paint varied subjects and want more ready-made choices. The Complete Set is a much larger commitment; I wouldn’t choose it just to learn on a first miniature. More bottles don’t remove the need to thin paint or practice.

My recommendation is the Starter Set for its guided knight project, with a small addition for a clearly defined next model. If your main goal is painting a particular army or a varied D&D party immediately, choose the colors for those miniatures first and let that list decide whether this box belongs in your basket.