Model Color - Wargame Basic Set

Eight shades to paint a first army with

The choice aims at a player who has just unpacked a box of plastic figures and is looking for a palette that covers infantry and its equipment. The eight are put together so that the shades go with each other and so that transitions can be mixed from them that stay readable across the width of a gaming table.

The frame is made by White and Black, the pair with which every remaining tone is lightened or muted. For clothing and equipment there is Intermediate Green together with the shade Medium Blue, while for faces and straps Dark Flesh and Saddle Brown serve. Metal parts are covered by Silver, while the deep Orange Red is left for coats of arms, banners and the recognition markings of units.

These are water-thinnable dispersions meant for work with a brush. They dry to a matte surface which makes no reflections under a lamp and photographs easily. They are laid on thinly: a single heavy coat floods the engraving, while two light ones leave it readable and the paint holds more firmly.

For a beginner the eight-color set is a sensible middle ground in the breadth of the palette. The more extensive themed sets of the same line give sixteen bottles, but their make-up already counts on a particular army or period, whereas here you choose the theme yourself.

The dropper bottles allow dosing drop by drop, so the ratio used in mixing a shade can be repeated a week later as well. With figures that matters: an army comes about step by step and the second squad has to match the first.