The Easiest Warhammer Armies to Paint

The reference easy army. Warriors are tall skeletal robots with large clean metal surfaces and almost nothing hanging off them. Leadbelcher spray, Nuln Oil, a silver drybrush and the model is done; the green gauss glow is a single Contrast or technical paint in the rod recesses rather than a blend.

Twenty infantry and a couple of enormous beasts, every one of them a slab of skin, fur and hammered brass at a scale where a drybrush actually shows. Skin is Bugman's Glow, Reikland Fleshshade, Cadian Fleshtone and Kislev Flesh — basecoat, wash, layer — or Darkoath Flesh in a single coat, and the fur is Mournfang Brown drybrushed Skrag Brown. There is no fine trim anywhere on an ogor, and the sculpts were designed around exactly this treatment.

Saurus Warriors are big-bodied lizards carrying a shield and a club and almost nothing else, with large smooth scaled surfaces. Those surfaces are the single best case for Contrast paint in the whole GW range — one coat of a blue or turquoise Contrast over a light undercoat gives shaded scales straight away, and the bone and gold trim is a wash.

One enormous model whose entire aesthetic is neglect, which inverts the Imperial Knight problem: stippling, sponging and uneven pigment are the correct finish here rather than mistakes to be avoided. Iron Warriors under Nuln Oil with a loose Ironbreaker drybrush is the whole basecoat, and Typhus Corrosion with Ryza Rust stippled into it does the character work. The one demanding step is the daemonic eye, ringed outward from Khorne Red through Troll Slayer Orange to Yriel Yellow with the light glazed onto the surrounding plate.

A clean Primaris body in a dark saturated green that covers in one coat and shades itself with a wash. The only technique ask is the coal-black skin with red eyes on bare heads, which is a small area and works fine as black plus a grey drybrush.

The generic chapter entry, and it takes the Ultramarines numbers on purpose: our guide teaches the Ultramarines blue and tells you to swap the base colour for any other chapter. A Primaris Intercessor is the largest and cleanest infantry GW makes, Macragge Blue covers in one coat, the shade goes into the panel lines rather than over the plate, and the badge is a transfer. The only real skill asked is a thin, even edge highlight and gold trim painted last so overspill can be cut back.

Primaris Intercessors are among the largest and cleanest infantry GW makes — broad unbroken shoulder and leg plates, few pouches, no robes or pelts. Macragge Blue is a strong-pigment basecoat that covers in one coat, and the chapter badge comes as a transfer, so the only real skill asked is a tidy gold trim.

Bloodletters and Plaguebearers are almost entirely bare sculpted muscle — no armour to mask off, no wargear to cut in — which is the best possible case for a Contrast paint and the reason detail scores 5. Blood Angels Red and Plaguebearer Flesh each do most of a model in a coat. It sits at 4 rather than 5 because all four palettes are saturated and every one of them dies over black, so a light undercoat is mandatory, and the Tzeentchian warpflame is a genuine built glow from Teclis Blue up to White Scar.

Plague Marines are visually the busiest marines going — tentacles, exposed guts, pustules, hoses, rust and rotted cloth all on one bloated body, hence the low detail score. But the scheme is the single most forgiving in the game: every mistake reads as corrosion. Typhus Corrosion, Nurgle's Rot and a sponge of rust do most of the work and there is no clean edge anywhere to get wrong.

Black armour and bare steel bionics on a large clean Primaris — two of the three most forgiving finishes on one model. Abaddon Black needs no shade at all, and the augmetics are Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil and an Ironbreaker layer that is meant to read brighter than the plate anyway. It scores above Raven Guard on technique because this chapter's answer to flat black is a Leadbelcher drybrush glazed back down rather than precise grey edge lines; the one trap is the white clan markings, which have to go over a Grey Seer base and never straight onto black.

The largest infantry in the setting, and Heresy Custodian plate is smoother and more martial than the ornate 40k range, so there is markedly less filigree to cut in than on their descendants. Gold is a forgiving finish: Retributor Armour, two shades — Agrax Earthshade over the whole plate then Nuln Oil worked into the joins — an Auric Armour Gold layer and a Liberator Gold edge, with Corvus Black underplate to stop it reading as a statue. The freehand is one vexilla per unit, and the extra cost is resin preparation rather than technique.

Boyz are mid-sized and covered in straps, teef, dags and scrap, but nothing on an Ork is supposed to be neat — mismatched, chipped and scruffy is the correct look, so errors disappear. Green skin is the case Contrast paint was designed around, and rusty metal is a drybrush.

Rated with the 40k Orks and for the same reasons. Ironjawz are big, few and armoured in scavenged slabs; Kruleboyz are numerous, hooded and deeply recessed, which is the ideal Contrast sculpt. Ork Flesh and Gutrippa Flesh each do a rank-and-file green in one coat, rust goes on with a torn sponge rather than a brush, and dented, uneven and dirty is the correct finish — the guide's own instruction is to let the Ironjawz Yellow stay grubby.

Clean MkVI plates in a distinctive sea green that GW sells as a base colour outright, so the signature look is a single spray or basecoat away. A wash, an edge highlight, black trim and the Eye of Horus as a transfer finishes a legionary — an unusually striking scheme for how little it asks.

The biggest common infantry in Age of Sigmar and the models GW's own starter guides teach on. Retributor Armour, a shade and a gold drybrush gets a Liberator most of the way there. The score is held back by ornament rather than colour — sigmarite scrollwork, feathered crests and layered plates mean plenty of hand-cut detail after the gold.

The easiest Legion to paint and close to the easiest army in the file. MkVI plates are clean and unadorned, Macragge Blue covers in one coat from a spray, gold and white trim is limited to edges and helm crests, and the Legion badge is a transfer. Nothing about the scheme asks for a technique beyond basecoat, wash and edge highlight.

The largest infantry in 40k, and unusually easy to finish despite an intimidating reputation: a gold spray, Reikland Fleshshade and a brighter gold drybrush produces a good Custodian. The score is held down by how ornate they are — laurels, filigree, layered plates and feathered crests mean a lot of hand-cut detail after the gold is done.

The most forgiving gang in Necromunda and the clearest one-coat case in the range: almost the whole model is wrapped cloth, so there are no flat armour panels to keep crisp and no hard edges to line, and Skeleton Horde or Aggaros Dunes over Wraithbone shades the folds and leaves the raised cloth pale in a single pass. Mismatched wraps are correct rather than sloppy, which removes the consistency burden a uniformed gang carries. The turquoise accents are two or three beads per fighter and the chitin mounts are a drybrush finished with a change of varnish rather than a highlight.

The most forgiving army in The Old World and one of the fastest, for the same reason: almost everything on a gor is fur, and fur is a drybrush worked in the direction it lies. There is no clean edge to keep straight and no uniform to keep consistent — mess is correct, and a herd that looks slightly wrong in a hundred small ways looks right overall. Contrast over Wraithbone finishes a complete gor in under ten minutes, and the inconsistency between coats works in the army's favour. Horns, charms, feathers and hanging scrap are what cost the detail score.

Caliban Green is one of the most forgiving colours in the range — dark enough to swallow brush marks and a perfect Contrast/wash candidate. The drag is the sculpting: robed Intercessors, hoods, hanging parchment and the bone Deathwing and black Ravenwing sub-schemes mean a lot of separate small areas per model.

Silver armour is the second-most forgiving finish after black: Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, drybrush. The models carry more books, purity seals and scrollwork than a plain marine, and the signature glowing force weapons and hand-scribed wards are the parts that ask for real skill — but both are small areas on a large model.

The gang most rewarding to paint badly on purpose: robes over rags over scavenged armour, where a pooled wash is grime and an uneven highlight is a worn patch, so the scheme absorbs the mistakes a Van Saar bodyglove would display. One coat of Snakebite Leather over Wraithbone is very nearly the studio ochre and the fighters are almost entirely cloth, so a single recipe covers most of the model. Wired-on brass icons, candles and prayer strips are what cost the detail score, and the only discipline asked is repainting two or three panels per fighter so the herd does not read as identical brown monks.

Black armour and bare metal bionics on clean MkVI plates — two of the three most forgiving finishes on the same model, both of which come off a spray can. The white and red markings are small areas, and the exposed augmetics are a wash-and-drybrush job rather than a blend.

The Kin are broad flat plates with deep panel lines and more exposed machinery than fiddly detail, on a low model count — the guide's advice is to paint them like vehicles rather than infantry. Snakebite Leather over Wraithbone does the ochre plate in one coat, and panels that flat take transfers better than nearly anything in 40k, so the runic iconography never has to be freehand. The two asks are discipline: shade Agrax Earthshade into the panel lines only, and keep the Leadbelcher steel cool against the Balthasar Gold brass. Hazard striping is the one slow job.

Plaguebearers and Nurglings are as visually cluttered as their 40k cousins — sores, guts, rotted flesh, no clean surfaces — but the scheme actively rewards mess. Contrast over the flesh, a wash, technical slime and a rust sponge, and every slip reads as decay. One of the fastest fully-painted armies to reach a good tabletop standard.

Genestealers are large enough for the work to show and their carapace is ridged chitin with almost no trim, which is the ideal drybrush surface — the guide is explicit that layering those ridges takes twenty times as long for a worse result. Shyish Purple contrast plus a Genestealer Purple drybrush does a whole brood in two steps. The refinements are cheap but real: flesh shaded with Druchii Violet rather than a flesh wash to keep it bloodless, and a settled Hive Secundus grime dragged up from the feet, which is the step most painters skip and the one that dates the strain.

Black armour on a clean, large Primaris is the easiest possible start — the undercoat is the basecoat. It loses a point because flat black reads as unfinished: making it look painted means controlled edge highlights in grey along a lot of straight plate edges, which is a steadier hand than a wash-and-drybrush army needs.

Dark saturated green on clean MkVI plates, covering in one coat and shading itself with a wash, with modest gold and drakescale trim. Slightly busier than the plainest Legions thanks to the scale cloaks and hammers, and the coal-black skin on bare heads is a small area with a simple grey-drybrush answer.

The easiest possible model size in the file: an entire army is three or four models, and a gargant's forearm is larger than a whole infantry miniature. The sculpting is coarse enough that a drybrush genuinely works, so Darkoath Flesh over Wraithbone followed by a Kislev Flesh drybrush is a real route, and there is no hard basecoat and no freehand anywhere. It sits at 3 rather than higher only because there is no unit to hide in — the guide asks for a zenithal before any colour and a Carroburg Crimson glaze at the nose, ears and knees, since every model you own gets picked up and looked at closely.

The horde half of this army has a Contrast paint made specifically for it. Skeleton Horde over Wraithbone bases and shades bone, cloth and rusted iron simultaneously, a Screaming Skull drybrush finishes it, and twenty Deathrattle Skeletons in an evening is realistic — nothing else in this file gets a single coat that far. Zombies are barely harder, since Athonian Camoshade turning the hollows green is the point rather than a mistake. Rated on that rank and file: Blood Knights and vampires are genuinely slow, but six of them are not what you paint forty of.

The easiest large fantasy army to get to a genuinely good standard, because almost the whole legion is one material and bone is the ideal wash-and-drybrush surface — Zandri Dust, Agrax Earthshade, an Ushabti Bone drybrush, and a regiment is tabletop-ready. Skeleton Horde over Wraithbone collapses that into a coat. Detail sits mid because the accents are per-model rather than free: tarnished gold on collars and blades, turquoise or lapis stones finished with a single White Scar dot, wrappings kept cooler than the bone, and dust drybrushed two-thirds up the shins on every figure.

Rank-and-file for a Tyranid army means Termagants and Hormagaunts, which are small and spindly — but their surfaces are enormous smooth chitin plates and bare flesh with no equipment to speak of. The Leviathan scheme is a Contrast paint over each of those two zones; the organic blend between carapace and flesh is where the skill lives, and it is optional.

Bare-chested killers in aprons: barely any armour to fuss over, no heraldry to line up, and one loud red doing most of the work, so a full gang is an evening or two. Blood Angels Red contrast flatters cloth folds and the bone bull-masks are a basecoat, a wash and two layers. What keeps it off the top band is that skin and cloth carry the model rather than crisp edges, so the effort goes into shading, and the gore has to be done in two states — a stippled dried stain first, a small gloss layer last — or it reads as paint.

Crypt Ghouls are small and come in blocks, but skin is nearly the whole model — gaunt anatomy with almost no gear to cut in — so there is very little edge highlighting to do anywhere. Apothecary White over Wraithbone shades that anatomy in one coat, and the scavenged iron is meant to be patchy, so Typhus Corrosion sponged with Ryza Rust cannot be got wrong. The only refinement asked is shading with two colours, Druchii Violet in the hollows and Agrax Earthshade at the joints, so the flesh does not read as grey plastic.

Stabbas are tiny and come in mobs of forty, which is the whole of their difficulty. Otherwise this is as forgiving as Orks: green skin is the flagship Contrast use case, the ragged cloth and rusty scrap want a wash, and the models are meant to look grubby. The glowing bad-moon effects are optional showpieces, not the standard finish.

A very recent range, and far more forgiving than the name suggests, because it is a metallic army and dark metal hides everything. The Infernal Cohort is Leadbelcher, two passes of Nuln Oil to turn steel into blackened iron, an Ironbreaker edge and a stipple of Typhus Corrosion — basecoat and wash, essentially — with Hashut Copper and Runelord Brass on the bull masks. The molten glow at the weapon seams is the one showpiece, and Magmadroth Flame dropped into black cracks with a Fire Dragon Bright core gets most of it in two coats; the guide's own advice is to glow the war machines and skip the rank and file.

A Necromunda gang is ten or twelve fighters rather than the sixty a Guard platoon asks for, which is what lifts a 28mm human off the Cadian floor on size — the models are small, but you are never batch-painting them. Escher bodysuits are smooth curved surfaces with no folds or webbing, the easiest thing in the hobby to highlight cleanly, and Warp Lightning contrast over Wraithbone lands close to the studio green in one coat. The neon hair needs a Grey Seer foundation and the chem-bleached skin is a four-step ramp rather than a colour, but three loud colours that do not fight each other is a forgiving brief.

Mortek Guard are mid-sized and moderately ornate, with sculpted nadirite trim and a lot of exposed bone construction. Bone is the ideal wash-and-drybrush surface — basecoat, Agrax, drybrush and the sculpted detail does the shading for you — and the black-and-teal accents are small flat areas.

MkVI Corvus is the Legion's own pattern and it is the plainest armour in the game — black over clean plates is a spray and you are basecoated. It sits at 3 rather than higher for the same reason as the 40k chapter: flat black reads unfinished, and the fix is precise grey edge highlighting along a great many straight plate edges.

Chaos Warriors are chunky armoured bodies, and dark metal is the most forgiving surface in the hobby: Leadbelcher, two passes of Nuln Oil and an Ironbreaker edge is a finished warrior. The step that earns the scheme is glazing heavily thinned Drakenhof Nightshade over the flats to push the steel cold — one glaze, not a blend. The Darkoath half is bare skin, but Darkoath Flesh covers a warband of twenty in a coat and the warpaint is supposed to be crude and asymmetric, so it cannot really be got wrong.

The fastest full army in Bolt Action to get onto a table: one uniform colour worn by everybody, no camouflage to pattern, no regimental variation to research and no facing colours, so the kit is a tunic, a belt and a rifle. Militarum Green contrast or Mummified Grime speedpaint genuinely holds up here precisely because there is no pattern for it to flatten. Over-weathering is close to impossible, which removes the usual way a rushed job goes wrong, and the entire character of the model rests on two easy decisions — keep the leather warm brown, and one small red star.

The Legion's grey is as forgiving in 30k as in 40k — a drybrush over grey armour reads as finished — and MkVI is far plainer than the modern Space Wolves kits. Detail still suffers for the pelts, furs, wolf totems and the Varagyr's heavy ornament, but nothing here asks for a skill beyond wash and highlight.

Dryads and Tree-Revenants are decent-sized but spindly, and their branching limbs are genuinely awkward to get a brush into. Everything else is easy: bark is a textured surface that a drybrush finishes on its own, and the leaves and blossom are single Contrast hits. Glowing sap and autumnal transitions are optional flourishes, not the baseline.

Rated with Slaves to Darkness because it is the same proposition — chunky armoured slabs in regiments of twelve to twenty, where dark metal is the most forgiving surface in the hobby and Black Legion contrast over Grey Seer gives a tabletop-ready warrior in about eight minutes. Fur is a drybrush and brass is a wash. The one thing the scheme genuinely demands is that black plate cannot be washed: the whole read of the model is a cold grey edge line kept to the top edges only, and left as flat black the model is a silhouette rather than a miniature.

The easiest of the Bolt Action nations alongside the Soviets, and for the same reason: no camouflage anywhere on the infantry, no facings, no pattern to lay in. Three bottles and a wash cover a whole national army of four boxes, and Garaghak's Sewer or Desolate Brown over Wraithbone plus one edge catch of Khaki genuinely finishes it. Everything that gives the figure its character is a colour DECISION rather than a skill — US Field Drab run browner and darker than a British tunic, Cork Brown leather kept a step warmer than the cloth, boots a step darker than both. The only discipline asked is keeping Agrax in the creases instead of flooding the garment, and the only spot of real work is the dark green Chasseurs Ardennais beret, which is one beret on one model.

Large Chaos Space Marine bodies with spikes, trophies and mutations breaking up the plates. Black is trivial to lay down, but the signature is black plus a great deal of gold trim on every edge and rim, which is slow, plus the edge highlighting that any black scheme needs to stop looking flat.

Same big Primaris frame, but the models are hung with purity seals, blood drops, wax and gold filigree that all need cutting in by hand. Red is the middle case among awkward basecoats: Mephiston Red over a grey or bone undercoat covers, but red shades muddy and streaks over black far more readily than blue does.

Clean MkVI plates in a bright red with heavy gold trim. Bright red is a mid-difficulty basecoat that wants a warm undercoat to sing and streaks over black, and the Legion's gold edging and winged iconography make the trim pass a long one, but nothing demands a blend or freehand.

Rated alongside Black Legion deliberately, because the guide's default legion is Black Legion. Large marine bodies broken up by spikes, trophies and mutations, and an aesthetic that rewards mess — Typhus Corrosion, Ryza Rust and sponged Leadbelcher chips cover the sins a loyalist chapter would show. What costs the time is trim: Balthasar Gold through Gehenna's Gold on every rim of every model, plus the sparing Eshin Grey edge that stops black reading flat.

A non-obvious one: pre-Heresy Death Guard are off-white, not the rotted green of their 40k form. That is nominally the hard white problem, but the Legion's white is meant to look weathered, grimy and campaign-stained, so a wash and some dirt are the correct finish rather than a failure — which lifts it clear of White Scars and 30k World Eaters. Green trim and clean MkVI plates otherwise.

Vulkite Berzerkers are the rare model that is mostly one continuous surface — bare tanned skin, a huge crest of hair, gold plate and very little gear — so detail scores well. The catch is what those surfaces need: acres of skin want a blend rather than a wash, and the signature bright orange hair is a poorly-covering warm colour that has to go over a light undercoat.

Goliaths are the bulkiest gangers in the underhive and bare muscle covers more of one than anything else, so the surfaces are large, smooth and heavily sculpted with a clear high point and crease on every bicep. That flesh recipe is the paint job rather than a detail step: a pale grey-pink ramp over the largest area on the model, where thick paint is unmissable, though Darkoath Flesh contrast pools exactly where the shading would have gone. What holds it at 3 is the orange, a transparent pigment that needs Averland Sunset underneath it, plus tattoos glazed back into the skin and stippled corrosion on everything they carry.

The friendliest gang in Necromunda for a painter still nervous about highlighting, because everything on an Orlock is meant to be scuffed. Rust-red shaded with Agrax Earthshade rather than a red wash, dark gunmetal under two coats of Nuln Oil and brown leather are three warm low-saturation colours that hide a multitude of sins, and Gore-grunta Fur over bone gives the jacket in a coat. The signature technique is sponge chipping with torn blister foam — two colours and ninety seconds — which is the rare effect that looks like more work than it is.

CONSENSUS CORRECTION: our old pot-count metric named this the easiest army in the game, and every roundup that ranks by difficulty (Goonhammer, GamesRadar, Firestorm) puts yellow among the hardest. The model is a big clean Primaris, hence 4 and 5 above — but yellow pigment is thin and semi-transparent, needs a bone or white undercoat plus two or three thin coats to stop it going streaky, and shading it drives it green or brown unless you use a dedicated yellow-friendly shade. The size of the model is exactly what makes it worse: more unbroken yellow to keep even.

The only faction whose rank-and-file IS the centrepiece — one enormous model with huge clean armour plates over a busy skeleton of pistons and cabling. Size cuts both ways: nothing is fiddly, but a knight is looked at like a display piece, House Terryn's smooth cobalt punishes brush marks across those big panels, and heraldic shields and freehand are the expected finish.

Bare metal armour is the fastest basecoat in the game — Leadbelcher spray, Nuln Oil, sponge chipping, done, and weathering hides everything. What holds it to a 3 is the Legion's signature: yellow-and-black hazard chevrons freehand on shoulder trim and plates, repeated on every model in a twenty-strong squad.

A Questoris Knight is a heraldic banner on legs, painted like a vehicle: huge smooth panels that show every brush mark, panel-lined with thinned Nuln Oil rather than washed, over a busy skeleton of pistons and joints. Rated with the 40k Imperial Knights and for the same reason — the livery is the model. Quartering means masking a properly cured basecoat, and the guide is blunt that the freehand device is not optional if it is to look like a house rather than a blue robot. Sponged Rhinox Hide chips and Typhus Corrosion are the easy part.

The generic Heresy entry, placed deliberately at the median of the eighteen Legion rows it stands in for, because the colour is the whole question and this one does not name it. MkII to MkVI plate is broad and unadorned with very little filigree, so detail scores well — but flats that clean show every ridge of a thick basecoat, which is why the method is thin coats, Nuln Oil run into the joins with a brush rather than washed over, and one thin edge line. Transfers over freehand, and twenty-model tactical squads to do it to.

A Taghmata is mostly machinery — Castellax and Thanatar automata are each a small vehicle's worth of painting — so the models are large and the surface is armour plate rather than robes, which puts this a long way from the 40k Skitarii problem. The red is mid-difficulty and has to be brown-shaded with Agrax Earthshade rather than a red wash, or it reads as cloth instead of a painted machine. What holds it at 3 is running three metals doing different jobs: Balthasar Gold brass, Leadbelcher steel and Hashut Copper on the coolant lines, with Nihilakh Oxide used as a seasoning.

A horde with a horde's arithmetic — more models than any other Old World force — but a recipe built on the two fastest techniques there are, since green skin is the flagship Contrast case and everything metal is meant to be rusted. Errors read as scars, scuffs and bad repairs. It sits a step below the 40k Orks because of the one thing they do not have: red chequers and dagged hems are the tribal marking that ties a mob together, and while cutting notches out of a band is easier than painting triangles, it is still freehand on a flat panel at the end of a unit of forty.

Clanrats are small, they come in enormous numbers, and every one is a mess of fur, rags, straps and rusted scrap — which is why size and detail both score badly. The finish is the compensation: Contrast over brown fur, a wash into the rags, rust on the blades, and scruffiness is the intended look. No skaven has ever been criticised for looking dirty.

Fire Warriors are smaller than marines but their armour is broad and smooth with clean panel breaks — very little clutter. The cost is that flat panels show every brush stroke, so the ochre basecoat has to go on evenly, and the classic sept markings and squad numbering on the shoulder are freehand unless you buy transfers.

Pre-Heresy crimson and gold on clean MkVI armour, and much simpler than the Rubricae they become — no warpflame, no glowing eyes, no ribbed sorcerous ornament on the rank and file. Red is mid-difficulty and the gold trim is extensive, so this lands squarely in the middle rather than easy.

CONSENSUS CORRECTION: the model is a plain, large, clean Primaris, but white is the other punishing basecoat alongside yellow. White covers badly, shows every ridge of a thick coat, and cannot be shaded with a normal wash without turning grey or blue — it needs thin glazes or a coloured recess shade. The red trim and the freehand lightning and tribal markings on shoulder and helm add a second skill on top.

No punishing basecoat and no freehand anywhere: greens are forgiving, bark is a drybrush that does nearly all the work on Dryads and Treemen, and a full contrast route covers cloaks, wood, leather and skin in a pass each. What the army asks for is judgement rather than brush control — three greens at different values on the same model instead of one, autumn rationed to about a tenth of the figure, and bronze rather than gold. The unusual cost is that the base is half the model, so leaf litter and exposed roots are part of the recipe rather than a finishing touch.

Chunky Khorne Berzerkers with brass trim, chains and trophy racks. Red plus brass is a mid-difficulty pairing and the trim is slow, but Blood for the Blood God is a technical paint that turns the gore — the loudest part of the scheme — into a one-step job, and battle damage is expected rather than penalised.

Firstborn-scale MkVI marines, but the Legion's kit is the ornate end of the Heresy range — robes, hoods, cloaks and heavy iconography on the Deathwing and Dreadwing units. Black armour is easy to lay down and slow to finish, and the bone and white sub-order robes need to stay crisp against it.

Five separate jobs on a body that would otherwise be one — black plate, a bright silver left arm, a chapter-coloured right pauldron, gold heraldry and bone shoulder trim — which is why detail sits low on an otherwise large clean marine. Abaddon Black needs no shade, and Black Legion contrast will do the armour in a coat. The cost is discipline rather than difficulty: keeping the Ironbreaker and Runefang Steel arm visibly brighter than the Leadbelcher bolter, and an Eshin Grey edge thin enough that the black stays black.

Two armies in one uniform, and the split is what makes them fast: Neophyte overalls are Steel Legion Drab, Agrax Earthshade and a Karak Stone highlight — three steps for most of a model — while Leviathan Purple over Wraithbone gives a usable hybrid in a single coat. The models themselves are small and cluttered with respirators, hoses, mining lamps and tools, hence the low detail score. Nothing asks for a fine technique, and the Terminatus Stone dust the guide finishes with is meant to look like it came out of a tunnel.

The busiest sculpts in the range and the least demanding scheme in it, which is why the two axes pull apart. Every hired gun is a character loaded with straps, satchels, chains, trophies, cabling and a distinct face, and several bring a beast or a servo-skull with them — there is nothing broad or clean to paint. Against that, the scheme asks for almost nothing: weathered drab, three different browns, maintained metal, a stipple of corrosion, and a single bright note. No freehand, no blending, no unforgiving base colour, and the contrast route in the guide finishes one character in an evening. What stops it scoring higher is that these arrive one at a time as named individuals rather than as a batch, so the face and the weapon are looked at closely, and the collection only holds together if the basing and grime recipe is repeated identically across models bought months apart.

CONSENSUS CORRECTION, and the worst case of it in the file. The armour is as clean as armour gets, but this is yellow across the biggest unbroken plates in the range, on twenty-model tactical squads — thin pigment, a mandatory light undercoat, several thin coats, and shading that turns green or brown if you reach for a standard wash. Rated the same as the 40k chapter deliberately: the axis measures what the scheme demands, not how many models you have to do it to.

The most uniform gang in Necromunda, which is a gift: the same plate in the same colour on every fighter, large smooth panels, and Talassar Blue contrast over Grey Seer giving shadow and midtone in one pass. Where it costs is the markings rather than the colour — yellow-and-black hazard striping has to be blocked in on a light foundation first and then ruled in freehand on a 28mm shoulder plate, and unit numbers and lenses are per-model work after the batch. The armour also wants crisp unbroken edge lines and the fatigues a soft broken one, which is two different highlighting habits on the same figure.

Detail runs a point cleaner than the other Bolt Action nations because the infantry box is a greatcoat box: the largest area on most models is one uninterrupted panel, which is why the one-coat Mummified Grime route flatters these figures more than it does a webbing-hung Tommy. The technique score is held at 4 by two real asks. The wz.31 helmet is the one place in the range that wants a technique rather than a colour — Camouflage Olive Green stippled rather than brushed, ideally with a little modelling paste, then drybrushed Green Grey so the granular finish catches it. And the greatcoat has to be run a shade apart from the tunic, because a greatcoat squad in one flat khaki is a very large flat colour. The base tone itself is a judgement: Khaki Grey sits deliberately between British and German, so add grey if it looks like a Tommy and brown if it looks like a Landser.

Grey armour is genuinely easy — a drybrush over Mechanicus Standard Grey reads as finished. What costs the time is that no other marine chapter is this cluttered: wolf pelts, tails, teeth, runes, chainmail, checked patterns and bare bearded heads on almost every Blood Claw and Grey Hunter.

MkVI Corvus is the cleanest, smoothest armour mark GW has ever made, which is a real advantage — and exactly what makes the Legion's white the worst version of the problem, because there is nowhere for uneven coverage to hide. White will not shade with a normal wash and the red markings and tribal freehand go on top, across squads of twenty rather than five.

Dark crimson over grey is forgiving, and dark red hides brush marks well. What keeps this out of the easy band is that the Legion's identity is cuneiform script hand-written across the armour plates, plus hanging scrolls, books and litanies on the models themselves. Freehand text is optional at tabletop standard but it is what makes them look like Word Bearers.

Cadian Shock Troops are the reference small model: 25-28mm, fielded sixty at a time, and covered in webbing, pouches, grenades and a bare face each. The scheme itself asks almost nothing — green fatigues, brown flak, a wash and a highlight — which is why this scores well on technique and badly everywhere else. The difficulty here is scale and repetition, not skill.

Bloodreavers and Blood Warriors arrive in blocks of ten and are hung with brass rings, chains and skulls, but nothing on them needs a fine brush. Red is the trap: the guide builds Khorne Red up through Mephiston Red to Evil Sunz Scarlet from a dark base precisely because basing bright and washing down goes chalky. Flesh Tearers Red collapses that to one pass and Blood For The Blood God turns the loudest part of the scheme into a single step — which is why this lands exactly where the 40k World Eaters do.

The Age of Sigmar version of the Cadian problem: Freeguild Steelhelms and Fusiliers are human-scale, arrive in tens and twenties, and carry coats, tabards, webbing, muskets and a bare face each. The scheme asks very little — Macragge Blue, Nuln Oil, Altdorf Guard Blue on the raised cloth, and Talassar Blue over Grey Seer collapses all three into one pass for a unit of twenty. The difficulty is holding a single uniform across thirty models rather than skill, and the only freehand is one banner per regiment.

Clean MkVI plates, but purple is a low-pigment basecoat that goes blotchy over black and usually needs a pale undercoat and multiple thin coats to sit evenly — the same failure mode as yellow, one step less severe. The Legion also carries more gold trim than most, cut in by hand on every edge across twenty-model tactical squads.

Flat khaki, a wash and a sparing highlight over 28mm infantry, with the interest coming from a blue-grey Adrian helmet and warm natural-leather kit rather than from any technique — French field gear is belts and braces where other armies have canvas webbing, and it is simply painted a lighter brown. The helmet has to stay chalky and be highlighted with grey rather than white, and running the greatcoat a slightly greyer khaki than the tunic is the one refinement asked. Garaghak's Sewer over Wraithbone covers the uniform in a coat; the three-tone camouflage with its black dividing lines belongs to the vehicles.

Everything on the figure sits in a narrow band of khaki and brown, and the whole skill is getting three values in the right order — blancoed 37 Pattern webbing paler than the tunic, boots much darker — after which the model reads correctly before any detail goes on. Painting the webbing dark is the commonest error and it is a decision rather than a technique. Garaghak's Sewer contrast gives a tabletop platoon in two sessions and takes a later highlight pass happily; the Denison smock and desert drill are theatre variations, not the baseline.

English Uniform, a wash and two highlights over 28mm infantry, with camouflage explicitly the exception rather than the rule — one shelter quarter or smock per squad at most, and the three-tone Toldi/Turan disruptive scheme lives on the vehicles. What holds it off a 5 is a discrimination rather than a technique, and it is a hard one to hold: the boxes are full of German-pattern helmets and Panzerschrecks, so the pull towards feldgrau is constant and the tunic is the only thing telling the table these are not Germans. Deliberately varying the cloth across a squad — drops of Khaki for the greener 1943M, Beige Brown for a worn tunic — is asked for and is free, and the one genuinely rewarding detail is painting the German-supplied kit Dark Yellow while the man stays brown.

Namarti Thralls are slim, spindly aelves, but the range is unusually clean — fins, shells and smooth armour with little ornament — and the Namarti are eyeless, so twenty pairs of eyes simply do not get painted. Two real shortcuts hold this up: Aethermatic Blue over Wraithbone for skin, and glazing Akhelian Green over a Runefang Steel base for an iridescent eel in minutes. What keeps it off the easy band is that pale sea-skin must be glazed with thinned Coelia Greenshade rather than washed, and the aetherquartz is a built gem with the light glazed onto the metal around it.

A basecoat, a wash and two highlights on a uniform, with no camouflage pattern to lay in anywhere on the infantry. The two things that identify the army are both colour choices rather than skills: a mustard khaki with real chroma in it instead of desert beige, and puttees, webbing and straps run a shade greener than the tunic, which costs one extra pot. Aggaros Dunes contrast keeps the yellow where most one-coat khakis do not. Scumbled foliage on two or three helmets in a squad is the only freehand, and the sun disc is a solid circle.

Arkanaut Company are chunky duardin, but the models are covered in rivets, pipes, valves, endrin gear and belts, so there is very little continuous surface. The signature look is clean brass and steel with sharply separated panels and heraldic freehand on prows and balloons — closer to painting a small ship than an infantryman.

Human-scale infantry sections of twenty behind a great deal of armour, but sealed void carapace is smooth and helmeted rather than hung with webbing and bare faces, so the sculpts are cleaner than a Guardsman's. Pale plate is nominally the punishing light-basecoat problem, and what lifts it clear is the answer the guide gives: undercoat Grey Seer, which is most of the finished colour already, and shade cool with thinned Drakenhof Nightshade, because brown-shading pale grey turns it into bone. Apothecary White is a one-coat version of the same.

No camouflage at all outside the Marines and one pot of US Olive Drab covers every vehicle in the motor pool, so the paint is quick — but all of the difficulty is concentrated in one value problem that the guide names as the commonest American mistake. Olive drab is two colours: shade No. 7 for the M1943 jacket and helmet, shade No. 3 for the wool shirt and trousers, and a 1944 GI is wearing both at once. Stacking them correctly, with khaki cotton webbing sitting BETWEEN the two in value so the torso keeps its shape, is a three-tone judgement made on every model, and getting it wrong is what makes an American squad look flat and toy-like. Nothing on the figure is black — russet Cavalry Brown boots, Khaki webbing — which is another decision rather than a skill. The Camo Cloak speed route gets ten men done in an evening and still needs the wool layer picked back in.

CONSENSUS CORRECTION: pre-Heresy World Eaters are white, not red, and that puts them with White Scars rather than with their 40k successors. White over clean MkVI covers badly, cannot take a normal wash, and here it has to stay crisp against the blue-and-red quartered plate and brass trim — hard-edged separations between light and saturated colours on every model.

A Guardian is two flat armour colours, a helmet, a gun and a gem — almost nothing to paint, and no rivets or cabling anywhere, which is why detail scores well and technique badly. Saturated Aeldari colours die over black, so the undercoat has to be Wraithbone or Grey Seer, the model must never be washed all over, and the scheme lives on a thin Moot Green edge line. Aeldari Emerald and the Spiritstone Red and Soulstone Blue technicals are real shortcuts; Iyanden's Averland Sunset is the craftworld that would drop this further still.

The second technique 1. The Legion's signature is not a colour but an effect — an iridescent blue-green that shifts as the model turns — which means either a colour-shift paint that still needs an even dark base to work over, or a hand-blended transition from teal to deep blue on every plate. Everything else about the model is as easy as MkVI gets, which is precisely why the scheme is the whole difficulty.

Big marine bodies buried under tabards, chains, scrolls, seals and hanging litanies. The scheme is the problem: black armour against white or bone shoulders and heraldry is the least forgiving pairing on the palette, since white next to black shows every wobble, and the crosses are freehand unless every one is a transfer.

Short, dense models covered in buckles, tankards, rune plates and mail, with a third of each figure given over to beard — very little continuous surface anywhere. The scheme itself is kind: deep hold blue is dark enough to hide brush marks, bronze is a basecoat, an Agrax wash and two layers, and all four beard colours are drybrushes where a slightly scruffy highlight looks better than a tidy one. What holds it at 3 is the freehand runes on the shields, and that the units are twenty models rather than forty, which the guide treats as licence to use a slower recipe throughout.

The one Chaos army that cannot hide behind rust — the guide's own instruction is 'do not weather them', because the whole conceit is perfection. Purple is a weak pigment that wants a Grey Seer undercoat and two or three thin coats of Naggaroth Night and Xereus Purple or it goes chalky, and the gold is not an accent but half the surface, four steps from Retributor Armour to Liberator Gold and consistent across a whole squad. Luxion Purple is a genuine shortcut; the immaculate finish it gets judged against is not.

Slim aelves, but the range is shallow and crisply sculpted with large clean panels, and a rank-and-flank elf army is a low model count. Tidy is the hard kind of scheme: white robes show every brush mark and must be shaded cool with Drakenhof Nightshade, because a brown wash takes them straight to grubby ivory, and there is no weathering available to cover a mistake since a dirty High Elf reads as an error rather than as campaign wear. Gems get a single dot each, and the guide's non-metallic gold ramp is optional — Apothecary White contrast is the route that keeps this at 2 rather than 1.

A long plain trenchcoat over a smooth bodyglove is about as clean a surface as a 28mm human gets, and there are ten of them rather than a platoon. The cost is that the whole scheme is built on value with no colour to hide behind: pale greys are chalky and streaky at pot consistency across a garment that large, the shadows have to stay cool because a brown wash turns Delaque into scruffy Van Saar, and the black bodyglove must stay genuinely black or the silhouette collapses. The blank white eyes are two solid ovals that have to match each other, which is harder than painting a pupil.

There is no rank and file here at all — an Inquisitor, a retinue, some Sisters of Silence and an Assassin, none of whom share a sculpt — so nothing batches and every model takes as long as a character should. They are human-scale and dense with parchment, purity seals, books and servo-skulls. The scheme itself is undemanding: Abaddon Black coats with a soft Eshin Grey edge, Retributor Armour under Agrax Earthshade, and one spot of Mephiston Red on every model, which is the trick that turns a shelf of unrelated miniatures into a warband.

The rank and file is a knight on a barded horse, so the models are cavalry-sized and the best freehand surface in the game comes attached to them. Rated with the Knight Houses and for the same reason: the heraldry is the model, and the guide is clear the army lives or dies on quartering shields and barding and landing a fleur-de-lys in two or three passes. What makes it a whole-army job rather than a centrepiece one is that every knight is a different nobleman, so the freehand is repeated a dozen times over. The underlying recipe never changes and the peasants are painted three times as fast.

CONTENTIOUS CALL, sitting at 2 rather than 1. The signature look is a fade from solid robe to translucent nothing, which done properly is a blend and is the reason Nighthaunt is on every 'hard to paint' list. GW sells the shortcut — Nighthaunt Gloom Contrast over white plus a white drybrush gets a convincing ghost in two steps — which is why it is also recommended to beginners. Sculpts are mid-sized, spindly and awkward to reach into.

Rubric Marines are ornate armour: scrollwork, ribbed cabling on the backpack, tassels and a lot of raised gold trim that has to be cut in by hand across every model. The signature look also expects a metallic or glazed blue rather than a flat one, plus glowing eyes and warpflame, which is object-source lighting on every single model.

Battle Sisters are slighter than marines and dense with rosaries, purity seals, tabards, fleur-de-lys and small delicate faces — bare faces at that scale are the hardest thing on any infantry model. CONSENSUS CORRECTION on colour: the pale orders (Valorous Heart's bone, the white-armoured schemes) carry the same white-basecoat problem as White Scars, and even the black Order of Our Martyred Lady demands crisp white-and-red separation over ornate trim.

The blue half of the army is genuinely forgiving — Thousand Sons Blue takes Drakenhof Nightshade and stops at a Teclis Blue edge, and Talassar Blue shades Tzaangor feathers for you in a coat. The pink half is not: Screamer Pink and Volupus Pink are low-coverage colours that need a white undercoat, and the warpfire that defines the faction is a built glow from Teclis Blue to Ulthuan Grey with the light glazed onto the hand holding it. Gold masks cut in on every Kairic Acolyte keep the detail score down.

Kabalite Warriors are slim and dark-armoured, which sounds forgiving until you notice that edge highlighting is not optional here — Incubi Darkness through Kabalite Green to a hair-thin Sybarite Green line is the entire technique of the army, repeated along every blade, spine and plate. The pale skin is the other cost: it has to be glazed with Druchii Violet rather than washed, because a flesh shade makes a Drukhari look sunburnt. Wyches are worse again, with far more skin and far more straps.

The Cadian arithmetic in Renaissance dress: human-scale infantry fielded in regiments of twenty and thirty, hung with pouches, feathered hats and halberds. The saving grace is that almost all of that ornament is two colours meeting on a hard edge rather than a blend, and the state halving is a straight line down a leg repeated the same way on every model. The puff-and-slash sleeves are the real ask — the lining goes on first and the state colour is cut back over it, because painting cream into a dark gap never comes out clean, and that is why so many half-finished Empire regiments have muddy sleeves.

28mm historical infantry fielded by the platoon, hung with Y-straps, ammo pouches, bread bag, canteen, entrenching tool and gas mask canister — the Cadian problem with a different silhouette. Feldgrau itself is easy once the tone is right, and Burnt Moss speedpaint plus one edge catch is twenty men in an evening. The score is held down by the camouflage, which is the signature and is hand-painted pattern work: hard-edged splinter shards with a rain of brush-tip ticks, or clusters of overlapping pea-dots in three colours, both unified afterwards with an Agrax pass.

The jade is not a colour but a surface, and the signature is a five-step lacquer done scale by scale: Incubi Darkness base, a shade in the joins, two shrinking layers, and a Gauss Blaster Green line along the top edge of every lamellar plate with a border of the base colour deliberately left showing around each one. Gold has to stay line work rather than fill, red has to stay fabric, and the armour is gloss varnished while everything else is matt — one finish across the model throws the whole effect away. Terradon Turquoise contrast gets a rank-and-file warrior most of the way there, which is what keeps this off the bottom band.

The hardest of the Bolt Action nations rated so far, and the only one of the five new ones asking for real brushwork rather than a colour choice. Green Grey plus a wash is a one-bottle uniform, but the army's identity sits in things that punish a rushed job: telo mimetico is three-colour freehand — rounded, soft-edged patches of Cavalry Brown and Camouflage Olive Green over Dark Sand, every one of which must be smaller than instinct says or it reads as a stain at 28mm; the Bersaglieri feather spray has to be drybrushed apart or it collapses into a black lump; and Blackshirts must be Black Grey edge-highlighted, never pure black. On top of that sits the same discrimination problem France and Hungary have — grigio-verde must read markedly lighter and greyer than feldgrau — plus a theatre decision, grey-green wool or Iraqi Sand drill, that has to be made before the first coat.

The only models in Necromunda you are allowed to paint clean, and that is the difficulty — there is no grime for a sloppy basecoat to hide behind. Purple is a poor coverer and a thick coat leaves brush marks on a smooth robe with no texture to break them up; the white heraldry has to be shaded with Apothecary White because a brown or black wash turns it into old bone; and hard gold and cloth of gold have to be finished differently on the same model or it reads as painted plastic. These are character models seen at arm's length, so the faces get the time rather than the robes.

Witch Aelves are small, slender and mostly bare skin, and large areas of exposed flesh on thin limbs are the hardest surface on any infantry model to make look good — flat skin reads as plastic and a wash reads as dirt. Add scale mail, wild flowing hair and a lot of small straps, and there is no easy shortcut anywhere on the model.

Slim daemon and mortal bodies buried in silk, hair, claws and harness, with no surface left quiet. The palette is the problem: Screamer Pink and Doomfire Magenta are low-coverage colours wanting a white undercoat, and the flesh has to stay cool — Daemonette Hide through Slaanesh Grey to Dechala Lilac — because one warm skin tone kills the whole scheme. The gold is a four-step job finished with a Stormhost Silver edge on models that often wear full plate, and the guide is explicit that a Painbringer's trim is slow work.

The one Necromunda house the guide says you cannot speedpaint your way out of. The bodygloves are smooth, tight-fitting and almost featureless — no folds to catch a wash and no straps to hide a mistake — so every uneven basecoat is on display, and contrast paints dry blotchy on exactly that kind of surface. The signature is object-source lighting: cyan emitters built up to a pure White Scar core and then glazed outwards onto the surrounding metal, which is the glow effect this axis reserves its bottom rating for. The gang is small and the surfaces are clean, which is why the other two axes score well.

The Imperial Fists problem in a mining rig. The guide is blunt that yellow is the difficulty and all of it comes down to the undercoat — hi-vis over black needs five coats and still goes olive in the recesses — so bone or zenithal Grey Seer first, then a four-step Averland-to-Flash-Gitz ramp kept thin because brush marks in yellow are extremely visible. Iyanden Yellow contrast is the honest shortcut. Around it sit pipework, pistons, drill housings and rigs that leave very little continuous surface, and weathering here is not decoration but the thing that stops a Prospector reading as a yellow Space Marine.

The clearest technique 1 in the file. The signature is freehand lightning crackling across the shoulder plates and legs of every single marine, over a midnight blue that itself is usually done as a fade from near-black to a lighter blue. Neither part can be bought as a transfer or a Contrast shortcut, and both have to be repeated across the whole army. Skulls, chains and flayed trophies keep the detail score down too.

The reference hard army. Skitarii Rangers are slight 32mm figures layered with cabling, hoses, mixed metals, leather, robes hung over machinery and bare mechanical guts — there is barely a square millimetre of continuous surface to work on. The scheme also asks for several materials to read differently on the same model, so a single wash cannot unify it.

The smallest crew in the game and the hardest thing in it to paint. The whole look rests on one effect — a pale, faintly iridescent hunting rig with nothing dirty on it — built by glazing barely-visible Ahriman Blue, Volupus Pink and Nurgling Green into neighbouring panels so the eye reads a shift across them, which is a blending exercise by another name. The chrome alternative is a gloss undercoat and recess-only shading, and the lenses are object-source glows. A pearlescent surface records every ridge of paint, and deep recesses behind the limbs and cabling mean painting in sub-assemblies.

Widely judged the hardest range in Age of Sigmar and the reason technique 1 exists. Vanari Auralan Wardens are slim aelves with delicate faces, and the signature scheme is pale bone and white robes with cold blue and gold — a light, low-contrast palette that only reads well as a smooth blend, since a wash over pale cloth just makes it dirty. Add fine filigree, long banners and freehand mountain iconography.