So they've changed the new Shades to work better for recess shading, rather than full washing? ... Who's betting they'll come back in a few months/a year with a 'brand new Wash range' that's exactly the same as the old shades, but more expensive because of the 24ml bottle size?

I just used the Army painter acrylic ink shaders. They work great. Soft tone, strong tone, dark tone. They are the equivalent of the Games Workshop holy trinity. Cheaper too.

An interesting video idea might be to see what competitors versions of these washes match the closest to your holy trinity and can fill the gap that GW can no longer offer

Whenever a company introduces a "new and improved recipe" it's always because it's cheaper to produce

GW once again "fixing" a problem that didn't exist in first place.

I loved them old shades. RIP beautiful shades.

Apart from Agrax I switched to Army Painter washes a few years ago and have never looked back. I am keen to test the new "white"GW washes but Army Painter is the way forward

I suppose that Nuln Oil and Agrax are the most bought paints from Citadel. They are the two single most recommended paints/shades to get from GW. Why ruin them? Why try to fix something that doesn't need fixing? Just to raise profits? But if the overall product is worse that less people would by that. I mean the bottles got smaller and the shade itself got less pigments or forms more puddles. This is a disaster!!

I was initially quite happy because - at the rate I paint and use them - I've got enough left of the old washes to last a year or two. But I'm also overdue to knock over a paint pot, so...

Never thought I would ever see Uncle Atom loose his cool like this, the man was in a rage! 😁

I frequently take advantage of the tinting/staining effect of the old Citadel washes to modify or harmonise the hue of something I've painted, in addition to shading it. As such these new Citadel washes have left me somewhat concerned. For when you want them only to recess shade models I think they'll be pretty good but I may have to modify my workflow somewhat when I run out of old washes.

You know, I really am sick of GW changing up/getting rid of paints for absolutely no reason other than pushing out something shiny and new. When you spend years painting miniatures for a single army, the ONE thing you want from a paint range is continuity.

Nearly every hobbyist : GW is getting worse and worse ... GW : Let's change the only thing every hobbyist still likes about us !

Thanks for the update! I am heading out to stock up on the old stuff now!

Only GW products I still buy are Agrax earth shade, Nuln oil, sometimes sepia and their brushes. Out of all of these Agrax is the most important. I'm worried this might make models I paint in the future look different from the ones I've already painted.

GW's new business idea" let's water everything down, smaller pots and best of all same prices as before" surely just what everyone wanted.

Excellent video, especially that it was from the nerd bunker!! This is my favourite kind of comparison video, it feels real-time & I love the honesty of opinion too! 😁👍

Thank you for putting this out there! I have been slowly replacing my paints with other manufacturers and was hoping to continue using the washes from GW as they were doing a very good job. Considering the pot size and the issues you've mentioned I now want to look a different direction for my shading needs.

I'm definitely looking forward to trying out the reformulated shades, but I always love hearing your thoughts on this stuff, Atom. Its always interesting to me to hear how two different artists can have varying experiences with a product or approach. Looking forward to your vid on the contrasts next!

Interesting. I've actually switched to the Tamiya Panel Line for these colors personally. I find the advantage with it is I can easily remove any excess after it dries, and it dries in minutes.

I think you nailed it when you mentioned "workflow". Over the years, gw forced me to change my workflow many times due to changing/adding/discontinuing paints. While I find a good thing to explore new stuff, paints and recipes, I don't like being forced to. That's one of the reasons I almost entirely switched to other brands years ago, except a few gw paint here and there

I found that for the contrast paints, just adding water would make them flow a lot better and behave like washes. Use contrast medium to make them more transparent. That was one feature I liked, I could get very different flows and effects depending on how I diluted it. In fact, I preferred that to the straight washes like Nuln Oil.

Cheers for the vid about this, as the person who introduced me to zenithal and its surrounding techniques i was waiting to hear your opinion on the reformulation!

That's exactly how I felt looking at it when it was first announced. You just confirmed I'll be sticking to the old stuff for a while!

Looks like I’ve made the shift to oil washes just in time! I still use GW Shades, just not as often. I am very excited for the new Contrast paints, however.

Glazing with super thin oil paints has replaced the holy trinity of washes for me for almost a year now. More uniform surface tinting, easily erasable mistakes and the ability to streak for fast weathering make them a joy to work with

I can only paint one way and that is to slop it on, tabletop ready is all I aspire to 😀 so will have to pick up a few more pots of the old stuff.

I really appreciate your review, what I would say about the new stuff is that you have to apply it differently to the old shades. You have to be more mindful of how much is on your brush and where it goes. With the old stuff I just use to slop it on and then re-paint my base layer, whereas with the new shades you can reduce the amount of work you have to do after you've shaded the recesses.

the fact that GW can't leave well alone with paints is the best reason to use paints from somewhere else, basically can't say with any certainty that if you come back to a GW army after a few years you will get the paints. and they have done this before, remember Devlin Mud? near perfection in a pot.. so they changed it

Never a good sign when (after testing) the reaction to a new product is to rush out and stock up on the old product before it goes completely out of stock.

It may be a slight change but the consistency of paint colours in an army is really important, as those 3 in particular are used on all my models i will either have to buy up the old stock so i can stay consistent with new models or try and colour match my own wash because i really don't want to have to repaint all my models to make sure they match.

I'm glad I went and got a bunch of Drakenhof Nightshade pots for my son's Ultramarines - he's 11 and the classic method of base coat, shade, layer, drybrush highlight works well for him.

In Food Industry "new formula" = We made a way to make it even CHEAPER! Looks same for GW

Thank you for this! As a Necron player, Nuln Oil is incredibly important!

I’m still interested in testing out the new washes, but I finally got around to testing out oil washes this week and I was blown away; having more working time with the wash has improved my painting a lot.

It was refreshing to see a paint, paint in the style I do and see how the new shades perform. I've seen lots of videos about them, but its mostly people who know how to use contrast (spoiler alert, these new shades are watered down contrast), and you do need to move the paint around like contrast.

I've been using Army Painter shades and they've been okay, in my quest to discover a good Nuln Oil replacement I've now found out about Vallejo army wash which comes in a 200 ml pot and is super cheap. Reviews I've found are generally good so I need to get my hands on it ASAP to try it out!

Remember everyone, 25% reduced size for same price equals 33% higher price for volume! Load up on shades while you can.

I'm glad I bought WAYYYY to many washes now... Thanks GW for making my insane hubris of buying more washes than I'll ever need validated. :D I usually water down the sepia a bit when I use it so it being thinner for the new version isn't a surprise. I love using slightly watered down Nuln Oil for black lining, Sepia for adding a bit of depth to faces and browns/tans as well as copper and non-silver metallics.

This whole video is a great way of promoting mixing your own washes. Mixing your own is cheaper and you have total control over flow and depth of colour. Personally I make my washes using oil paints which are most versatile and because of there slow drying characteristics allows plenty of time to adjust coverage and depth of staining. Using turps they can be thinned as wanted so amount of 'spread' can be adjusted exactly and where too much has been applied a wipe with cloth dampened with turps will allow either complete removal or subtle adjustments to be made. Oil pants also allow some interesting affects like depicting rust stains which peter out as they spread down the rusted object, the same goes of dicpicting leaking fluids or bleeding wounds. Oil paints are by there nature transparent allowing different coloured washed to be overlaid which can create some unique effects.

Seems like Army Painter quicksahdes (the dropper bottle ones, not the dips in tins) look like a better option now instead of the reformated GW stuff.

This is why I'm glad I over-bought my washes a long while back, and have enough to last potentially years (so long as they aren't in a super hot environment). Because GW likes to mess things up that don't require any changing at all.

Great video Adam, good info, seemed well thought out and properly tested. I have yet to buy the contrast-y shades, but I'm glad I haven't gone out to buy them. My initial thought was that they would be great, but not all that glitters is gold, it would seem, while I'm not opposed to change, I feel like this new iteration of shades is still in testing with the general 40k customer base, and I cant wait to see the future of shades and your videos on them

I did the exact same thing and restocked my shades - after this video I might even hunt down some more and increase my stockpile

Ok, looks like there are two options now: 1.) Say hello to the Washes of companys like Vallejo or The Army Painter. (Which are good Products. I'm kind of a hopper through this washes all the time, because sometimes I can't get the wash I want from one company.) 2.) Find a recepy to mix your own washes online. (There are a few.) Either way: GW tries the old trick of getting more money for less product.

24ml to 18ml for the same price? they're such conmen

Whole model covered is cool test, but I've usually done that on really textured parts. I wonder how both versions compare on direct recess application. I know that using gloss varnish is really helpful, but usually I'm too lazy. I've recently realized that I'm using GW washes less and less... I've got bored of reapplying paint to areas where wash went, so now I'm painting with what's on my palette already (just thinning with water). It's much more fun!

Sounds like a great time to try out oil washes, especially if you like your minis dank.

When I do use washes, I prefer the army painter ones because they behave more like inks. I do use seraphim sepia once in a while still because I like the tone and haven't found a good replacement for it yet, but I also haven't looked very hard. For the last year or so I've been relying more on oil washes and Tamiya panel liners than hobby washes, but that's the gunpla nerd in me.

Thank you for your video. This development is highly interesting. I noticed a change in Agrax and the canoptec shade (released with new necrons). These set At bottom after some days of standing exactly like contrast paints, which is annoyong as hell. I think they changed the formula because of resource or financial reasons.

I have been thinning down Speed Paint for my washes lately. I also use Tamiya panel liner more than GW washes. A carry over from building tank models.

@Tabletop Minions Hello there, You are one if not THE main source of referance for when i try to paint. Especialy now, Last year i had 3 strokes in my brain, 3 bloodcloths, they paralyzed me for a time leaving my right side of my body non functional, stubbon as i am i fought my way back on my feet and got arm and leg forking again, one of the things that helped me get back was that i got a bunch of blood angles i want to paint (arround a company of primaris blood angles) so watching you getting hints and how to's have been a greath help, along with the contrast paints saving me some time doing multiple layers ( :D ) Thank you for your helpfull videos, they are super helpfull! Kind regars "Franzi"

This is exactly why I invested in P3 and Valejo paints. 8+ years using them with little to no change or headaches like this. Makes the hobby more affordable as well, in my area Citadel paints are the priciest and least performative.

Even if they made the paint "better" it still wouldn't be good because it's gonna be impossible to make models look the same as your old ones and that matters to me a lot more. If they just made new stuff that would be fine, but why take away?

The new versions of the shades are constrast formula :) The big upside is that you can now mix the shades with the contrast paints!!! Which is AWESOME.

Thanks for this. I too use those three shades all of the time!

Where would this hobby be without Agrax and Nuln Oil? It's like eating dinner without a knife and fork at this point.

GW released these for one reason and one reason only. As an excuse to give you less paint that has less pigment (and saves them a ton of money) for the same price. Period. Shrinkflation...it's a real thing with all corporations.

Looking forward to how this turns out. Hopefully they bring back the old formula. Nice video. Keep up the good work.

Vallejo game wash "Sepia shade" was a great replacement for me a few years ago, it's great. I don't think my heart could handle spilling another GW wash pot again, it would implode with rage. One trick to really feel the consistency of a paint is to paint a little line on your left hand, you can very easily tell how it goes down the natural recesses of skin and it doesn't absorb like it does if you test on paper.

I've been using Contrast paint instead of GW's "shade" paints, and as I don't glob it all over for recess shading it works quite well. So the change to a "shade" mixed with the same medium as Contrast paint doesn't concern me much. What intrigues me is if I now have to buy Contrast Medium to thin the "new" "shades". Of course, as many have stated, GW don't do themselves any favours with their anti-consumer practices, like using shrinkflation on these "new" washes, it would seem many are getting fed up with it, as am I, but there are enough apologists that GW will never get the message...

Washes were the last good reason I had for paying a premium on Citadel paint, I guess now there’s no good reason 🙃

Thanks Uncle I appreciate the insight 👍👍

Excellent video first time finding your channel defo subscribed 👍🏻

Very interesting, have you used AP washes? They also feel more heavy and sticky compared to old formula GW washes, I like GW nuln oil and Agrax although I prefer AP’s color washes more than GW, they are quite a bit lighter in saturation.

This is weird, Vince’s test (literally the same, splitting Space Marines in 2) gives the opposite result: less blotchiness and less staining with the new ones…

Helpful as always. On my way to buy some shades before the new ones come out

Great information! Thanks for this!

As someone who works in the paint industry I think this reformulation is probably because of a material shortage forcing them to find new ways to make stuff. At least that's what pretty much every paint manufacturer in the states are forced to do right now. For example the one of the main ingredients for latex paint had it's allocation at my work reduced to 40% of what we bought back in 2019

GW “Classic Coke” repackaging is right around the corner…coming to a local hobby store near you 😳

yup ninjon said a similar thing, they behave and feel like contrasts now more than shades and that is clearly evident with how the look almost exactly like how contrasts do over shoulder pads etc.

Very useful video! Thank you for the hard work!

I'm doing the same buying the old ones up where I can. Gutted they have changed sepia. Use it for my nids.

The old shades were excellent the way they were, they didn't need to change them, they were great for all-over color modulation. I might just have to switch to oils and ditch the old style entirely, just so I'm not at the whims of proprietary blends.

I figured it would be like this. Good thing I have a crud load of the old stuff!

Thanks for the heads-up.

I got to test all of them at my gw store, and I feel like I would want a bottle of the old stuff, and a bottle of the new stuff on hand. I would have greatly prefered the new nuln oil for my night lords over the old nuln oil. It tinting things less is a HUGE boon for me. I don't see this as ruined at all. My Casandora yellow though, how will I ever paint blonde hair again if I knock my pot over, really unhappy about that one. My thoughts on agrax are super mixed, but mostly negative. Also mixed on Drakenhoff Nightshade and Druchii violet changes, I think they flowed well, but they work worse for trying to do quick and easy muzzle burn. I personally didn't have much issue with the gummy-ness when I tried them myself, I suppose its because I don't glop them on? I'm not sure, but I just don't see them as "ruined" like a lot of people in here seem to think. Except casadora yellow. Look how they massacred my boy.

My biggest critique is that they didn't split the contrast range into base, general and shade categories. With my specific "painting style" i think i will prefer the new shades. But completely discontinuing any kind of wash/stain product seems super strange to me. Together with contrast paint, it is literally the only type that benefits from pots instead of dropper bottles.

I want to recommend the Green Stuff World washes, Andalusian Earth and Ancient Sepia (ca. equivalents of Agrax and S Sepia). Right now my favorite washes.

I know this was mentioned in the article about the new contrast paint but why change what's not broken. I am now going to have to see if I can get some of the old style ones just to keep as I had to do with Thunderhawk Blue Dry.

Oh no! That’s me done with my favourite washes. Guess I’ll look at Army Painters stuff.

you are totally justified in referring to those three washes as the "Holy Trinity." they are the "go to" for so much!

We had this when they lost Delven Mud and that line amazing washes have some saved for special days and nothing works as well talent in a bottle

Nice analysis! I've been curious about these three in particular. I will have to try them out. I always have my Army Painter washes as a backup. I would love to hear your thoughts on the now more complete line of contrast paints.

Sounds like they pulled a "new Coke", can't wait for GW "classic" washes.

New is not necessarily better. From your results it looks as though the new formulation is better at pin washing as opposed to an overall wash. I will be stocking up on the old formula too. Thanks for this review, it was very helpful.

What I've been doing for using contrast medium and making my own washes. I take a full pot of medium and putting 5 drops of desired color into them. The pigment nearly only goes into the recesses. Something to try out if you want to

for those despairing at the loss of the old shades: come to vallejo, we have everything and more.

I am comfortable with change in life, as long as Agrax Earthshade, Seraphim Sepia and Nuln Oil stay exactly the same. Seriously, why would they mess with those!?!

Hmm... they look okay to me. The biggest annoyance will be shaking them up. The old ones were so easy to use. I wish they hadn't changed them though: these washes are renowned across the hobby as being excellent. Messing with them is a massive gamble.

I have been using army painters speed paint now over contrast. Also their shades (light/dark tone) which works better for dark shading

I'm a big seraphim sepia user, often to stain white/ivory/some marble effects. If you are disappointed by the new Seraphim Sepia for that type of effect, I recently switched to a Skeleton Horde Contrast/Contrast Medium mix for that same effect, finding the staining to be more consistent.

This is strange to hear. I was in the shop the other day with some guys using the new washes, and they were saying they were much easier to work with and got better results than the old forumulations. But then again, they weren't slopping it all over flat white. As you indicated toward the end, it may just come down to what you're using them for.

I find then too diluted compared to the old wash colour wise. Sure the texture is more "gummier" but hue to me is more lighter I like the older one cause they are more "grunge-er" Ok the diluted are more controlled but I find the older one are better for a more dirty look

you should consider making a video about alternative not GW shades available and how well they do the job

Had the same experience. I was basically using old washes as an ink for metall colors. They are really good for that. With new shades, they collect more in recesses and i cant really use them as ink. Dont particulary like this, but it will probably work better as shading.

Honestly I like that more - I'm looking for Nuln Oil to do less staining and more of getting to the cracks. I was first excited about this through a video by Ninjon, and this seems to confirm it a bit. If you like the staining effect, I suggest Basilicanum Grey.

This is why I switched to army painter The speed paints are more consistent than the gw contrast paint The inks are always consistent And they're way cheeper!!

I would like to see a test on longevity. I've heard contrast paints can scratch or rub off when handled, while the old shades seemed to act like a varnish.

Thanks for the heads up. Sounds like a step backwards for GW. I use tons of my own trinity (swap reikland flesh for seraphim sepia) and especially on terrain. That new stuff isn't going to work for me in those projects anymore. It MIGHT work on my regular models still but it seems like we'll need to thin it a ton more.