Review: Zombicide 2nd Edition Paint Set by The Army Painter

The Army Painter is about to release a new Zombicide branded starter paint set, including no less than 20 acrylic Warpaints with an interesting selection of metallics, muted browns and beiges, three different washes, and two blood effect paints. In this review, we’ll find out if this set makes a good purchase to expand your paint collection – even if you’re not interested in Zombicide.

The Zombicide 2nd Edition paint set contains both the earlier Core set and the Survivor paint set, which are now out of print. Included are 20 warpaints in 18 ml dropper bottles, a synthetic starter brush, and a special Phil, the Cop miniature and rule card. The set is currently on pre-order and will release on April 10, 2021. The Army Painter also offers a few other Zombicide paint sets designed to compliment expansions such as Black Plague and Invader, and paint sets for the core Warpaints range as well.

We reviewed The Army Painter’s Warpaints range here and here. The Army Painter also do dedicated paint ranges for games like Dungeons & Dragons, or Kings of War. Most of these dedicated paint ranges feature the same core Warpaints but with a different name, with a few exclusive colours here and there.

This item was kindly provided by The Army Painter. Opinions are our own.

Features

The 20 Zombicide branded acrylic paints included in the set come in the same 18 ml dropper bottles as regular The Army Painter Warpaints. 16 paints are renamed colours from the core range, 3 paints are Zombicide exclusive colours, and 1 colour was originally a unique colour from The Army Painter’s Dungeons & Dragons paint range. On each bottle, you’ll find a small note that tells you if there is a matching Warpaint in the core range, in case you need to replace a paint you ran out of. I don’t know why The Army Painter can’t keep the same paint names across their various ranges, maybe it’s a license thing. Here is a list of all included paints and their counterparts from the core Warpaints range for your reference:

Zombie Skin (= Skeleton Bone from the core range), Dead Black (= Matt Black), Pale White (= Matt White), Rotten Skin (= Necrotic Skin), Filthy Suit (= Filthy Cape), Dirt Splatter (= Dirt Splatter), Survivor Skin (= Barbarian Skin), Wasted Jeans (= Griffon Blue), Crusted Sore (= Crusted Sore), Moldy Clothes (= Moldy Clothes), Wanda Blonde (= Goblin Skin from the D&D range). Molotov Flames, Depot Green, and Abomination Skin are the three colours exclusive to the Zombicide paint sets for the time being.

Molotow Flames is a pastel light orange, think of a colour between Citadel Fire Dragon Bright and Lugganath Orange. Depot Green is a yellowish olive green, think of Citadel Ogryn Camo but deeper and more yellowish. Abomination Skin is a nice and opaque light beige that sits right between Citadel Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh.

You’ll also get three washes (black, dark brown, and warm brown for caucasian skin), a glossy blood effect paint and a deep red for dried blood, two shades of silver, a very good black and white, and a good selection of “secondary” colours such as a caucasian skin tone, muted beige, bone and green colours for rotted skin, and brown, denim blue and green for painting clothes.

The paints included in the set are perfect to reproduce the box art paint job for Phil, the Cop. However, I feel the selection of colours compliments any setting, be it the grimdark future, the Mortal Realms, or Middle-earth. It might lack a few basic colours such as yellow or a pure red, so it might not be the perfect starter when you want to dabble into painting tabletop miniatures for the first time, but if you already bought one of the Warhammer 40.000 or Age of Sigmar starter paint sets, then this set is the perfect next step to expand your paint collection with useful secondary colours at a budget.

The Army Painter Warpaints are heavily pigmented paints, most of them with an above-average opacity, think of the qualities of Citadel Base paints. Because of this pigment-heavy formula, a few of them tend to separate, which means that the heavy pigment will settle at the bottom, and only semi-transparent acrylic medium will come out of the nozzle at first. These aren’t faulty paints, they’ll just require a good shaking or some stirring with a cocktail stick to blend the paint properly. Garfy shared a few tips for keeping your paints properly mixed a while ago, make sure to check it out. Find out more about Warpaints’ properties in our lengthy Warpaints review (part 1 here and part 2 here).

Value

The whole set has an RRP of 55 Euro / £ 50. Deducting 3.50 Euro for the brush and dividing by 20 results in 2.57 Euro for a single Warpaint. That’s a nice discount, considering regular acrylic Warpaints have an RRP of 2.75 Euro, while washes and metallic Warpaints have an RRP of 2.99 Euro. And don’t forget that Warpaints come in 18 ml dropper bottles, 6 ml more than regular Citadel paint pots. Price per ml is 0.14 Euro in this set, while regular 12 ml Citadel paint pots with an RRP of 3.60 Euro make a whopping 0,30 Euro per ml, more than double. And we didn’t even count the free Zombicide miniature in!

The set is available directly from thearmypainter.com, or at our partner stores Wayland Games and Element Games at a 10% discount.