Review: Warcolours Nostalgia 94 paints

Oldhammer fans rejoice, you can now paint like it’s 1994 again! Warcolours’ Nostalgia 94 range is designed to recreate the colours and feeling of the Citadel paint range of the late 90s. Since then, miniature paints have made quite some progress, so I’m curious whether nostalgia paints can keep up with modern paint ranges or not.

Warcolours are a small paint manufactory from Cyprus, which have quite a few acrylic paint ranges available. Like the Nostalgia 88 range, which is designed to match the first gen Citadel Colour paints in the round flip-tops from the late 80s.

Now comes the Nostalgia 94 range, and this range is modelled after the Citadel Colour paint range from 1994 in the hexagonal pots. So far, the 10 colours from the original paint set are available, plus a set of glazes. The rest of the range is following in the course of 2023. The 90s Citadel Colours starter set in the red box with the Space Marine and Chaos Warrior was the first starter set I ever bought when I started the hobby. I used these Citadel paints for years. So I’m very familiar with the ups and downs of the 90s Citadel paint range. So I was very eager to give the Nostalgia 94 range a try and see how they measure up:

Nostalgia 94 review

The first thing I notice is that the paints come in dropper bottles instead of pots. While the Nostalgia 88 range has the classic flip-top pots, the 94 range has dropper bottles instead. I think that’s good, even if it’s less authentic. It’s just my personal preference, but I like dropper bottles better than pots. Especially in combination with a wet palette, I think dropper bottles are much more practical, though I know pots have a lot of fans as well. Each bottle of paint contains 17ml for an RRP of 3.50 Euro, which is not too bad considering these paints come from a small manufactory.

With Nostalgia 94, Warcolours promised that they matched the labels, smell, feel, and consistency of the original line. Like the old Citadel paints, the colours are very pure and bright, but they are also thin and cover rather weakly. Even over white primer, several coats are needed to create an opaque base coat. I also found Mithril Silver quite hard to work with, but I remember my original Mithril Silver was pretty much unusable as well. Flesh Wash is a rather heavy wash with a lot of tint, so I recommend adding some Contrast or Lahmian Medium for thinning.

On the plus side, the paints don’t separate much, even if you leave them on a wet palette for a long time, and are ready to use after just a quick shake. The consistency is rather thin and together with the moisture of my wet palette I usually didn’t need any further thinning. The colours apply smoothly. But as they dry quite quickly, you still need to be a bit careful so you don’t leave visible brush marks. Be aware that the finish is very satin, almost glossy.

Nostalgia 94 vs Citadel colour match

And what about the colour match? Warcolours promises a match of at least 95% to the old Citadel colours. I still have two old colours in my possession, and here I compare the original Enchanted Blue and Bronzed Flesh with the Nostalgia 94 variants.

Both Nostalgia colours seem a touch lighter, but in general, they are close enough and match the colours as you remember them from back then. Most importantly, the Nostalgia 94 Goblin Green is also immediately recognisable as the classic hue of Goblin Green. Though, as my buddy Juan Hidalgo found out in his video, the match isn’t 100% either, more like the 95% that Warcolours promise.