Best of: Tale of Painters October 2025

Welcome to October’s recap! This was a very review-heavy month, with unboxings of lots of new Space Marines, Ultramarines and Helsmiths of Hashut models, and the newest paint reviews. We also had a free step-by-step tutorials for the Zharrdron of Muspelzhaar, and much more.

Tale of Painters is the unofficial miniature painting hobby magazine. For over 15 years, we’ve been your go-to source for honest reviews of the latest Warhammer models, miniature paints, and hobby tools. We also have 300+ detailed tutorials and painting guides, and of course, inspiring paint jobs and projects to share. Here’s a roundup of our best posts this month.

Reviews

All the new Ultramarines model kits in our courageos unboxing:

Plus more reviews:

• Warhammer Underworlds got a new expansion with Spitewood
• More Space Marine characters in our review of the Captain with Jump Pack and Thunder Hammer, Caanok Var, and Suboden Khan
• We reviewed wave 2 of the Helsmiths of Hashut releases, here is part 1 covering Urak Taar, the Bull Centaurs and Daemonsmith on foot, plus part 2 with the Infernal Razers and Hobgrot Vandalz
• High-res sprue images for the new Assault Terminators and Terminator Ancient in our Crux Terminatus Battleforce review
• Some frustrations with Green Stuff World’s Maxx Formula range
• A deep dive into the new Dark Arts expansion for Duncan Rhode’s Two Thin Coats paint range
• Stahly’s first impression of the Mini Colour Kickstarter from Artis Opus and Cult of Paint

Also check out the video Stahly made for the Dark Arts review:

Tutorials & tips:

Here comes a free step-by-step tutorial for painting the black, gold and yellow of Muspelzharr:

Plus more:

• The best midnight cyan sea blue paints, picked from Stahly’s vast paint archive

Miniature showcases:

• This is a collection of our 5 best painted Warhammer Underworlds warbands
• At long last, Stahly’s (no longer legal) Hive Fleet Kraken Kill Team on display
• An Ultramarines Terminator Squad from Dunk

Patreon update

We’d love it if you supported our work on Patreon. In addition to weekly behind-the-scenes posts, you’ll get bonus content like extra high-res sprue images for all our Warhammer reviews and more detailed masterclass PDF tutorials. You’ll also be supporting Stahly’s paint swatch project. He’s made it his mission to catalogue the colours of all miniature paint brands into professional, cross-compatible paint swatches and keep them up to date.

Here are this month’s key updates:

• Stahly released a brand new swatch for Green Stuff World paints. 154 colours in total, featuring the Maxx Formula range, Opaque Colors, Metallics, and Wash Inks. Grab the swatch in the shop.
• V1.3 of the Vallejo Model Color swatch adds the 19 metallic colours from Vallejo’s Metal Color range. Get the update here.
• Stahly also updated the Two Thin Coats swatch to V4.0, a free update that features improved accuracy across the board plus all 30 new Dark Arts colours.

Thank you for engaging with our content this month. We hope it provided some useful tips and inspiration for your hobby. Feel free to leave us your feedback or suggestions here in the comments or on the feedback channel of our friendly hobby Discord server. Thanks a lot, and happy hobbying!