Best of: Tale of Painters December 2025

Happy New Year! We’re starting 2026 with a look back at the best posts from December 2025. We had XXL reviews of hyped products like Vallejo True Metallic Metal paints, the new Cataphractii in the Siege Assault Battle Group, plus tips and many miniature showcases. December was also marked by the turn of the year, with Stahly and Dunk reflecting on their hobby year and sharing their resolutions for 2026.

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

Are the new Cataphractii an up- or downgrade? Find out in our review of the Legiones Astartes Siege Assault Battle Group:

Plus more reviews:

• The next generation of metallic paints? Stahly reviews Vallejo’s True Metallic Metal range
• Tomy does some adorable Warhammer plushies and here is our review
• Green Stuff World released a set of five extra “vivid” metallic paints, here is what Stahly thinks
• Are the new Cataphractii an up- or downgrade? Find out in our review of the Legiones Astartes Siege Assault Battle Group
• Plus a recap & ranking of the best miniature paints released in 2025

Stahly also made a video about the top 5 paints of 2025, highly recommended for anyone who is enthusiastic about miniature paint!

Tutorials & tips:

Filling seam lines and gaps can be chore… but after 20 years in the hobby, I finally found the best putty for the job:

Plus more:

• The best cold & warm silver paints, picked from Stahly’s vast paint archive

Miniature showcases:

• Check out Dunk’s beautiful Saim-Hann Scorpion and Hornet
• Our top 5 best Warhammer Quest posts (with a fully painted box of Warhammer Quest 1995 and Cursed City!)
• Stahly painted Urkhan, the Dark Warden, sharing all his painting recipes in a painting guide

• Also, here comes a gallery of all the models Stahly painted in 2025, with a recap of the year and hobby resolutions for 2026
• Dunk also wrote a recap of his hobby year, with lots of lovely paint jobs that haven’t appeared on Tale of Painters before

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:

• Vallejo’s True Metallic Metal range is a huge hit, and Stahly made a brand-new swatch V1.0 with all 80 colours, plus samples for all the Light and Base paints shaded with the corresponding Shade paints. Also, Vallejo Metal Color is included. Grab the swatch in the shop.
• Update V1.1 of Stahly’s Green Stuff World swatch added the 5 new “vivid” metallic paints plus the 8 Candy gloss inks. Here is how to get the free update.

This hand-painted swatch is available in my Patreon shop for a small donation (or by becoming an Autarch tier member). I also have swatches for Vallejo Game & Model Color, Citadel Colour, AK 3rd Gen, Warpaints Fanatic, and Two Thin Coats – all cross-compatible with each other so you can compare colours across different brands. Check out my shop for details.

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!