How Many Paints Do You Need to Start?
About twelve. Here is exactly which twelve, and what each one is doing.
The short answer
About twelve paints. You need four or five opaque basecoats in your scheme's colors, one brown wash, one black wash, one or two lighter tones for highlights, one dark metallic, and one color for the base rim. A twelve-to-sixteen paint starter set covers all of that, which is why starter sets are genuinely good value.
The quick version
| # | Product | Best for | Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Citadel Colour: Warhammer 40,000 Paints + Tools SetThe only starter set that hands you paints, a brush, clippers and a moldline scraper at once, so nothing else is needed to finish a first squad. | The twelve-paint problem, solved in a box | 9.0 | Check price on Amazon |
| 2 |  Vallejo Game Color Introduction Set (72.299)Sixteen 18 ml bottles covering the whole color wheel plus three metallics. The cheapest honest route to a complete working palette. | Sixteen colors including metallics | 8.4 | Check price on Amazon |
| 3 |  Citadel Shade: Agrax EarthshadeA warm brown wash that flows into recesses and makes almost any color scheme look finished. If you buy a single wash, this is it. | The wash most people forget | 9.2 | Check price on Amazon |
Scores are our own editorial read against the criteria stated below — not a lab measurement and not a user rating. Tap a row for the full write-up.
The list
Here is the actual shopping list, by job rather than by color name, because the colors depend on your scheme and the jobs do not.
| # | What | Type | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary armor or cloth color | Base | The biggest area of the model. You will empty this pot first. |
| 2 | Secondary color | Base | Trim, cloaks, shoulder pads. The color that makes the scheme read. |
| 3 | Leather or brown | Base | Straps, pouches, wood, haft. Every model has some. |
| 4 | Skin or bone | Base | Faces, hands, teeth, trophies. |
| 5 | Black | Base | Base rims, boots, gun casings. Also the color you touch up mistakes with. |
| 6 | Dark silver | Base (metallic) | Weapons, buckles, armor plate. See metallics. |
| 7 | Brown wash | Shade | The step that makes the model look finished. Not optional. |
| 8 | Black wash | Shade | Over the metal, and over cool colors the brown would spoil. |
| 9 | Lighter version of #1 | Layer | Edge highlights on the main color. The technique that reads from a distance. |
| 10 | Lighter version of #4 | Layer | Highlighting faces and bone, which is where the eye goes first. |
| 11 | An accent color | Base or Layer | Lenses, gems, glowing effects, a spot of red. Makes the model look deliberate. |
| 12 | Bright silver | Layer (metallic) | Edge highlights on metal. The cheapest way to make metal look like metal. |
Twelve. You can paint a complete, consistent, table-ready army with exactly those and nothing else, and most painters’ first twenty models are painted with fewer.
What you can cut if you want ten
Items 11 and 12 are genuinely optional for a first squad. Items 9 and 10 can be mixed from #1 and #4 plus white, which costs you nothing but a white you probably already want.
What you cannot cut is #7 and #8. A model with no wash is a model that will not look finished whatever else you do to it, and this is the most common hole in a self-assembled first purchase. If you buy ten paints and two of them are not washes, buy differently.
Why forty colors fails
The pattern is consistent: someone buys an impressive-looking collection of thirty or forty individual pots, paints three models to eighty percent, and stops. The colors are all there. The wash is not, the metallic is not, and nothing looks done.
The reason is that choosing paints by color rather than by job biases you heavily towards basecoats. Basecoats are the fun purchase — they are the colors you can picture on the model. Washes and metallics are the boring ones, so they get left out, and they are the two that finish the job.
That is why a starter set is genuinely good value rather than a beginner tax: someone has already made sure the boring pots are in the box. The sets are compared in the starter set roundup.
What to buy next, and when
The rule that keeps a paint collection useful: buy the pot when a model needs it, not before. That single habit is the difference between forty paints you use and forty paints you own.
In practice the next purchases, roughly in order, tend to be:
- A refill of #1, because you will genuinely run out of your army’s main color first.
- A third wash, usually a sepia for bone or a dark green for grimy effects.
- A texture paste when you start basing properly.
- A matte varnish when the first army starts getting handled — see sealing.
- The second army’s colors, which is where the collection actually starts growing.
What the paint list does not include
Three things that are not paint and are not optional:
- Primer. Paint without it rubs off.
- Two brushes — a size 1 and a size 0. Not a twelve-brush set.
- Somewhere to put thinned paint. A wet palette, improvised from a food container if you like.
The whole first purchase, sequenced and costed, is in your first army shopping list and what it costs to start.
The picks in full
Citadel Colour: Warhammer 40,000 Paints + Tools Set
The only starter set that hands you paints, a brush, clippers and a moldline scraper at once, so nothing else is needed to finish a first squad.
What it gets right
- Covers all five Citadel paint types, so tutorials that name a Citadel color just work
- The clippers and moldline scraper mean you can go from box to painted without a second order
- Agrax Earthshade and Armageddon Dust are in the box, so shading and basing are solved on day one
Who it is wrong for
- Wrong buy if you are not painting Space Marines or Tyranids — the 13 colors are chosen for those two schemes
- 12 ml pots are the most expensive way to buy paint per milliliter
- The starter brush is a starter brush; you will replace it
Scored against this page’s criteria
Specs from the manufacturer: Citadel product page
We do not publish prices. Amazon shows the current one, which is the only one that is ever right. #ad · how this is funded
Vallejo Game Color Introduction Set (72.299)
Sixteen 18 ml bottles covering the whole color wheel plus three metallics. The cheapest honest route to a complete working palette.
What it gets right
- 288 ml of paint in one box — roughly double a Citadel starter set for comparable money
- Includes the three metallics most sets leave out, so you are not buying silver separately
- Spans the full color wheel rather than one faction's scheme, so it fits any army
Who it is wrong for
- No brush, no primer, no shade — it is paint and nothing else
- Some colors need two thin coats where a Citadel Base needs one
- Vallejo names match no tutorial you will watch; keep a conversion chart open
Scored against this page’s criteria
Specs from the manufacturer: Vallejo product page
We do not publish prices. Amazon shows the current one, which is the only one that is ever right. #ad · how this is funded
Citadel Shade: Agrax Earthshade
A warm brown wash that flows into recesses and makes almost any color scheme look finished. If you buy a single wash, this is it.
What it gets right
- Flows into panel lines and recesses on its own — no brush control required
- Warm enough to flatter metal, leather, bone, skin and most greens
- An 18 ml pot outlasts several armies because a wash goes on thin
Who it is wrong for
- Browns everything it touches; wrong over cool blue-gray schemes that need Nuln Oil
- Tide-marks if you flood a flat panel instead of letting it sit in recesses
- Matt-dulls metallics slightly, which some painters then have to re-highlight
Scored against this page’s criteria
Specs from the manufacturer: Citadel product page
We do not publish prices. Amazon shows the current one, which is the only one that is ever right. #ad · how this is funded
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
What paints do I need for my first Warhammer army?
Is a starter set better value than buying individually?
Can I mix my own highlight colors instead of buying them?
How long does a pot of miniature paint last?
Do I need white paint?
More in Miniature Paints and Paint Sets, or start from the beginning with what to buy first.
Sources
- Games Workshop / Citadel Colour — official product rangechecked October 2026
- Acrylicos Vallejo — official product rangechecked October 2026