The first thing that stands out is the colour palette. Tone Pro leans into more saturated tones than the Layer range, which has always kept those characteristically desaturated Citadel colours — some of them, like Thunderhawk Blue or Daemonette Hide, hard to replace with other brands.

On top of that, the range seems to fill in some blind spots that Citadel’s palette had. In my opinion, there’s always been a gap for a truly intense magenta pink. The closest thing we had until now was the Doomfire Magenta contrast paint, but now it looks like we have something more direct: Eye of Terror 3.

Warhammer Tone Pro looks set to save you painting time

The range promises excellent coverage in a single pass, and the presentation video backs it up with some surprising examples: traditionally tricky colours like white or yellow covering solidly over black primer. Genuinely impressive, if it holds up on the table.

A color matching system simpler than others

The Tone Pro system is straightforward: each of the 30 colours comes organised into 5 numbered tones, from 1 (the darkest) to 5 (the lightest). The idea is that you no longer need to hunt for a “compatible” colour to shade or highlight; you use the same colour in a different tone and your transition is already sorted.

This is very reminiscent of two systems the community already knows well: Army Painter’s flexible triads (sets of 5-6 tones per colour) and Vallejo’s BSL system (Base, Shadow, Light).

Where Tone Pro seems to improve on the formula is in its naming. With Army Painter’s triads or Vallejo’s BSL, you often need to check a reference sheet to know which tone pairs with which. With Tone Pro, since the 5 tones are numbered within the same colour name, finding the compatible tone for shading or highlighting is as simple as checking the number on the pot. No need to memorise combinations or reach for an external chart.

Warhammer Tone Pro isn’t here to replace Layer paints

Citadel’s Layer paints have always been slightly translucent. The upside of this is that it makes it easy to control transitions between colours. The downside is that it forces the painter to apply several coats to get a solid, even colour. Remember that with light colours like Fulgrim Pink, it can take 5 or 6 coats to achieve a clean, opaque pink.

At the opposite end, we have opaque paints like Citadel’s Base & Layer range or Vallejo Model Color, which offer great coverage right from the start. The problem here is the reverse: to get smooth colour transitions with such an opaque paint, you need to mix colours between one coat and the next, or spend hours doing glazes to achieve a clean gradient.

The Tone Pro range seems to bring the best of both worlds: smooth transitions with the minimum number of coats possible. How does it manage this? With the 5-tone-per-colour system we’ve already explained — since the midtone, highlight, and shadow within the same colour family are already sorted for you, you don’t need to mix, nor apply coat after coat of a translucent paint to reach a solid result.

The downside: money. You’ll need to buy the pots in sets of 5 — a full pack of 5 for each colour.

Blending medium will make multicolour gradients easier

The Blending Medium acts as a retarder medium: an additive that slows down the paint’s drying time to give you more room to blend colours directly on the miniature (wet blending technique).

Until now, it’s been relatively easy to wet blend with Contrast paints, thanks to their more fluid, slower-drying formula. But with traditional Layer paints, this technique was much trickier, because Citadel had never offered its own retarder medium the way other brands do.

With the arrival of Tone Pro and its Blending Medium, we’ll finally be able to wet blend while also getting more opaque and vibrant colours than those achieved with Contrast — which, being translucent, depend on the colour of the primer for the final result.

This opens the door to more ambitious gradients in the areas of a miniature where this kind of effect is traditionally sought: flames, smoke, gems, sword blades with a metallic effect, cloaks and robes with colour transitions, or skin with subtle shifts. If the Blending Medium delivers on its promise, we should start seeing multicolour gradient tutorials become far more accessible for the average hobbyist.

@heresyforheretics Wet blending isn’t so bad #warhammer #warhammer40k #40kin40seconds #40kin40sec #warhammercommunity #warhammerworld #gamesworkshop #astartes #imperium #spacemarines #ultramarines #bloodangels #darkangels #salamanders #40k #40klore #RPG #warhammerpainting #miniaturepainting #spacewolves #spacewolf #imperialfists #speedpaint #contrastpaint #airbrush #tau #aeldari #necron #synthwave #hobby #game #tabletopgame #ageofsigmar #aos #theoldworld #dnd #mtg #chaosspacemarines #orks #warhammerlore #thearmypainter #Fanatic #paint #painting #heresyforheretics #horusheresy #worldeaters #primarch #angron #mortarion #squidmar #angrymarines #nightlords #lightning #painting #capsule #vendingmachine #salamanders #custodes #adeptus #nmm #whfb #tyranids #sistersofbattle #rainbowwarriors #rgb #spacemarineschapter #jurassicpark #jurassicworld #nova #heavys #headphones #metal #nighthaunt #ghost #noisemarine #skaven #orktober #squig #spacemarine2 #emperorschildren ♬ original sound – Heresy For Heretics

The usual controversy: the paint doesn’t come in dropper-bottle format

Here comes the big disappointment for much of the community, who have been asking for a format change for years. Traditional Citadel pots have a reputation for shortening the paint’s lifespan: they dry out easily even when sealed properly.

That said, there’s an important nuance here. With this new tone system, the need to mix colours by hand is reduced quite a bit — you no longer need to create your own midtone for a transition, since it comes already worked out in the pot itself. And if you’re mixing less, the container format matters a bit less in your day-to-day use. That’s why, although sticking with pots is undoubtedly a flaw, it’s not a catastrophic one: the range compensates for some of that inconvenience by reducing the need for mixing that used to make the format problem so obvious.

Tone Pro vs Layer vs Contrast — whats the difference?

Tone Pro allows for smooth color transitions with fewer coats than Layer o Contrast ranges, thanks to its opaque one-coat paint and its finely-graded color-matching range.

Which range is best for me?

• Pick Layer paints if you have plenty of time to learn, you enjoy painting details and aspire to achieve box-art results.
• Pick Contrast if you like to paint big armies quick and you don’t worry about painting little details.
• Pick Tone Pro if you have money to afford it, you want better results than contrast and lack time to spend on layering.

And yet, here we are.

Because this is not just about paint. It is not even just about branding. It is about one of those perfectly rational corporate decisions that, once they land in the hobby, feel a little colder than they probably intended. Citadel was not just any brand. It was a name with weight. With memory. With echoes of White Dwarf, old catalogues, starter sets, dried-up pots, discontinued colours, and long afternoons spent learning to paint terribly before learning to paint halfway decently.

Games Workshop has touched a historic brand in order to do something very sensible: bring its commercial architecture into order under the Warhammer umbrella. The question is not whether it makes sense. It does. The real question is this: whether everything that makes sense is worth doing when you are speaking to a community that experiences this hobby not through reason, but through emotion

And that is where the clash lies.

Consistency with Warhammer’s other brands

Let us begin by granting Games Workshop the obvious point: the change makes sense. In fact, it makes a great deal of sense. For years now, the company has been refining a brand architecture increasingly centred around the name Warhammer. The stores are Warhammer. The communication is Warhammer. The universe pulling everything else forward is Warhammer. So, from the perspective of a boardroom, keeping a historic sub-brand like Citadel may have looked like a useful relic for veterans, but a less efficient one for the present.

And in that context, Warhammer Colour fits like a piece designed to complete the circle. Fewer layers, fewer nuances, less inherited history, more commercial clarity. Warhammer miniatures, Warhammer stores, Warhammer content, Warhammer paints. Everything perfectly aligned. Everything perfectly ordered. Everything perfectly… corporate.

What the company gains here is consistency. And consistency is a prized asset in branding.

Clarity for beginners

This is probably the strongest argument in favour of the change. To a veteran hobbyist, Citadel is a familiar word. To someone entering the hobby today through YouTube, TikTok, a shop, a video game, or a future TV series, it may not mean anything at all.

Warhammer Colour, by contrast, explains itself. It is immediate. It is functional. It is impossible to misread. It does not require prior context or hobby memory. It does not ask the newcomer to learn a family tree of brands. It tells them, plainly: this is the paint officially designed for Warhammer miniatures.

From that point of view, the rebrand is not just defensible: it is effective. Where Citadel Colour preserved heritage, Warhammer Colour maximises instant understanding.

The problem is that clarity almost always simplifies. And simplification, quite often, also means stripping away personality.

The community’s content instantly becomes outdated

This is where the cost of the change begins to show. For years, Citadel Colour has not just been a brand: it has been a shared language. A common code between Games Workshop, the community, painting channels, blogs, tutorials, beginner videos, and hobby conversations across half the internet.

“Use a Citadel.” “Apply Nuln Oil.” “This Citadel range covers better.” “Citadel vs Vallejo differences.” That entire archive does not disappear overnight, of course. But suddenly it is outdated at its most basic level: the name.

It is not a tragedy, but it is an awkward nuisance. One of those decisions that does not quite break anything, but still creates a small and unnecessary desynchronisation between the product and the enormous ecosystem of content that has surrounded it for years.

And for a brand that relies so heavily on the community, that is not a minor detail.

They are taking away more than just a logo

The real loss is not in the pot, the formula, or the shelf presence. It is somewhere else. It is in the bond.

Citadel was one of those brands that no longer fully belonged to the company that owned it, because it also belonged, in part, to the memory of the people who grew up with it. It was a word embedded in the culture of the hobby. It sounded like Warhammer, yes, but it also sounded like something with an identity of its own. Something with a biography. Something with a soul.

That is why so many people have greeted the announcement with irritation, irony, or indifference. Not because the change is going to ruin their miniatures. Not because tomorrow they are going to stop buying Mephiston Red. But because they sense, perhaps correctly, that a brand with personality is being sacrificed in the name of a simplification logic that benefits the company more than the hobbyist.

And that is where that deeply uncomfortable word for any marketing PowerPoint appears: nostalgia. Which is not foolish. Nor is it weakness. In this hobby, nostalgia is part of the glue.

What stays the same?

The pot design

The pot will remain the same as ever. The change is focused on the label and the name. Games Workshop has chosen to touch the brand, but not open the can of worms that is the container itself. Because if there is one thing the community has been arguing about for years, it is the pot format.

Other brands such as Army Painter, Vallejo, and Pro Acryl have turned the dropper bottle into the de facto standard for a huge number of painters. This format makes the use of a wet palette almost mandatory, but in return it gives you precise control over mixes and dilutions. Most importantly, because air does not enter the bottle, the paint can remain in good condition for 5 to 10 years.

On the other hand, Games Workshop remains attached to its flip-top design. While it is true that this style of pot makes things easier for beginners by allowing paint to be taken directly from the container, it is also a format burdened with old and often repeated criticisms. The main flaw is this: dried paint constantly builds up in the lid, and the airtight seal degrades very easily. The pots need frequent cleaning, otherwise air gets in and they dry out completely within a few months.

The impression is that Games Workshop keeps this format not because it is the best one, but because it is the one that suits them most. Lower durability means more sales.

The formula

According to the company itself, the paint remains exactly the same. And that is probably the most important thing for anyone who simply wants to know whether their colours will behave the same way they did yesterday.

The price

Warhammer’s community managers have already confirmed on Facebook that the price will not go up for now. Games Workshop is the undisputed leader in the miniatures market, but in the acrylic paint market it is competing against brands that are highly competitive in both quality and price.

Community opinion

The community’s initial reaction has been quite revealing: more ironic resignation than genuine enthusiasm. The announcement does not seem to have triggered many “finally” reactions. Quite the opposite. The dominant feeling is that this is a boardroom move, correct in branding terms, but emotionally sterile.

Many hobbyists have read it as an unnecessary change. Something nobody asked for. Something that does not improve the hobby experience in any tangible way, yet still erodes a name with history, identity, and symbolic weight.

The less diplomatic translation would be this: yes, it makes sense; no, it was not necessary.

What now?

In practical terms, not much will probably change. People will keep buying their usual colours, checking conversion charts, watching old tutorials, and painting with the same habits as before. And within a few months, many will have grown used to living with the new name.

From a branding point of view, Warhammer Colour is a clean and coherent change. From the hobbyist’s point of view, it flattens an identity with more than 40 years of history, one that has been accompanying many of us since childhood.

Games Workshop has made a rational change in a hobby driven by profoundly irrational forces: attachment, memory, habit, pride of belonging, nostalgia. As Blaise Pascal said: the heart has reasons that reason does not understand. Will this corporate manoeuvre work? In 40 years, we will find out. Rest in peace, Citadel.

Keep in mind the author took part in the range’s development, so he speaks from inside the process; nonetheless, the information shown is partial and framed as early impressions.

Vallejo True Metallic Metal: what it is and what it promises

According to the video, TMM is a new metallic paint family designed to deliver real metal shine without sacrificing color saturation or contrast; the goal is to give beginners a quick path to attractive results while offering headroom for layering and glazing to intermediate and advanced painters.

This is not an exhaustive test, yet the pitch clearly targets both ends of the learning curve with a guided workflow, avoiding obscure mixes or niche mediums.

In parallel, the creator underlines continuity: every tone used with a brush should be replicated through the airbrush with the same name and behavior, preserving both shine and color identity.

Color families and structure

The transcript points to a broad range of roughly 80 paints arranged into 20 hue families (or colors); within each family you get a Base, a Light for highlights, a transparent Shade to unify and deepen, and an Airbrush Base to apply with the airbrush, all with matching tones.

This family‑based structure is meant to let you build coherent lights and shadows quickly without leaving the same “color line,” reducing hue jumps and metamerism issues between techniques.

The promise of brush–airbrush matching also suggests that early airbrushed gradients will blend with brush work without losing the metallic identity you chose.

Vallejo TMM uses the BSL system

The video outlines a BSL flow: start with the Base, then drybrush or layer with the Light, and finish with the Shade to unify, restore saturation and add definition in the shadows without killing the metallic shine.

For painters pushing further, the same flow accepts thin glazes over the Light, pinpoint edge highlights and progressive modulations, taking advantage of the paints’ self‑levelling nature and their friendliness with a wet palette.

The range’s Shade is described as an evolution of the maker’s washes/contrasts, transparent and stable, able to reinforce volumes without turning the finish into a dull satin.

Handling, thinning and examples

The demo stresses that paints handle well with little thinning, accept water if needed, and self‑level enough to avoid unwanted texture when working fast or on broad panels.

Practical examples include Sapphire Blue for armor plates, Ruby Red for gauntlets, Imperial Gold for details and Aged Metal for darker zones; the final result evokes a metallic Crimson Fists‑style scheme.

In terms of target users, the line looks especially appealing for metal‑forward armies (e.g., Alpha Legion or certain Horus Heresy forces) while opening creative options for blue chapters in the Ultramarines vein.

What’s still unknown

The video itself notes this is a first look, with no complete color list, no official launch date and no final reference material; therefore, treat this as a statement of intent rather than a definitive product spec.

As official data drops, we’ll expand this article with the full color chart, bottle pricing and starter sets, together with practical tests over popular miniatures.

Support the creator

If you like this approach, you can support Juan Hidalgo on his Patreon channel. In addition to previews and exclusive content, it’s a good benchmark for this type of painting innovation. Look for Juan Hidalgo Miniatures: undoubtedly one of the best Warhammer painters, from whom I have personally learned a lot.

What makes it even more exciting is that Giraldez responded to some comments clarifying that, contrary to what many might assume, these paints won’t be alcohol-based but instead will use an acrylic medium. That small technical detail has only increased the community’s anticipation, as it hints at a significant step forward compared to what painters are used to.

The reaction across the painting community has been overwhelmingly positive. While some hobbyists are cautiously waiting for the official announcement, the dominant mood is enthusiasm. Many expressed frustrations with Vallejo’s current metallic lines—especially Game Color metallics, which some found lacking—and see this leak as the answer to long-standing issues. For plenty of painters, just seeing a rack with 18 real metallic tones is enough to spark excitement.

Vallejo True Metallic Metal: A New Way of Painting Metals?

Traditionally, to achieve convincing metallic effects, painters lay down a metallic basecoat—silver, gold, brass, etc.—and then build color and depth through washes, contrast paints, or glazes. That method has been the norm because metallic paints often struggle with coverage, pigment suspension, or delicate handling.

However, the promise implied by the leaked display—“light, color and contrast with real metallic pigments”—suggests that this new True Metallic Metal range could be engineered to deliver basing paints, highlight paints (for drybrush, maybe?),  and wash paints. If Vallejo succeeds in making metallic pigments that both reflect light brilliantly and allow strong, consistent coloration, it could represent a breakthrough for miniature painting.

The fact that these will not be alcohol-based makes the leak even more intriguing. Many metallic formulas rely on harsh solvents or special carriers to keep the pigments in suspension. Vallejo choosing an acrylic medium instead could mean smoother flow, better pigment retention, and full compatibility with other acrylic hobby paints.

Giraldez also teased that Vallejo plans to make an official announcement for the range, which will be accompanied by a brand-new painting book titled “TRUE METALLIC METAL BSL System.” That reference to a “BSL system” indicates that Vallejo isn’t just launching a paint line, but a complete framework: paints plus a technical guide to maximize their use. If the book provides recipes, techniques, and structured instructions, the new range could quickly become a staple reference for hobby painters.

What to Expect and Where to Follow Vallejo True Metallic Metal News

Although Giraldez was the one to spark the buzz with this leak, the official word is still pending. It’s almost certain that the announcement will come through Vallejo’s official channels, so fans should keep an eye on their social media and main website. Vallejo actively posts on Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter), and of course, their official website remains the central hub for product releases. Recently, Vallejo even highlighted their presence at San Diego Comic-Con Málaga on social platforms, which matches the timing of this reveal.

For those eager to catch every update, subscribing or following Vallejo’s Acrylicos Vallejo accounts across social media is the safest bet, alongside checking the brand’s website regularly. The official reveal should bring details such as release dates, prices, packaging formats, regional availability, and perhaps even demo videos.

Until then, hobbyists are left speculating about the possibilities: shimmering golds, deep chromes, iridescent blues, or heat-tinted metallic effects straight from the bottle. Imagining what can be done with those 18 true metallic shades is already sparking creativity. For now, the leak has done its job perfectly—Vallejo True Metallic Metal might just redefine how we paint metallics on miniatures, and we’ll be here to cover every detail as soon as the full announcement drops.

 

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Una publicación compartida de Angel GiraldeZ (@angel_giraldez)