Army Painter Infinity Paint Sets Review

Army Painter brings beginner friendly paint sets in collaboration with Infinity, including a tutorial and model!

I love a good starter set for paint. When I first started this hobby over 10 years ago, my first starter set was a carrying case with a variety of paints, but it had no model, no instructions... I just started going with whatever Dungeons & Dragons model I had.

I wish I had the sets that Army Painter and Corvus Belli have sent me, because if that had been the case, I wouldn't have purchased a set of mostly skin tones, and I would have also had an awesome model to build!

Army Painter and Corvus Belli have teamed up to bring two more starter sets that combine excellent models from Infinity and a set of paints unique to that model (and their corresponding army.) For review purposes, I was sent the Combined Army and 0-12 paint sets, but you can also purchase the Yu Jing, JSA, and Nomads sets as well.

Infinity Miniature Paint

Infinity Miniature Paint

The Army Painter

Each set comes with the same setup: 10 paints, 1 being an exclusive paint to the Infinity range, a corresponding metal miniature, and a painting guide for that exact miniature.

For those who don't know, Infinity is a 28mm metal skirmish miniatures game set in a high technology sci-fi universe; a cyberpunk near-future filled with secret missions, black ops, and covert actions.

For my purposes, I only painted up the Combined Army, which features a Harbinger Paramedic.

To start with, I had to assemble the mini. Now, in most of my reviews and tutorials, you see me working with plastic miniature models, which tend to come together really easily. With metal, you have some unique and different challenges to deal with.

First, cleanup is different. You have to clean metal flashing off the model. In most cases, a pair of snippers can do this, but you may need to pull out metal files in order to really clean up. Those files can also help you with mold lines. Secondly, some folks like to rough up the surface of a metal model with a file, but I prefer not to. Lastly, some pieces might be bent, but because it's a soft metal, you can just bend it back into place.

And then there's the glue. This is where I made a crucial error and paid for it many times during painting the model. When you attach pieces of the model together, you either want to scratch up the area where the pieces connect OR use a small pin by drilling a hole, attaching a pin ( a paperclip piece works just fine) and then that helps reinforce the connection. I didn't do either of those, so the arm of the model fell off multiple times during this review.

Outside of my user-generated issue, this was a pleasurable painting experience.  The instructions, prepared by Sergio Luque of Minotauro Studio, are very easy to understand and are written in a way where an absolute beginner can pick this kit up and produce a great looking model by the end of it.

I won't go into a deep review of painting this model, but what I'll focus on next is the paint quality. Like other Army Painter products, I had a great time with these paints. The Fanatic Line has wonderful satin finishes, and they blend, mix, and dilute well. For all of my washes, I use Monument Hobbies Wash/Glaze medium, and it worked pretty well with the paint. As I mentioned before, both sets include one new paint, and so for this set, I used Hegemonic Grey, which tends to be a cool gray with a slight red to it.

The sets are highly curated to the specific faction. So, if you're an Infinity player who wants to focus on a specific army, then these sets are handy, unless you have the existing paints or haven't tried Army Painter before.

The one criticism I have of this set is the reliance on special names that are more aligned with the brand of the product vs. the actual paint name. Fortunately Army Painter has included a portion of the label which tells you which Fanatic paint it actually is. For example, Rotten Rot is Raging Rogue, Sepisitor Red is the Slaughter Red Speedpaint, etc. So while it's annoying (to me), it's not a deal breaker.

Paint time took me a few evenings in between other projects, but for the disciplined painter, I think you could nail the tutorial in an evening or an afternoon paint session.

I recommend these paints for folks interested in Infinity and Army Painter. For those of us who are all in on AP, just go pick up some Infinity models. They are pretty awesome.