In such a crowded hobby space, it’s not common to see a release come along that makes people sit up and pay attention. Steamforged Games may have done just this with their announcement that they’re bringing back the Formula P3 range of paints via Kickstarter. In this post I go through a bit of history and my view on the release.
Back in what for some will be “the depths of time” (the early 2000’s), an American company appeared called Privateer Press, they became known for the game Warmachine – a game where you collect together a load of steampunk vibe miniatures with Warjacks and Warcasters taking centre stage. At the time it was fresh, had amazing miniatures and held a huge amount of appeal for people who wanted something other than Warhammer 40,000 to scratch that sci-fi itch.
During this time, Privateer Press took on the renowned painter and sculptor, Mike McVey and with him developed their own range of paints – Formula P3. Unlike Citadel paints, these were formulated to have slightly longer drying times, which made wet blending a lot easier. They were also high pigmented, so had excellent coverage in comparison to the Cote Du Arms era Citadel paints. Most importantly the coverage was consistent across most of the colours – if you were serious with painting reds then you’d likely be using P3 paints to do it. I found the P3 bone colours were significantly easier to work with too, being a lot less prone to having a chalky finish and Coal Black became the bona fide way to highlight black with a lovely dark teal/turquoise colour.
The biggest issue I always found with P3 paints in the UK were availability. Not all places stocked them and from 2018 they became much more difficult to obtain, so largely fell out of day to day usage. It was a shame, unlike newer brands which tried to replicate the Citadel colours, Formula P3 added colours that weren’t available elsewhere. Privateer Press largely fell out of the limelight unless you played one of their games and even then it’s popularity got overtaken by other game systems.
This year saw Steamforged Games purchase both Warmachine and the Formula P3 lines from Privateer Press and as of 10th September launched a kickstarter to bring back a re-formulated range of P3 paints!
I have to put my cards on the table and say that I’m not a big fan of companies using crowdsourcing to launch a product that’s going to be coming out regardless of the success of the campaign. It feels like a way to separate me from my money to mitigate any financial risks the company may have. In this case we’re looking at estimated delivery around March 2025 following a short 10-day campaign, so six months waiting for the paints to arrive. I appreciate that’s a cynical view and some campaigns offer unique bonuses such as your name in the credits of a film or you being able to influence some part of the end product. Steamforged have run numerous Kickstarters in the past so the risk as a backer is fairly low – but it does sting a bit to pay for paints 6 months in advance.
The P3 Kickstarter has a few options available, a set of 10 paints, a set of 50 paints or the entire set of 100 paints with a small discount (ranging from £3.10 to £2.21 per paint – for context a 12ml pot of Citadel is £2.75, I’m guessing P3 are the standard 17ml). Sadly the sets of paints are pre-selected, so no option to chose up 10 paints you really want to try – don’t forget they’ve been reformulated so you’re going on the advice of influencers who have been sent out the paints to test rather than past experience of the paints you might still have on your shelf. The colours within the set of 10 also aren’t themed to anything in particular and more akin to the old Citadel paint set from the 1980’s – that equally wasn’t much use without more colours.
You also have a bunch of free STL files and a couple of add-ons. The first is that rather than dropper bottles you can instead have the old flip-top pots! I love this as an option as it means everyone is happy with how they get their paints although this appears to be exclusive to the Kickstarter rather than a standard option once they’re released. Next up you have a exclusive set of 10 paints for $40 containing “irregular” colours, it’s an interesting add-on option I’ll give you.
Summary
I think it’s brilliant that Steamforged Games are bringing back the Formula P3 range, and from the sound of it, the formulation is better than before. What takes the gilding off the lily for me is the choices within the Kickstarter and lack of information for the future.
Not being able to pick specific colours is for me the first show-stopper. Having bought big ranges of paints in the past I’ve always been disappointed and found 80% of them never see the light of day and then going solid by the time I go to use them. I easily have a few hundred paints already (probably more but I’m afraid to count), so I’m bound to duplicate on some almost identical colours which means that I realistically don’t save any money – the opposite in fact.
The set of 50 is ideal for somebody starting off or getting back into the hobby – but I’m not sure why they’d want to wait 6 months to do this? Although logistically challenging, allowing custom colours for the set of 10 would likely have been very popular and I know I’d have jumped onto the campaign if this had been the case. The stock answer in the Q&A section is that this will be possible once the paints hit retailers – however there’s no indication as to when that is going to happen.
That leads onto my next issue in that there’s no information on how to obtain these paints in the future. One of the reasons Citadel paints are so popular is that you know you can walk into a Warhammer store and pick up a pot of Mephiston Red or pop a pop on an online order from most retailers. That means you know it’s (fairly) safe to start painting an army using a specific colour and when you pick up a new unit in five years time can still replicate the colour scheme (because we all write down our schemes – right?). With a big of digging it’s possible to spot the intention to have these available at retailers – but who and how long will this take? Two Thin Coats is only just starting to become available in multiple outlets, so are we looking at an equally long time for the updated P3 paints?
The irregular paint Kickstarter Exclusive, I honestly cannot see the point of. Having lived through I think 4 range changes over the past 30 years, I cannot say how painful it is to watch a limited supply of a core paint dwindle. I don’t understand why you’d inflict this on yourself with ten exclusive colours?
My issues with the Kickstarter isn’t going to stop me picking up some of the colours when they hit retailers next year. I’ve always been impressed with the P3 paints I have in my collection and the reviews certainly suggest the Steamforged Games upgrade have made them better, which only has to be a good thing.
