Difference in Vallejo kits

You don't want the war games set if you're doing armor. After that you have Model Color sets which are best suited for brushing. Or Model Air sets which are best suited for Airbrushing, though they can be brush painted. There are several sets in each line, early ww2, later ww2, infentry etc.

If you go to Amazon you can see the various sets and click on them and read about what they include. Not sure the best price is located there but they do show several sets on one page.

The sets are intended to take the guesswork out of choosing colors, for specific subjects.  You could just as easily buy individual colors and blend them as you apply them (eg, main color, highlight, and shadow), without spending for the whole set.

But like I said, they take the guesswork out of the process.  If you are painting a Waffen-SS figure, and you want to get a set of pre-selected colors, I'd buy the SS set, and pass on the wargame set.

Oh, and to follow up on what oldmodelguy said, if you should buy the Vallejo Model Air airbrush paints, and you want to try brushing them by hand, I would use the rest of the products from that line, especially the thinner, and the retarder, if you use a retarder.  That will reduce the likelihood of difficulties to a minimum.

If you're referring to the Flames of War paint sets, I can assure you that they are made up of tubes taken from Vallejo's Model Color line. Some have been relabelled with the FoW graphics, but even those retain the Vallejo stock numbers. Others, however, still retain the Model Color labels. The only difference is that they come packaged in a set, rather than having to be purchased separately and some issues have a painting guide for various camo patterns included with them.

The same applies to some of  FoWthe other products, such as their weathering pigments. Some have been repackaged in FoW graphics, but I have several from that set which still wear the MiG labels. 

If you want to use the FoW wargame paint and accessories, go for it. They aren't "wrong" by any means - the exact same stuff the "experts" use, only wearing different graphics in a few cases. It's Vallejo and MiG, just packaged for the wargame market.

Outfits like Citadel, Gale Force Nine, and Army Painter are all good lines for paint, brushes, and accessories of all sorts. The stuff currently available is pretty exceptional and is well-advanced over the wargame paints of the '70s and '80s. The gamers figured out that they are actually model builders at heart and a lot of the changes in the wargame market reflect that epiphany. Even Italeri has gotten into the wargames market by releasing 1/56 plastic armor kits for the Bolt Action game.

Checking on Amazon can be pretty helpful. See who the sellers are. That's how I got connected with Scalehobbiest.com for Model master paints, which are getting harder to find in military colors. Now I just deal directly with them if I don't need the paint immediately.

KnightTemplar5150

...If you want to use the FoW wargame paint and accessories, go for it. They aren't "wrong" by any means - the exact same stuff the "experts" use, only wearing different graphics in a few cases. It's Vallejo and MiG, just packaged for the wargame market...

True, and hopefully, we didn't give the impression that any choice was wrong.  But back to my point about taking the guesswork out of it, that's the point of buying this set or that set, based on the project.  As I wrote, I'd just as soon buy the individual colors, than to buy a set, and mix others.  But I understand that many painters would prefer to avoid that effort.

Tks for all the info. I'll use it all when I purchase a set. I've always gotten great info from you guy. Definitely worth a look at it all. I'be been using tamiya paint for everything but I thought I'd try something different. Not saying tamiya is bad but Vallejo eye dropper bottles are pretty sweet. Again tks guys