It is indeed that season once again, so if you are looking for gift inspiration, hearty recommendations, or just don’t know what to buy the miniature or gaming hobbyist in your life (including yourself; buy yourself something nice), Merry Matron Marcy is here to help with a selection of curated guides for all of your gift giving needs. I’ve assembled a team of elves (the Santa kind, not the Blood Bowl kind) to help me fill out these gift guides for your use!
Here at Goonhammer, we do occasionally receive products early to review on our site. For these gift guides, any authors speaking about items they have received promotionally will say so in their recommendation, but please keep in mind that these are not reviews: if we recommend something on this list, it is because we think you (or the special person in your life you are gifting this to!) will really appreciate it.
The Intermediate Hobbyist
Unlike a Hobby Beginner, the Intermediate Hobbyist is someone who knows what they like, and are likely looking for ways to expand upon or deepen that hobby connection. They likely already have brushes, paints, and models, but perhaps they don’t have the best possible tools, edge case items, or other things that hobbyists don’t always consider when they got into the hobby, like storage. Hobby intermediaries aren’t looking for you to hand them a Getting Started box, but they might really appreciate things that allow them to keep stoking the flame of hobby passion and interests. Our gift guide is broken into three categories: Budget, Investment, and Extravagant. If you know someone into hobbying but have either a budget cap, a gift restriction, or any other reason, then our Budget list has a lot of great suggestions that focus on use value over cost. Investment items are things that provide, well, value on investment: not necessarily that they are more expensive, but that they can provide a lot of long-term value, like a lightbox set up, or photography items for better model photos. Finally, Extravagant gifts are those that aren’t necessarily just ways to throw money at something, but instead things that, if you have the cash for, can really do a ton of work for the special person on your list.
Budget Gifts
Lenoon: If you’ve been hobbying a while but you want to have a crack at something a bit different, for a tenner (plus postage) or regional equivalent, you can get something totally different and totally amazing in the form of the U-Rust paints. One activator and one paint – I’d recommend Black Oxide and the Type 1 reactor – lets you start to experiment with real rust. None of this painting exposed metal brown and orange, but instead slathering on an iron-filings filled paint and making it really, actually, rust with the activator. Using the U-Rust paints is exactly like using anything else, no alcohol based brush cleaners needed, and you can have an absolute blast messing about with it. The effect is pretty magic, always highly convincing and pleasingly just out of perfect control. If you want to step your painting up in weird ways this is an absolute must buy.
Cronch: A trip to a local wargames show. Let’s be real, depending on where you live, how far away the show is, how you’re getting there and whether you plan on treating your beloved to lunch while you’re out, this can quite easily blow past the budget tier. But often tickets to shows are quite affordable, and open up access to a huge variety of traders and demo games that your average wargamer wouldn’t normally be exposed to. You might even find a new game you’d like to try out together! The biggest shows in the UK are Salute in London, and the UK Games Expo in Birmingham (more of a board games show by trade, but it definitely has a lot of wargames present these days). For a more complete list of shows in the UK and elsewhere, check out the Partizan calendar here.
Cronch: Seasonal Warhammer models. Every year Games Workshop releases a couple of models just for the festive period, often Christmas-themed in some way. One of these is usually a variant of the Red Gobbo, the diminutive revolutionary-turned-corporate Christmas icon, and this year is no different. The A-bomb-inable Snowman features the Red Gobbo and his pal hurling totally normal snowballs, while a totally normal and not explosive snowman watches on. The second festive model this year is Provisionally Prepared, featuring a pair of Ratling snipers tucking into a rather hearty meal. These models are great little one-off display pieces, and a good chance for some festive hobby when you can’t move after too much turkey.
Cronch: A Goonhammer Patreon membership. We all want the best for our loved ones, so why not sign them up for a paid membership to the best wargaming website on the planet? A few months’ worth of the $5 tier easily fits into the budget gift category, and you’ll open up a whole new world for them. They’ll get an ad-free Goonhammer browsing experience, access to the Administratum campaign app, access to Goonhammer global campaigns, and more. They’ll also get access to the Goonhammer Discord server where they can exchange hobby tips and witty repartee with like-minded hobbyists – somewhat of a double-edged sword, depending on how easily-distracted they are.
SRM: If the hobbyist in your life isn’t using transfers yet, have we got the easy gift for you! Micro-Set and Micro-Sol ($5 each from Microscale Industries but also available from art stores and Amazon) are a pair of products that soften and dissolve decals, improving adhesion and giving that “painted-on” look. We put out an article earlier this year showing how to use them, so send that their way too.
Investment Gifts
Cronch: A wet palette. These are available at a variety of price points to suit you, but are definitely an investment in your recipient’s painting. A semi-permeable membrane on top of a water-retaining sponge, these nifty gadgets help paint to stay wetter and usable for longer, especially in dry and/or hot climates. There is endless discussion over which is best, but both The Army Painter and Redgrass Games make nice palettes that come in packs with plenty of paint sheets, in both regular and XL sizes.
Matt J: Once a painter gets into mixing all sorts of custom tones for your miniatures, they’re going to need some way to stop them from drying out so the paint can be used for longer without having to eyeball another mix. Wet palettes are the perfect solution for this, and while there are as many DIY versions as there are painters, a nice purpose made palette just feels good to use. My preferred palette is the Exemplar Premium ($34.95) from Game Envy. It’s very solidly constructed, seals up super tight (to the point that you’ll want to leave it open so it dries out and the sponge doesn’t get moldy), and the lid can hold a dry palette for your metallic paints and a handful of brushes, making it useful as a travel kit if you want to paint outside your normal setup.
Cronch: Premium paint brushes. Once your loved one has been painting for a while and has mastered the basics of brush control, you can really help them up their game with a set of high-quality brushes that hold a nice point. Tools aren’t everything, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that choosing to invest in better brushes led to a fast and tangible improvement in the quality of my output. Of course there’s no better way to introduce your Goonhammer-reading darling to the world of high-quality brushes than the Goonhammer Essentials set from Artis Opus. With a selection of brushes from different ranges, and bedecked in custom Gregbot artwork, this will be a memorable gift that will remind your recipient of you everytime they sit down to paint.
Jake: There are hobbyists who will have spent hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on models, but they’re using wire cutters or nail clippers to pop models off the sprue. Yes, I’m talking to you, Greg. A nice pair of sprue nippers will go a long way to making the model building part of this hobby more enjoyable, but I’ve noticed a lot of folks get scared away from spending $40-50 on the tool. It’s understandable, because that’s a good chunk of change, but after I did so I could immediately tell a difference and I have zero regrets. There are many options out there, whether it’s from Redgrass, one of the fabled Godhand nippers from Daitool, or in my case a pair in Japanese packaging that I picked up from the Gundam section at my LGS (I have no idea what brand they are, but they’re great).
Cronch: Fogou Models Gift Boxes. Do you really just feel completely lost when it comes to this hobby stuff? Then Fogou Models are trying to help you out, offering gift boxes at a variety of price points in three different themes: sci-fi, fantasy and historical. Pick and pay for your box and they’ll fill it with models of the correct theme up to the specified value, add in a bonus free gift, and ship it to you without an invoice so that you can wrap it up (or have it sent direct to your giftee). This is a great way of getting a curated selection of gifts for your loved one if you don’t feel up to picking them out for yourself. Most of what Fogou Models make is terrain and scatter accessories, so these boxes are particularly well suited to expanding your recipient’s battlefield offerings.
SRM: Basing is easily overlooked, and a budding hobbyist might have put it off as something for later. The easiest way to get some decent basing going is to buy a bottle of PVA or tacky glue (I like Aleene’s, usually like $7 from Michaels) and some tufts. You can start at the lower end and grab some Citadel ($15) or Army Painter ($7) packs, or even get a whole basing starter kit from Army Painter with glue, sand, tufts, and more ($22). If you want to go a bit wilder though, get them some more colorful tufts from Gamers Grass. Sets run $12-$17 and can include more mundane grass tufts, as well as colorful flowers or alien plants. They can add a wonderful pop of color to an already existing scheme, or be the start of something entirely new.
Extravagant Gifts
Cronch: The Gift of Light. It’s no secret that an abundance of high quality light can make a world of difference to the detail and finish that can be achieved when painting your minis, and to someone who has laboured for too long under the flaccid cone of an anglepoise lamp older than Warhammer itself, the gift of a more suitable painting lamp could be nothing short of revelatory.
For my money, there’s no better choice for a painting lamp than the Daylight Company Lumi. It strikes the right balance between size and flexibility, and is more than capable of bathing a decent-sized hobby area in beautiful, daylight-toned LED light. At over £100 it may seem spendy (we are in the Extravagant section, after all) and cheaper facsimiles are available on the likes of eBay and Amazon, but frankly there is a hugely noticeable difference in quality of fit and finish, and the subsequent lifespan you might expect. I’ve broken more than one Amazon equivalent, but my Lumi just won’t quit.
If your intended recipient needs something smaller (or bigger) the Daylight Company also makes a variety of other lights, and you can buy them from Element Games via our Goonhammer affiliate link.
Cronch: A large magnetic storage case. A few options here! A-Case make a selection of products that are expensive, but practically bulletproof (do not test this claim, I will not be held responsible). If that’s pushing the budget a little too far, Jucoci have been making some similar products in plastic with inset metal trays. They’re definitely not as impressive as the A-Case, but they also cost less than half as much. I’ve been using one of these for recent travel and I’ve been really happy with it – it’s definitely bulky but my minis have been safe and sound, and for extra nerd points I even got the one that lights up to show off the army.
Be warned, if your recipient does not already magnetise their bases for transport then you’re signing them up for quite a lot of work – you might want to buy them some neodymium magnets (A-Case have options to bundle these in, or 4mm x 2mm is good for Games Workshop bases), or as an alternative some foam-backed magnets for bases from WarMag.
Soggy: If your friend is blessed with room to play games at their place, but doesn’t have the terrain yet – look no further. Pre-printed MDF terrain kits from manufacturers like Bandua Wargaming are an affordable (relatively) and incredibly time efficient way to get a full table of terrain to fight your sweet battles on. Check out our reviews for 40K Matched Play, Kill Team, Zone Mortalis and Boarding Actions to see more.
Mike BS: Proxxon Hot Wire Cutter – Before 3D printers became more commonplace, a hot wire cutter was a key tool in any terrain builder’s arsenal. Still popular today, they allow hobbyists to create a huge variety of structures, both natural and man-made, using simple insulation foam. A repositionable hot wire glides through the foam, creating quick cuts to help build large shapes and volumes. Jigs are also available for more intricate work for items such as cobblestones, tiles and window frames. Whether it’s grand hills, trenches, or a full recreation of Minas Tirith, a hot foam cutter lets them create something truly unique. Now of course, they’ll need some foam to cut too, but this might be a little harder to hide under a tree!
Cronch: A BIG LAD. Want to help your friend expand their army, but don’t know what to get? Buy them a BIG LAD. Age of Sigmar, 40k and Horus Heresy all have different flavours of BIG LADS which can be allied in to most other armies – Imperial Knights or Chaos Knights for the grimdark settings, and Mega-Gargants in AoS. They’re big, imposing kits, but a really good way for an intermediate hobbyist to consolidate everything they’ve learned into a big centrepiece model. Really, being able to put it on the table without committing to a full army is just a bonus. Either way, you will not regret a BIG LAD.
This article is part of a larger series of our 2024 Gift Guides! For more guides, click this link. Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
