Testing out Devlan Mud alternatives

Many are we who have used brown looking wash from Games Workshop called Devlan Mud for pretty much everything that you can put it on. All from some brown details like belts that needed some shading to whole models being washed in Devlan Mud to get a similar effect to dipping. I think it was one of the most popular of all GW paints, and now it's gone when the new GW paints showed up. So what alternatives is there? I have tried out two other washes or shades as GW now calls them. And here is the result.

WIP:s of some of my Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch.

Can you guess which is what? No? I sure can't as there actually aren't a huge difference between them, one thing I did notice though is that the Army Painter Strong Tone Ink didn't looked as it normally do, it didn't get into the recesses as good as the rest. But this was probably because I needed to fix the fur with liquid GS and more Dheneb Stone paint so the details weren't as good as on other ones. The Strong Tone model is the one in the middle and I liked how it looks on the horns especially. The left one is the normal Devlan Mud and looks like it always does. The right one is Agrax Earthshade, GW's new Devlan Mud and this was the first time I tested it out.

From the left: Devlan Mud, AP Strong Tone Ink, Agrax Eartshade

And I must say I'm impressed, it went into the recesses as it should and looked less "muddy" on the stuff that shouldn't look muddy (as Devlan Mud did). The tone is pretty much the same as Devlan Mud but It somehow look just a little more red (or something), but that is abysmal and you can't tell much difference at all. 

Conclusion
Luckily there are good alternatives out there, both from GW and other companies (I don't own any other than AP 's inks, but I'm sure Vallejo, Secret Weapon etc. also have similar washes). And we can continue to paint as we did with Devlan Mud. I can't decide which one is the best of these three, the AP one is cheaper and I really do recommend it. In this particular test though I think Agrax Earthshade looked a little better than the other two including the old Devlan Mud.

This test was just based on a Dheneb Stone painted surface, but I also painted the alternive colours on the the brown areas like the boots and belts and here the Strong Tone Ink looked darker and better in my opinion compared to Agrax Earthshade which didn't shade as much. More testing is needed but I hope this gave you some little insight. Next update hopefully these three and one more fella is finished and join the ranks of their fellow Tzeentch Chaos Warriors.