If your painting late war German tanks I recommend you invest in an air compressor and airbrush. make sure you get an airbrush that can do finer lines for the camo. It is so easy to paint up and entire armoured force this way rather than painting by hand.

whats ur quarterly project Gav?

Just a quick WIP photo. And a photo of one of the two units that I intend to complete before moving onto my next new model.

ah man, they look sexy

maybe they should come to warhammer world NE for a game one day

This will be the second unit that I work on after I have completed the Broadside.

Its a fleabay rescue. Don't worry I didn't get it in that state! Essentially I bought it a couple of years ago. It was listed as well painted but it certainly wasn't when I received it. A very thick blue and pale grey scheme that looked like it had been put on by a bad plasterer.

Several soaks in the ever faithful fairy power spray and some good hard scrubbing I got down to the primer you can see on the hull. As you can see in the second pic the paint was that thick that it hasn't all come off. Those bits that are painted have been picked and scraped at to get the paint out of the recesses that are common on tau vehicles. I still have a very long way to go on the hull and engines and may even give them another soak although any other suggestions for getting it off would be appreciated.

Good pick up and very thoughtful of you to give it a good home!

Unfortunately, you'll have to go with the basic soak, brush, scrape and repeat until you get as much of the paint off as you can.

Anything more aggressive might have the opposite result of removing the detailing you are working so hard to maintain.

But if it's any consolation, it's coming along rather well.

I've been told dettol or Superdrug's own nail varnish remover, but only the one that is acetone free. I think its acetone, or whatever the smelly stuff is. If not it will melt it.

detol works, I used it on my original space marines, it did disolve the glue as well tho. I soaked for a couple of hours then used warm water and a toothbrush to get everything off. it is extremely messy as the detol does something funky to the paint

I only use Fairy power spray, so cannot comment on anything else. The last batch of minis I soaked, were left for about three days. The paint pretty much rinsed off under the tap!

A couple of the vanguard figures still had a little undercoat caught in the deep recesses, but a good scrub with the trusty toothbrush left the models gleaming.
So thanks to everyone on here that suggested that in the past! I would never have even tried stripping minis before.

Not used dettol before.
I usually soak for 24hrs then give it a good scrub with a toothbrush. It's just been a pain getting the thick paint out of the recesses. Will soak it again for a few days. I'm in London Friday till Sunday so if I do it Thursday night hopefully that will do it.

vanguard are metal though yes? these are plastic and more likely to melt is too strong...?

Fairy power spray shouldn't damage plastic, Mr Muscle (lemon fresh for that zesty workbench feeling) doesn't.

I have tried both Fairy Power Spray and Detol for stipping miniatures (plastic, resin and metal) and found that Fairy Power spray was the best, plus it does not leave your miniatures smelling like a school first aid room

I left models that were really heavily painted in Fairy Power Spray and forgot about them for 3 months.

When I opened the sealed jar, I had a good collection of plastic and metal bits that once rinsed, were paint free

All as good as new too!

I use a product called simple green, which unfortunately is not available over there, but it seems that it is comparable to your fairy power spray.

I had also forgotten about a plastic model and had left it in the simple green. For months. I don't even know how many months.

Like Bob, when I removed it, a quick light brush, and a rinse, and all the paint was gone and the plastic was fine.

Sometimes a very long soak is what's required, but unlike some other products, a long soak in the fairy spray or simple green hasn't proven to be harmful to the model itself.