Speed paints (Army Painter’s name) and contrast paints (Citadel’s) are high-flow, heavily-pigmented translucent paints engineered to do two jobs in one coat: pool darker in recesses while tinting raised surfaces lighter. Over a light or zenithal primer, one pass yields a shaded, finished-looking result.
They are the single best on-ramp for painting whole squads fast, and modern formulations resolved the early reactivation complaints (dried paint lifting when rewetted). Their limit is control — for smooth large panels, traditional opaque layers still win.
See it in context in our paints & primers guides, or explore the tools hands-on in The Bench.