Warhammer's Golden Demon Drama Is Just Influencers Throwing Their Toys Out Of The Pram (2025)

Another Golden Demon, another drama. The last iteration of the Warhammer painting competition was deemed contentious because one of the winners used generative AI to create a background for his miniature (and then called his detractors “virgins” in an interview). The winner of the coveted Slayer Sword also used 3D printing in his entry, which is frowned upon in the hobby but technically allowed in official Golden Demon entries provided you sculpted it yourself.

This time around the competition was held in Spiel, Essen. The contentious elements are mostly to do with the subjectivity of the judging and confusion surrounding the rating of miniatures. Golden Demon has a few levels of award: Notable Entry, Finalist, Commended Entry, and the Golden Demon trophies themselves, which come in bronze, silver, and gold flavours for each category. The overall winner out of every miniature entered wins the Slayer Sword.

Most of the controversies coming out of Essen have been that miniatures that should have been Commended only got recognised as Notable, or some were not awarded anything at all. However, it just seems like a lot of the loudest voices in the hobby – influencers – are throwing their toys out of the pram.

I Wasted 800 Hours Painting

The most egregious of these is a YouTuber called Zumikito Miniatures, who recently published a video titled, “I Wasted 800 Hours Painting, Because Of Golden Demon”. He spends 12 and a half minutes complaining that his two entries in the competition didn’t do well enough when he and his friends think they were great. Come on, dude.

Of course your friends are going to think your models are great! Don’t get me wrong here, Zumikito is clearly a fantastic painter and I think everything he entered looked tremendous from the stills I’ve seen on Instagram and YouTube, but there are flaws. The Age of Sigmar Unit isn’t telling any kind of story, the base is bland, and many of the entries ranked above it deserve to be there. But that’s just my opinion. Which is all a painting competition is. Zumikito has a different opinion to me and, more consequentially, to the judges.

But what really irked me about this video is the shade the painter threw at other entries. While he constantly repeated the mantra that he didn’t want to sh*t on anyone else’s work, the very nature of publishing a video where you say you should have done better than all of these other entries suggests that you think you’re better than them. It makes an assumption that your audience will agree that you deserve the Slayer Sword, not that crummy Troggoth King.

That’s before we get to the fact that Zumikito believes he “wasted” 800 hours painting his entries because he didn’t win. Not only did you get hours of content and a reactionary video out of it, if you’re only painting for awards, you’re in this hobby for the wrong reasons. I paint because I enjoy it, because it relaxes me and because I want an artistic outlet other than writing. I’m never going to win any awards (unless they maybe make a Blanchitsu category at Golden Demon next year), but that doesn’t matter. Take a step back, breathe in deeply, and reassess your relationship with this hobby.

The Right Way To Criticise Golden Demon

I’m sure there were issues with Golden Demon. Many participants complained about the lighting in the cabinets, and the fact that you could guess whether your mini had progressed a day before the awards ceremony due to the stickering system the judges used. But there are ways to criticise constructively, and there are ways to make it sound like you’re just really mad that you didn’t win a shiny trophy.

Many people were confused as to why two-time Slayer Sword winner Richard Grey’s impressive Aeldari didn’t win anything. It’s a phenomenal miniature – again, I’m going off pictures here and it’s impossible to truly tell the quality of a paint job unless you’ve seen it in person like the judges did – and one of my favourites from the competition. But while Grey himself expressed surprise at its exclusion from the podium places, he never sounded bitter about it and, in his criticism of the competition, removed his piece, himself, and his ego to offer genuine advice to the organisers.

On his personal blog, Grey mentions the issues with lighting, queues, and the Open category. His most pertinent critique, however, was the fact that no painter from Games Workshop’s premier ‘Eavy Metal painting team was present on the judging panel. They usually feature prominently, and the competition usually favours the ‘Eavy Metal style of painting as a result (and because the competition is, at its heart, more marketing for Warhammer miniatures).

“The winning entries were all fantastic, as you’d expect at a Golden Demon,” Grey writes. “But I did find it odd that so many incredible models didn’t place as high as they should have. In a competition of this caliber, you expect the judging to be razor-sharp, and while it was certainly competent, I think there’s room for more consistency.”

This is how you fairly critique judging. For a painting competition to be a relatively level playing field year on year, the judging needs to be consistent, which it seems to have not been this year. However, my favourite quote from Grey’s blog was the following:

“If you’re thinking about entering, don’t be discouraged by the fact that some truly fantastic models didn’t win. It’s all about hitting that specific combination of elements that the judges are looking for, and it can be a bit of a mystery to figure out exactly what that is from year to year.”

This is the positivity that we need from Golden Demon. Grey (somehow) didn’t do well, but he still finds ways to spin his criticism into advice for others, especially new painters. Standards of miniature painting are sky high these days – to the point where I think some Young Bloods could have won Slayer Swords if they time travelled to the ‘90s – and if you’re in this hobby for the love of it, you can’t lose.

I realise that I’ve been a little hypocritical in this article and accidentally pitted two great painters against one another when their views aren’t too dissimilar. But I think it’s important to stay positive about competitions like Golden Demon, because it would be very easy for Games Workshop to simply do away with the expense if people are constantly complaining. If the loudest influencers in our hobby are racking up tens of thousands of views with egocentric complaints, then who is Games Workshop going to listen to?

Be careful how you criticise something, and try to take a step back before posting something that tears down a prestigious competition and your fellow participants online. And if you think you’ve wasted your time because you didn’t win – whether that’s a competitive tournament or a painting comp – take another step back, and another. If you’re getting angry about inherently subjective views of art, maybe this isn’t the hobby for you.