Devlan Mud vs. Army Painter Strong Tone vs. Coat d'Arms Super Shader Dark Brown

So after running almost to the end of my last bit of Devlan Mud i needed to find an alternative to use, at Salute i picked up some Army Painter Washes and some Coat d'Arms super shader to try out

not wanting to ruin any painted figures and after some comparisons of the same effects i rounded up a triplet of useless bodies from my bits box, painted each one Khemri Brown as i find that always looked good after a Devlan Mud wash and tried each out to see if any were close !

so here we go with subjects A, B and C

First off, who was washed with what ?

Subject A  was washed with Devlan Mud
Subject B was washed with Army Painter Strong Tone
Subject C was washed with Coat d'Arms Super Shader Dark Brown

one of the first things i noticed was how similair the Army Painter wash was to Devlan Mud, but hte Coat d'Arms was quite thick looking, looked a little like melted chocolate in the pot, but was quite thin and more ink like when i got some out

all 3 of the subjects dried at around the same time, A and B to a  matt finish, but C has a glossy finish to him.

both A and B have no surface "pooling" on them, but C does unfortunately

looking at the pics above im sure you can see theres almost no difference between subjects A and B, whereas subject C has a definite glossy brown finish to him !

so it looks like the Army Painter Strong Tone is a good substitute for Devlan Mud, whereas the Coat d'Arms is more like a dip, now i can see this still being useful, but not for how i use the washes

ive also found whilst looking around that Coat d'Arms have a product called a "Super Wash" which claims to be a good replacement for the GW washes that were available before a change in their paint range, so ill be trying to pick one up and do a comparison to see whether it is or not, but for now it looks like Army Painter is winning so far (plus it comes in an 18ml bottle too for less the price of a GW Wash !!)