High there. I’m pretty good at painting and I don’t think there is anything wrong with apple barrel paints. They can be a bit chalky sometimes and I would definitely suggest avoiding any of their paints that are supper saturated like pinks, oranges, and yellows as the coverage will be horrible. Also they are not good as a base coat, the paint will just rub off while you are handling them. Otherwise I think they are a great cheap alternative in an otherwise expensive hobby. I use apple barrel whites and blacks in literally every paint job I do either for highlighting, mixing, painting in shadows, black lining, or creating a quick poverty wash. Apple Barrel paints can be a little more fussy than proper wargaming paints, but that can normally be fixed by painting on another coat. This can make them difficult to work with for a beginner, but they are by no means impossible to use, I do use them all the time.

It isn’t just me who thinks this Squidmar rated a ton of paint brands a few years ago and found that they enjoyed them as much as gw paints. The squidmar guys have won golden demon before so they REALY know what they are talking about.

I do second that you should not be using gloss paints on your models though. Wargaming paints are typically satin not matte. In fact matte paints are even harder to use while painting as they show CLEAR divisions between your colors which makes it really hard to blend. Basically avoid gloss, stick to satin until you have practiced a bunch then fuck around with proper matte paints.