I'm not a huge fan of army painters or washes as I prefer my stuff completely painted,but I'm even less of fan of looking at a huge amount of unpainted miniatures on my shelves.
I have a very large ECW army(among others)sitting there and I would love to see it on a battlefield,but I have other projects that take precedence for the next year or two that I want painted to a high standard.
This situation has me thinking that Army painter might be the only real solution.I've seen some decent looking armies done with it and so I'm giving it some thought.
I did use a short cut with a black shade method on my Normans in 15mm and I'm more less pleased with time and results put in.Maybe I'll try the army painter with some of my 25mm stuff to get some things finished,allowing me to paint other armies to a high standard,but at the same time finishing other ones while I'm at it.
I'm still on the fence,but I'm close to getting off.