I have a hot air station but it's not at all necessary. Most of the time I just use a soldering iron. I will pre-tin one pad. put a thin layer of flux on all the pads. using forceps (tweezers work ok), I hold the chip in place and hold the iron to the pin that sits over the pre-tinned pad. That hold the chip in place, then I load up the iron tip with solder and touch it to each of the other leads. With my small tip iron, I can do 2 or 3 pins before having to load up more solder. finally, I resolder the first pin. use solder wick to clean up any bridges.
If you use paste, you can use a syringe to put a small amount on each pad, put the chip in place and hot air solder it. I find that more tedious than hand soldering. also, if you don't have soldermask (i.e. home made boards), you have to be very carefull to properly align the chip. with the solder mask, the surface tension of the molten solder will float it into perfect alignment.