Frustrating… Its a pity nothing (or dang-it-all little) has survived of commentary from ancient writers about the North African tribes of the Roman era. This is especially so considering how the raiding of Roman territory by them along the African frontier seems to have been pretty endemic??? The stationing of a legion at the foot hills of the mountains, the Limes, and the plethora of fortified farmsteads all argue that… 
Its kind'a hard to credit the way a number of wargames figure producers have chosen to portray the North African tribes… First, the "Numidians" (or "Mauri") adopted elements of Carthaginian dress and arms in the Punic Wars -- or their "Elites," their ruling class had, anyway. I guess we have surviving ancient artwork to base that on? Then, about 100 years later, a number of "Numidian" rulers readily adopted elements of Roman dress and arms, even for example raising at least one (?) unit of "Imitation Legionaries…" But then, everyone just "happily reverts" to the 5th C. BC (or BCE if you prefer), i.e. to wearing loincloths, goat skins over their shoulders, and some at least wrap their heads in head-scarfs and veils?? We're to believe that the tribes wore practically nothing but a loincloth, a veil, and a smile for over 400 years --- despite continued contact with the Roman Empire, and then with the Vandals?? Then, without missing a beat, they switched in a generation to wearing Arab-style voluminous clothing and headdress? Hmmmm?
Okay, if "the" (or some!) Garamantes indeed wore veils ca. 1st Cent. BC (see Osprey's David Nicolle, Rome's Desert Frontier, that could help mollify me slightly. On the one hand, the Lamtuna Berbers (known as the Mulathamin in Arabic or Tagelmust in Berber; i.e. "The Veiled Ones"), were a tribe of the larger Sanhaja or Senhaja, one of the largest Berber tribal confederations of the area of Western Sahara now called the Maghreb. On the other hand however, it was only in the 7th Cent. AD (or CE) that the Sanhaja expanded to the borders of "historic Sudan" in the west -- the Senegal and the Niger Rivers -- and only in the 9th Cent. that Sanhaja tribes settled the Middle Atlas range, the Rif Mountains, on to the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and that some also penetrated eastern Algeria and northern Niger.
Therefore, while I am not diametrically opposed, I am leery of the idea absent more and better evidence -- Nicolle aside -- of "veiled" troops in any "Desert" army fighting in/over the western provinces of Roman No. Africa. INDEED, the large shield McBride illustrated for Nicolle ("Plate A," Rome's Desert Frontier)) the lamt, was "Sudanese," and in a scant sentence in the text Nicolle admits (pg. 9) that the lamt probably went west only as the Lamtuna Berbers migrated (i.e. notably after the "Fall" of Western Rome).
Nicolle also notes in the description of figure "A3," the veiled, goatskin-wearing, lamt-carrying Garamante of the 1st Cent. BC, that the litham "face-covering" was worn by "Saharan" tribes, but without differentiating WHERE in the vast Sahara such tribes were found and were NOT found in the 1st Cent. BC. Nicolle also notes in the text that the Berbers liked "soft goat-skin cloaks" (pg. 9), but then in the description of figure "A3," says that the "skin cloak [was] associated with the most isolated tribes."
Finally, Nicolle notes the the Berbers liked "long, flowing unbelted tunics" (which makes me think of the so-called Libyan spear-men in the Carthaginian army). However, then he says that in Roman times the Berber's tunics only reached to the knee (Carthaginian Libyans again). Their tunics only reached to the ankle in the Islamic-era (pg. 9).
In that regard then, I am not saying an "isolated tribe" of veiled, goat-skin clad Berbers, if its collective 
were big enough, could not cross other more "civilized" tribes' territories to raid Roman territory -- on their own or in a concerted effort with tribes living nearer the Romans. Just saying that much as I am VERY taken with the characterful figures, I'm not inclined to the notion of using Artizan Design's Islamic Conquest-era "Berbers," with their face-veils and ankle-length tunics… More's the pity!!
Then there is the case to be made for or against the persistence of Punic-era clothing to the exclusion of "modern" 1st to 3rd Cent. Roman clothing styles. The depictions of "Mauri" on Trajan's Column may have been way-too-stylistic and/or dependent on artistic licence in depicting the Moorish Light Horse. I.E., the depictions may well have been based on hear-say and not eye-witness accounts, and done in a way that "racial memory" from the Punic Wars told the "average Roman in the street" the Moors were SUPPOSED to look (e.g., Nicolle, Rome's Desert Frontier, 9).
I've looked at Gripping Beast's "Desert Frontier" line. Somehow they just look too "Nile Valley" to me?? Harken too much to the Meroitic and/or Sudanese "tribe(s)" illustrated in Rome's Desert Frontier (Plate "B"). Or to Phil Barker's old (badly outdated?) illustrations of the Blemmye --- although McBride's one Blemmye warrior isn't so different from Barker's (see Plate "C").
Nonetheless, I guess maybe the best of a bad situation, given what's available, is to go ahead and use "Numidians" of various lines, like Crusader's or Wargames Factory, and try to make those in fact "work??" For example, the WF "Numidians" infantry sprues would allow me to substitute spare 1st to 2nd Cent. ROMAN helmeted heads from the bitz-box for the heads as provided. Also, to swap out spare Roman gladii or other weapons, and Roman scutum as well. Kind of like the odd figure found in various vendors' Gallic, British, and/or Germanic lines, i.e., "wearing captured Roman equipment."
I'm also thinking of taking a hint from the "Numidian" kings, Jugurtha, Juba, and Juba II. Juba II for example was supposedly thoroughly Romanized. Augustus married him to Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra VII's surviving child, Cleopatra Selene (aka Cleopatra VIII). That is, I'm thinking of portraying any senior "Numidian" Warlord as a Roman general… A "take-off" on McBrides figure "A1" in Rome's Desert Frontier.
Still interested in others' thoughts and some discussion -- I haven't dropped any orders 
…yet!!! 
discovers a lost dinosaur.
