"25/28mm Late Roman Purchasing Options" Topic

I am looking at starting to put together a Late Roman Army together for Hail Caesar. I want to start off with a division of about 48 unarmored spearmen. I have been doing some comparisons online with the different figure manufacturers and comparing the quality of the figures and pricing. I have found:

1. Old Glory 25 have some late Roman Auxiliaries with 30 to a bag for about $30 USD US. The quality does not look as good as the others, but it is by far the lowest price option.

2. Crusader offers some late Romans through a US distributor. Cost is higher than Old Glory, but figures look better.

3. Wargames Foundry. Quality looks good, but cost is high. A bulk army deal and free shipping would bring price down, but I am still looking at $100 USD+ USD

4. Gripping Beast. Good quality, but price is way more than what I want to spend. This is the costliest option.

Are the Old Glory 25's a bad option? I would be paying half the price I would if I bought from the others, but if the quality of the figures is poor, may not be worth it.

Am I better off and paying more and getting the ones from Crusader?

How about the Curteys Miniatures unarmoured Romano British. They are suitable for Late Romans.

Another option is West Wind Productions. The sculpting is good, prices competitive, and you can get things like head packs and unit deals.

Black tree design… some great figures..

I would go with the Crusader figures. They are good quality and the price isn't bad. If you are going to Historicon they usually have a buy 5 get one free deal which would lower your cost somewhat.

Musketeer figs are great looking. They are a bit on the expensive side but well worth it for Command figs at least.

My Late Romans are based around Crusader minis, and I really like them. I have the armored versions. Note that the Crusader figures mix well with the Foundry figures IMHO, if you want a little more variety. I use Foundry to fill gaps that Crusader doesn't do (like cavalry).

Damon.

Parkfield miniatures does a few figures – nice sculpts that fit well with BTD, and at 80p per figure they're a good option for your rank-&-file.

Black Tree Design have a very nice range, cheaper than Foundry but more expensive than OG. These figures will match up with Foundry, however, for mix and matching purposes.

Another option would be to buy Gripping Beast Dark Age warriors in plastic.

You might want to replace some of the heads with separate Wets Wind heads if you want a few with helmets.
Also if you want to replace the circular shields with Musketeer oval ones for more variety.

Gripping Beast do very good unarmoured late Roman spearmen as do Musketeer, The Black Tree ones fit in perfectly as do the new ones from Curteys.

Thank you all for the recommendations. I am thinking of going with the Crusader miniatures. I have some of the Crusader Byzantine skutatoi and like the quality and Pictors Studio brings up the good point of discounts I can get at Historicon in July. I will pay more than the Old Glory figures, but I know I will be satisfied with the quality.

I will also look at the Foundry figures to fill in the ranks.

I looked at the Musketeer figures. They are very high quality. The problem I have is the cost is way too high for me. Same for the Gripping Beast ones.