"Best Shield Decals for Foundry Imperial Romans?" Topic

I'm just about ready to finish some Foundry Early Imperial Romans for Broken Legions, and I was wonder which aftermarket shield decals worked best for those figures? (Especially ones that are easy to obtain stateside.)

I'd go with Little Big Men.

I've used lots of his decals over the years(including Foundry Republican Romans), and I've NEVER been disappointed.

They are easily obtained stateside. My orders usually arrive from the U.K. in just a little over a week, and postage is only about $2. USD

I 2nd LBM.

Great product with consistently excellent service.

DM

Vidi Vinci vidi do simple waterslide transfers, they look great

I haven't seen any products to rival LBM for quality and they do a healthy variety too. They produce transfers specifically for shield sizes and shapes of different manufacturers so you can be assured they will fit pretty well. The downside: they're bleeding expensive. And because the LBM transfers come in sheets of twelve, and I assemble my units as sixteens (in fact, fourteens once the standard-bearer and musician are excluded), that means a lot of waste. If you have units of 24 (or other multiple of 12) there's not so much worry about wastage, but it's still a hefty price increase per figure.

Veni Vidi Vici transfers are not as impressive and are really only to add fancy elements to shields you've otherwise already painted, so you're not going to get the same dramatic or complicated patterns, and the designs are a little more limited in variety. But they are still good transfers and much more affordable than LBM.

An argument could be made that LBM transfers are wasted on models painted in a mediocre fashion. But then again it could equally be argued that LBM transfers can rescue a pretty average paint job, whereas VVV transfers aren't going to bail out your painting to the same extent.

So it's up to you and largely comes down to what you want to spend. As far as I am aware both companies offer great service. At the moment I use VVV largely for reasons of cost and will probably continue to do so for most purposes.

Thanks for the suggestions everone! After a little shopping at the LBM site, I ordered some decals for my legionnaires, and picked up some for my Gripping Beast Vikings and my West Wind Romano-British. I even bought some Arthurian banners.

I am going to use VVV for my late Romans. LBM are lovely but as others have said very expensive.

LBM and VVV (mine) are two different animals. Since VVV transfers are produced using silk screen printing, the designs are printed on a transparent carrier film. So there is no cutting out required. Any holes needed for shield bosses/spines are already included. On the other hand VVV transfers have no shading and are generally just a single colour prints (although they are produced in a range of colours), since having each extra colour requires a new silk screen.
As for fancy shield patterns, I have often wondered, how many artists were attached to units to do all that art work? Its not something I have seen written about in the histories :)

I agree. I suspect that gamers have more colourful shield designs on their legionaries than should be the case. But it does look good! Personally, I think LBM has become cost prohibitive to us in mass.

LBMS; whenever I ever feel they are expensive, I try to paint one by hand. Pretty soon I'm at the LBMS shop, stuffing my shopping basket. ;-)

Well I set up VVV when I found I had 8,000 Greek hoplites and a similar number of Romans to do shields for.

Battle Flag Studios are cheaper than LBMS; have good detail, and are true waterslide transfers, which I found easier to apply:

link

I use VVV transfers because of how easy they are to apply, If I'm doing a large force this is a factor for me. Customer service has always been great and they arrive quickly here in New York.

VVV transfers, I have recently started my Foundry Romans, I painted the background red, highlight and then add the transfer.

Cheers
Matt