"Livery badge decals" Topic

Currently diving into the Perry WoTR plastics I decided to add to the pile of shame. While still being utterly undecided as to what livery I should paint my first unit of bills I was looking for livery badge transfers because my free-hand painting skills don't stretch very far and I came up empty (apart from banners). I have some old CitadelSix ones for an unrelated project but I was underwhelmed by their performance when I bought them and they've now been mouldering in a box for some years which I doubt has improved them. They are also Edward IV and Richard III whom I was going to avoid. Anyone know of any livery badge decal suppliers? I know DIY is an option but my printer is a cheap inkjet whose quality is sketchy at best.

I keep hoping that someone will purchase the Citadel Six line and switch to clear decal paper, which would make a huge difference in the quality. As it stands now, they aren't exactly unusable, but you have to match the jacket colors and paint the edges around most of the ones that you can get onto the figure!

Here is a heretical thought – have you considered not putting badges on the men, but simply swapping out livery+badge flags for the unit depending on which lord's array you're representing in the battle? Among the problems I have found in presenting WotR armies is that (a) many lords were only present for one or two battles and (b) many lords changed titles during the course of the wars and change of title sometimes meant change of livery and/or badge.

But by restricting the figures' paintjobs just to the liveries and reserving the badges for swappable flags, you get a lot of flexibility in using your units for battles throughout the period. Consider this very partial livery list:

RED: Richard Neville Earl of Warwick; William Stanley; Earl of Devon; John Howard Duke of Norfolk; Edmund Lord Grey; Lord Berkely; town militia of Rye

RED & BLACK: Prince of Wales; Earl of Northumberland; John Neville Lord Montague; Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury; John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury (if you cheat and let this pass for black & red, you also get the Dukes of Buckingham and Lord Welles)

WHITE: Lord Clifford; Viscount Beaumont; Lord Scrope; Lord Wenlock; Sir John Conyers; Lord Dacre

ROUW, there's very little in the way of commercial livery badge decals out there. What there is is generally a mix of "generic" symbols-such as imperial eagles- and only a few of each on the sheet. For example link

Another option, which can be somewhat expensive, is to get a custom decal printer to print them for you (I added a couple of links to British companies below). That way you can get exactly what you want and not have to buy five or six sheets, just to be able to use a few decals from each sheet. You'll need to have a bit of experience playing with graphics software so you can set to resolution of the graphics and the printed size.

I did that for a mixed A4 sheet of WWII British tank markings (WD census numbers, names and tac markings) and livery badges. The sheet was about 26 quid in your money, but you'd spend as much getting a few A6 sheets.

link

link

@Eumelus
Thanks, funnily enough the thought had crossed my mind about going badge-less (at least until some good decals turn up). I was already planning to do a single force that could be broken down to provide two sides for Lion Rampant or similar – so I was intending to have some relatively generic additional units that can cos-play the side I don't specifically paint as required.

@Dal,
Graphic software skills aren't great (my work colleagues will testify to this) and £26.00 GBP is another box of Perry's plastics! Probably worth building the force and then seeing what I need before taking the custom route – but as it stands looks like the best option if I want badges.

I've got a few of my own done- Roos, Jasper Tudor, Holland, Audley and Butler, mainly, and others in case I decide to expand. Work out which liveries you need and let me know, mate, and I may already have some artwork done that you can use.

Dom's Decals did Livery Bages for WoTR, unfortunately he's been OOP since 2018 but his site is still up.

Dom did great work, VB, and his closing down left a hole. I'm surprised nobody else tried to fill it.

I have a pile of WOR 28mm figs. I no longer have the eyesight to paint livery badges. So I went with the Hollywood approach. Get the colors close to correct with appropriate flags and let the dice roll.

@Dal
Thanks for the kind offer. At the moment the entire project is 20 assembled billmen (10 undercoated), plus some archers, of which 3 in padded linen armour have a little paint on them!

That's a start, mate, and a start is the hardest part.

I have some of the Little Big Men flags and livery badges, but I haven't tried to use the latter yet.

Footsore Miniatures posted on Facebook that they were reviving the Citadel Six range and planning to expand it:

link

Cheers
JJ

Excellent news. My new medieval project was originally a tossup between C13 (Fireforge and Footsore's lovely looking Barons War range) and WoTR – so Footsore will now likely get some money out of me anyway.