As I have alluded to before, the Roman army in the Third Century AD faced a whole new situation, and underwent a lot of change during our period, mostly forced on it by circumstances - see the links here and here for a bit more detail.
The army had always used 'vexillationes' - legionary detachments, named after the type of standard (a vexillum) they carried. During the 3rd Century this reached epidemic proportions, and a lot (or most?) of the vexillationes taken for whatever purpose (to support a pretender to the purple, or to face down some external threat), never returned to their parent legion. With that in mind, I want to make at least one of my legionary cohorts look quite different to the others.
So I have started work on another cohort, but this time only a small minority of the troops are going to be wearing chainmail, with most wearing segmented and scale armour. There will also be more rectangular scuta in evidence than in my other cohorts. Oh, and a different shield design too - black this time. The aim is to depict a unit which has come from further afield, and has been supplied from different sources, resulting in a different mix of equipment. This is merely plausible speculation, rather than being backed up by any real evidence, but it's all part of establishing a somewhat 'ragtag' flavour for the army as a whole, hopefully typical of the Third Century.
Shield transfers are, as usual, from Little Big Men Studios. I'm using MIR(A&A)6 and MIR(A&A)14. My 'usual' legion is the Second 'Traiana Fortis' (which was based in Alexandria in the Second Century, and fought in Syria a few times), so perhaps these guys will be from the Twelfth 'Fulminata', normally stationed in Cappadocia - we know that a remnant (at least) was still defending the Eastern frontier in the Fifth Century.