Savage Orc Unit Filler

Unit fillers are one of my favourite things about Warhammer Fantasy. They give you an opportunity to really explore your hobby and for me a chance to use some of the thousands of random bitz I've meticulously organised over the years.


When it came to my Savage Orcs I knew I wanted to do something like a shrine or a sacrificial pit. When the 5th edition Lizardmen book came out I was amazed by the diorama of a temple guard sacrificing an empire explorer into a pit of Lizards and I wanted to try a create something with that level of story for this unit filler. (I tried to find a picture of that diorama, but the internet has failed me.)

After looking around my bitz boxes I came across a selection of items that I felt could be used to build the basis for my unit filler.

Savage Orc Unit Filler

Savage Orc Unit Filler

For anyone curious the bits I used were:

One of the casualties from the now out of print Mordheim casualty sets
The set of two orc totems are the stone weights from the Orc and Goblin Rock Thrower
The grass and skull things are actually extra fur segments from the Beastman Gorgan box.
The Vulture is from the Fantasty Giant set
The Stake is actually the bottom of a savage orc spear whittled at the top into a point
The odd skulls with stakes through them (no idea actually, maybe the Gorgan box again?)
The painted skull rock outcrop is actually one of the islands from Dreadfleet

It might not look like much, but I couldn't be happier with this. It's really one of the first conversions I've properly done and the first time my stupid collection of bitz has really come in handy. So yeah, go me? I'm weirdly happy with the vulture, so I took a more close up photo of it....

Savage Orc Unit Filler

The other part of this unit filler is the guy actually doing the sacrificing. I had originally thought about having two orcs holding the arms and legs of the guy with an Orc shaman about the plunge a knife into his guts. Unfortunately due to the spacing on the base, plus the fact that the dead guy is pretty flat underneath and would look weird, forced me to abandon that idea. Instead I decided to go with an orc shaman standing by the sacrifice looking really pleased with himself. Originally I thought about just plunking a plastic savage orc by him and being done with it, but after finding a metal shaman riding a pig in my bitz box I decided to do something else.

Savage Orc Shaman

Savage Orc Shaman

Because of the bowed legs the shaman had I had to cut them off and most of his middle using my Dremel. (LOVE my Dremel btw, seriously it is so useful I can't even begin to sing its praises enough.) I then took a plastic orc, cut its top off and then stuck them together. They were a pretty good fit to begin with, but I threw some green stuff in the middle and had a go at trying to make it look like fur, cut the metal sword and hand off and added one of the daggers that comes with the Savage Orcs.

Savage Orc Unit Filler

I'm pretty pleased with him, obviously I still need to stick his head on and his shaman back pack thing, but I wanted to let the green stuff dry and harden before I start drilling into him.

Savage Orc Unit Filler

So that is my Savage Orc Unit filler done. I've got some cool ideas from some more unit fillers for my regular Orc Boys, my Black Orcs and my MANY Night Goblin units, so stayed tuned for more Unit Fillers!