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hello dakka peeps. Basically im after some ideas. I'm currently making an empire army and wanted to put U it fillers in there to bring it too life. I'm currenlty building a spearman and a swordsman unit, any ideas?

You could maybe have a couple of men lugging some beer, some troopers climbing trees etc

Hope I helped

Legion

A suit of armor, a cannonball, I myself am wondering for my building WHFB army.

Build some dioramas of your units fighting armies you have played, painted in the scheme of your opponent, for my gors i use a Giant

Horse and cart or something? Or maybe like a dog handler or something similar?
My favourite's always been an Ogre on a 50mm base representing 4 guys but thats just me.

If you want unit fillers to 'bring it to life", and not to just use less models, I highly recommend having guys in the back ranks reacting to each other.

My Chaos Marauders have guys fighting and scuffing with each other in the back ranks. My Bretonnian peasants (not the brightest of bulbs) have guys holding their halberds upside-down, helmets hung on halberds, and facing the wrong way. Each of these idiots has a guy near him screaming at him about it. My orcs and goblins, of course, have guys squabbling.

Doing this keeps your unit looking full, but breaks up the boring regimentation. A lot of unit fillers, to my eye, look cheap (a large blank base, with a monkey on it). I can certainly understand no wanting to pay GW prices for models, but just use smaller units. Others don't seem to make any sense, since the 'filler' in question is, in fact, some different thing with different statistics, which can't actually join the regiment, like an ogre. Then some look cool, and make sense, but really only make sense as a display model, since there's no way the unit could be marching with, say, a tree in the middle of the regiment. Of course, the little rocks on the base don't actually come with the unit either as it marches, but it's a lot more glaring with something large like a tree or a statue. A lot of these look really great (herdstones in a beastman army), but they, for me, detract from the enjoyment during a game.

For Empire I think dioramas don't make much sense since they're supposed to be well disciplined 'n' drilled, etc...

All I can really think of is using the Powder Monkey from the handgunners set... maybe have a bunch of panicked guys breaking ranks as this monkey with a gunpowder barrel makes his presence known? I mean, he's a stupid monkey right? He could blow them all sky high!

theres the dancing bear for empire .or you could have a injured chap being bandaged up .or one being blessed

have you seen the empire oger man eater? convert a few ogers to look like that and use those ^^

sorry for the really late reply guys, no interenet connection.
Thankyou for the awesome idea. ones ive come up with so far:- I've made a tree with a wooden platform around it with a warrior preist reading from a book on it, he's in my unit of flagellants and also I was going to build a wall onto the unit tray that my handgunners will sit on, as if they are taking cover.
let know what you think

How about making it look like a cannonball was shot through the ranks?

lol, 8 or 9 red bases

How about a Giant jumping up and down?

Baggage items/carts are probably easiest.
Some conqubines?

Got any pics of the treehouse warrior priest filler? Sounds cool


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw mounted figures can look really cool, such as the art for the flaggies in the old book there is a mounted flaggelant

I'd go for some troopers pushing/pulling handcarts of supplies (food, ammo, whatever). The carts can be any size, so long as they and their pushers/pullers look good on their shared base. A pack pony laden with supplies would work similarly.

Other thoughts for mini-dioramas to fill a unit: a wounded soldier being supported by the soldier next to him, two or more soldiers arguing or passing something to each other.

Just had a thought, how about a small open fronted command tent with a couple of officers looking at a map on a table?

jprp wrote:
Just had a thought, how about a small open fronted command tent with a couple of officers looking at a map on a table?

While it's an excellent idea for a small diorama, it would look totally out of place in the middle of ranked soldiers. And that is the most common problem with Empire State Troop unit fillers. If rest of the unit are standing in nice ranks and files, a single large base with "something else" simply does not fit in. Even a small terrain piece, such as shrine or roadpost, does not fit in if the other models do not look like they are reacting to it.

"Something else" unit fillers fit best in units that do not represent trained soldiers. In Empire aremy this would include flagellants and free company. If you make your state troops look less regimented by introducing models from different editions and/or races then ogres should fit in nicely.

What you can do with regimental troops such as Empire State Troops is to use larger bases and fill them with normal models. That may sound pointless, but it allows you to break the formation slightly without breaking the unit coherency. Most importantly, it gives you more surface area to try advanced basing. "Advanced" can be as simple as battlefield debris that does fit nicely on 20mm bases. Fallen shields, broken weapons, skeletons, skulls and stuff like that.

I strongly suggest 40x60mm bases for 20mm base unit fillers.

not the worlds best picture but heres my tree ive done for those crazy sigmar worshipper dudes!!!!!!!!

jullevi wrote:

jprp wrote:
Just had a thought, how about a small open fronted command tent with a couple of officers looking at a map on a table?

While it's an excellent idea for a small diorama, it would look totally out of place in the middle of ranked soldiers. And that is the most common problem with Empire State Troop unit fillers. If rest of the unit are standing in nice ranks and files, a single large base with "something else" simply does not fit in. Even a small terrain piece, such as shrine or roadpost, does not fit in if the other models do not look like they are reacting to it.

"Something else" unit fillers fit best in units that do not represent trained soldiers. In Empire aremy this would include flagellants and free company. If you make your state troops look less regimented by introducing models from different editions and/or races then ogres should fit in nicely.

What you can do with regimental troops such as Empire State Troops is to use larger bases and fill them with normal models. That may sound pointless, but it allows you to break the formation slightly without breaking the unit coherency. Most importantly, it gives you more surface area to try advanced basing. "Advanced" can be as simple as battlefield debris that does fit nicely on 20mm bases. Fallen shields, broken weapons, skeletons, skulls and stuff like that.

I strongly suggest 40x60mm bases for 20mm base unit fillers.

I was thinking it would sit at the rear of the unit with the troops marshalled in front.