5 on Friday 14/07/23

It’s Friday, and here on No Rerolls that means it’s time for an all-new 5 on Friday. We’re going to start with 5 exciting releases for this week before moving on to our usual digest of some of our favourite articles from the past week. Of course, we’re slow readers, so don’t be surprised if there are some articles that are a little older – these are just some of the great articles we happen to have actually read in the past week.

Releases & Previews

Every week there are many games, books, and miniatures released. This will probably be a mix of previews, preorders, and releases, and with release dates being the way they are in this industry, it’s always pretty approximate. Excuses out of the way, here are 5 of the releases that caught our attention this week:

Games Workshop releases the Lion for Warhammer 40,000 – The Lion previously came out in a limited box with some Bladeguard Veterans. Now, he’s out on his lonesome!

Ultimately he is a big dude in power armour. As that, he excels. I love this mini. It’s better than Guilliman’s, which I actually quite like, too. Like Guilliman, the standard, exposed head option is not good. Well, that’s not true. The Lion’s bare head is very good, and way better than Guilliman’s. What I should say is that it’s not as good as the other options. There’s a large winged helmet that looks alright, but the winners for me are the hooded options. I think Dark Angels and hooded robes go together really well, so the hooded head and hooded helm options both look great.

Affiliate Links

• Element Games

Dadi&Piombo releases Warbook 4 for Impetus – Impetus is a well-established set of rules for historical wargames. The system is very flexible and can cover a huge range of different time periods. What you need to do this, of course, are army lists… That’s where this book comes in:

The book contains 94 lists from the following periods:

• The Ottoman Empire
• The Hundred Years War
• XV Century Italy
• XV Century Europe
• The Wars of the Roses
• Medieval and Renaissance India
• War in the New World
• The Great Italian Wars
• Renaissance Europe

This seems a huge amount of content in a concise, little package.

Affiliate Links:

• Wargame Vault

DriveThruRPG sets up store page for ENnie Aware nominees – It’s awards season again as Gen Con approaches and the ENnie nominations are out. DriveThruRPG has set up a store page to highlight the nominees.

There are, of course, some really fantastic items in here. You can read my picks for the awards (Part 1 and Part 2) in some posts from earlier this week.

Affiliate Links:

• DriveThruRPG

Inner Realms Journey launches Kickstarter campaign for their Guidebook & Avatar Journal – An interesting offering, this is a roleplaying game where meditation is a key mechanic. Specifically, this Kickstarter is for the guidebook and journal to go along with the existing subscription service for the guided meditations.

It seemed interesting, so I took a look at the campaign in this week’s Kickstarter-Watch post. I’m not sure it’s for me, but I love when games explore new concepts.

Black Library releases a new Warhammer 40,000 novel, Cypher: Lord Of The Fallen –  Cypher has long been one of the coolest characters in Warhammer 40,000. I remember using him a lot in third edition where I loved his robed mini, dual wielding pistols. Now, Black Library is putting out a new Cypher novel:

I’m keen to read this and really see where the story is taking Cypher. I’m a bit concerned that his direction is starting to look a bit like that of the Alpha Legion where “mystery, lol” is mistaken for good or smart writing. Hopefully we’re moving away from that into something more interesting.

Blog Posts & Articles

The meat of 5 on Friday, the articles are listed in no particular order, so let’s get into some recommendations: 

Combat Patrol Orks: 1K Beginners Army @ Woehammer – I keep meaning to do stuff like this. I’ve actually got a few half-finished ones sitting in the drafts. This is a good post, with lots of detail to justify the choices made. A good read, and Orks are a fantastic army.

Hoarfrost Tech in GHB 2023-24 @ Plastic Craic – For Plastic Craic, this is a pretty short post, but it gets to the point and presents an interesting combination of spells/units. This is a detailed breakdown of Hoarfrost’s impact, and especially on the humble Stabba.

Re-equipping for Tenth Edition @ Lasguns & Roses – I’ve seen folk doing this before, using Bretonnian Men at Army parts to create a more feudal-looking guardsman for 40K. The author of this post has done a fantastic job of it. Thanks for sharing!

We Devoured The Chance To Paint A Free Tyranid Termagant @ Handful of Dice – I love these posts by Handful of Dice. it’s one of the things that really appeals to me about blogging as part of a group. My favourite scheme this time is probably Ben’s. I do like green!

Friday Night Shots – One and Done Games @ Dude! Take Your Turn! – A good reflection on board games, personal tastes, and first impressions. Although Terraforming Mars is one of my favourite games, I had the same first impression as this author where it didn’t land with me immediately. It took time. Same with Age of Sigmar, actually.

*  *  *

Since my last 5 on Friday, here’s what’s appeared on NoRerolls:

• Part 3 of our series on investigative roleplaying
• Part 1 of my picks for this year’s ENie Awards
• Part 2 of my picks for this year’s ENie Awards
• A Kickstarter-Watch for a meditation-based RPG
• The results of the Plastic Craic painting contest
• A Bundle of Holding for the Root RPG
• A Throwback Thursday on evolving RPG settings

This week, I’m away, but I’ve got posts queued up. There likely won’t be a 5 on Friday, but the investigative gaming series will continue, there’s a miniature that I finished up, an update on how the DTRPG self-publishing is going, and other bits and bobs.

Catch y’all soon!