5 on Friday 23/05/25

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 a new Codex for the Thousand Sons – For those tuning in for my semi-regular updates on the matter, I can confirm that the Death Guard remain the best traitor legion. The Thousand Sons, however, are acceptable. Here’s a new book for the army:

It’s got your sorcery. It’s got your dusty marines. It’s got your birdmen. For what more could one ask? Sinceriously? I had a Thousand Sons Terminator army back in the day, back when we used to use Space Wolves rules to allow an all-Termie army, and the bonus characters to cram in more psykers. They’ve kept a special place in my heart.

Affiliate Links:

• Element Games
• Wayland Games

Wizards of the Coast is taking preorders for Dragon Delves, an adventure anthology for D&D – I still don’t really like the name of this edition of D&D, nor the cynicism with which it seemed to be getting pushed last time I checked in on it, which was admittedly quite some time before release. Oh, well. Here’s an adventure book:

The book contains 10 adventures, all of which are themed around dragons. They cover a wide range of levels and there are some solo options for anyone who is that way inclined. I don’t know that I’ll be jumping onto this edition; I’m happy with the previous one, and I just have other games I want to play.

Affiliate Links:

• Wayland Games (standard cover)
• Wayland Games (alt cover)

Ravensburger to release the Reign of Jafar starter decks for Lorcana – Lorcana continues to see a lot of play at home. It’s a fun, light TCG that we really enjoy. We also held a recent event, which went very well.

Each set that comes out comes with a pair of starter decks. These are usually pretty fun, and they can feel very different to one another. I think my wife and I have already collected too many of these, though!

Affiliate Links:

• Wayland Games (Illumineer’s Trove)
• Wayland Games (Booster Box)
• Wayland Games (Bruno/Tiana Starter Deck)
• Wayland Games (Mulan/Stitch Starter Deck)
• Grab singles at Big Orbit Cards

Cephalofair is taking preorders for the removable sticker set for Gloomhaven’s second edition – Gloomhaven is the heftiest dungeon crawl out there. My own copy is sitting sad and unloved, but I’ll get to it at some point… probably. The second edition is on the way, and this is a useful accessory to along with it:

The game is fundamentally campaign-based. It’s not meant to really be played as a one-off adventure, but rather as an ongoing story. One of the downsides of legacy-style campaign board games is that they are often one-use; or at least the early implementations were. These stickers let you make changes and then still reset the game back to its original state.

Affiliate Links:

• Wayland Games

Atomic Mass Games releases a new Rebel Troopers set for Star Wars Legion – I was a little doubtful about the future of Legion once Shatterpoint comes out, so I was surprised to see a big refresh come along. It’s nice to see some cool updates to the range.

These Rebel Troopers are way cooler than the old ones. The older models looked fine, but the new box adds some variety, particularly when it comes to non-human miniatures. Given the importance of non-humans to the Rebel Alliance, it’s great to see them better represented among that faction’s range.

Affiliate Links:

• Element Games
• Wayland Games

Blog Posts & Articles

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

Friday Night Shots – How Important is Art? @ Dude! Take Your Turn! – Art is why I play the Golem edition of Century rather than the original. Art is, as he discusses, my one major gripe about the original Terraforming Mars; lots of it is hideous. I do think Ares Expedition improved on this significantly. It’s not amazing, but it’s less wildly inconsistent.

Top Three AoS Lists Mercia Madness II @ Woehammer – The Gargants list with the Regiment of Renown is really interesting. It’s also one I couple field, if I just bothered to build a few minis. I might take a look. The FEC list just underlines to me that I really need to build more Morbheg Knights…

Daily Commander: Gev, Scaled Scorch @ J.M. Casual Blog – This grabbed my attention because a friend is putting together a Gev deck, and I like the idea of it. Such a cool commander!

Daily miniature: Tzaangors @ Scent of a Gamer – I have such mixed feelings about the Tzaangors. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the minis until I painted mine. I didn’t super enjoy painting mine, as the sculpts have a lot of issues, but they did grow on me somewhat. These ones are lovely, though!

Getting back into Star Wars Unlimited @ Spalanz – Dude is Star Wars-obsessed… That said, it was his ravings that got me to finally give Andor a go. I watched the first season and am halfway through the second and I am loving it, so perhaps he has a point.

*  *  *

There have been a few posts since my last 5 on Friday:

• A review of a radio play
• My Completed GSC Primus
• A destructive combo in Magic
• My completed GSC Sanctus
• My completed GSC Biophagus
• A Traveller-themed Throwback Thursday

4 minis finished this week; all GSC characters. The Biophagus is definitely my favourite miniature that I’ve painted so far for my BRUtherhood.

This updates our totals for year to:

Purchased: 28
Painted: 48

Catch you next week!