5 on Friday 27/06/25

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 dmystates 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 Armies of Grand Cathay for The Old World – As doubtful as I was about The Old World before it came out, I think I’ve been proven wrong in some ways. Specifically, Games Workshop has done a way better job with book and miniature releases (and re-releases) than I had expected. Then this came along:

This is the first real new thing to be added to The Old World. Sure, there were a handful of new minis, but they were all variations on pre-existing themes. This is a new army that has long been wanted by Warhammer fans, and which proved popular in the Total War video games. It’s cool. It’s exciting. The accompanying miniatures are excellent.

Affiliate Links:

Element Games
Wayland Games

Onyx Path releases Mythic Shards supplement for Scion – I’ve been liking the second edition of Scion. I like that Onyx Path owns it now. The range they’ve put out has been a lot of fun. Here’s a particularly fun supplement:

Scion is set in our world, or at least a version of it in which the scions of the Gods walk among us. This book takes Scion into a whole bunch of other worlds to create a whole bunch of different game experiences. You’ve got superheroes. You’ve got cyberpunk. You’ve got post-apocalyptic wastelands. You’ve got plenty more, thereafter.

Affiliate Links:

DriveThruRPG

Cubicle 7 releases their Warhammer: The Old World RPG – I’m not quite sure I understand the point of this one, truth be told. Isn’t there a existing (and excellent) edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play out just now? Well, here’s another one, apparently:

The settings of WFRP and The Old World are, of course, broadly the same. They might have a slightly different focus, but it’s all the Old World, and it’ll have the usual focus on the forces of Order, particularly the men of the Empire. The system is quite different, though. It looks to be a dice pool system using D10s, much like World of Darkness. I do like a dice pool system…

Affiliate Links:

DriveThruRPG

Mantic releases a goblin crew, the Grunk Blackclaw Company Box, for Kings of War Champions – I hadn’t heard about Kings of War Champions. I’ve been interested in Kings of War for a while, but jumping into another full army game without properly playing it first seems… unwise. This might be a jumping-on point. Here’s a nice box of goblins:

My first thought on seeing these chaps was that they could be my army for the game. Then I realised that I’ve got a lot of goblins already and really don’t need to paint another army of them just to play another system. That said, if I did not have so many Gitz, I’d be all over this box!

Affiliate Links:

Element Games
Wayland Games

The Sassoon Files supplement for Call of Cthulhu released on DTRPG – I love setting books for Call of Cthulhu. This one features 1920s Shanghai, which is a really appealing setting for me. It’s an updated second edition of the original The Sassoon Files supplement:

This is a hefty tome with a whole bunch of scenarios, some loresheets, pre-generated characters, and the sorts of maps and handouts that you’d find in many of my favourite Call of Cthulhu supplements. Yeah, this looks really good!

Affiliate Links:

DriveThruRPG

Blog Posts & Articles

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

Gone Fishing @ A Loft Full of Lead – I quite like the idea of, as has been done in this post, resizing 3D prints to repurpose them. Here, it’s a fish. For me, it was for Nagash and Ushoran. It’s just a nice, easy trick that can be super effective.

Reworking Tyranny of Dragons 1: Greenest @ Ben Stovall Blog – It’s nice to see this classic adventure arc revisited. I agree that the whole thing, though an interesting story, was a bit of a mess. The author of this post has some solid ideas about tightening things up and making it work for his group.

Year 3 Review and Year 4 Target Setting @ Hammer the Backlog – Fun post! I especially love the Genestealer Cults and the classic Dogs of War. This is a good roundup, some ambitious targets, and a generally cool writeup. The whole tray method of putting painting piles together is something I’ve seen in a few places. I kind of do the same by putting out a range of things on my desk and leaving them there until they’re done. I could tighten it up, though.

Pathfinder: The Broken Palace – A Vampiric Adventure Review @ Churape’s Dungeon and Stuff – Whilst I don’t care much for Pathfinder, I’m always up for a cool adventure. Sure, the book will have some Pathfinder-specific rules, but an adventure is an adventure, and a story hook is a story hook. This is a solid review that points out that despite introducing some slightly cumbersome survival rules, we’ve got a fun adventure here.

Arcane Journal – Armies of Grand Cathay Review and Battalion Unboxing – Warhammer The Old World @ Sprues & Brews – I’m actually pretty hyped for the Grand Cathay release, and reviews like this just add to that hype. I’m genuinely tempted to jump in, myself. I’m resisting! For now…

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