[Lynne]

I think you just basically need something along these lines (replace * with the specific fields you want):

PHP Code:

$my_query="SELECT * FROM ".$TABLE_PREFIX."thread as thread
WHERE thread.visible = 1 AND thread.forumid=x
ORDER BY thread.dateline desc limit 5"; 
$my_result=$db->query($my_query); 

while ($my_variable=$db->fetch_array($my_result)) {
do stuff, including rending the template
} 


(There are mods around that have these queries and the while loop and all, you just need to go look.)