Games Workshop have been showcasing more of what we can expect mechanically from Warhammer: The Old World. We've seen them give us an overview of the Turn Sequence and Movement and now, we're looking at the Shooting Phase.

Wood Elves Art // Warhammer: The Old World

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The Shooting Phase works fairly similar to the game that a lot of folks will know from Warhammer Fantasy Battles. As long as you've not marched, charged, fled or find yourself in combat, you can fire your weapons at the enemy. You must have line of sight to your target and cannot split your attacks. Additionally, you will only fire in one rank unless you have a rule like Volley Fire or you are on a hill (that's a nice addition).

Ranged Weapons // Warhammer: The Old World

The classic Ballistic Skill roll has returned with the higher your BS, the easier it is to hit. The change that they have made here is that if you have a Ballistic Skill of six or higher, you get rerolls on your chances to hit. This allows them to do more with the range of statistics available to your characters, troops and monsters and something that I would assume will filter throw into Weapon Skill as well in close combat.

Ballistic Skill Rolls // Warhammer: The Old World

For good or ill, the Wound Chart is also returning to Warhammer: The Old World. This has also been slightly tweaked with some weapons just not able to damage high-toughness characters. That makes sense. A little stone isn't going to do much against the rock-hard hide of a Troll!

To Wound Chart // Warhammer: The Old World

Armour Penetration (seen on the weapon profiles above) will help you crack open the armour of your opponents though. Light Armour gives you a 6+ save and Heavy Armour offers you a 5+ save. Adding a Shield into the mix then brings it up a level as well alongside magical items, barding and more. You'll also be able to use the traditional Ward Save which is rolled after you've failed all other saves (different to an Invulnerable Save in Warhammer 40,000) to save your bacon!

All in all, things seem like they're going in the right direction with the game. It's not a massive departure from Warhammer Fantasy Battles but it looks like they've added in some quality-of-life updates and upgrades to make it a little easier to play. I wouldn't say that it's less complex though. There are still plenty of steps between you firing weapons and taking down your targets.

As we learned during the initial article, Magic also finds itself threaded in amongst the other phases of the game now. Two more spells were previewed in the new article, a mighty Fireball and a Vortex Of Chaos.

Fireball Spell // Warhammer: The Old World

Vortex Of Chaos // Warhammer: The Old World

Both behave as you'd imagine and very much give off the vibe of Warhammer of old. I do like that the Fireball is perfectly all over the place as a spell. It could do two hits, it could do twelve. I can just imagine a burnt-out Bright Wizard trying to summon up the power to actually do more than a puff of smoke.

We're starting to see how Warhammer: The Old World is shaping up as a game now with these articles. It's giving me the vibes of classic Warhammer but with a few tweaks here and there that (currently) I am on board with. I still think there is going to be an uphill climb for Games Workshop to sell this as a game but I guess the proof will be in the pudding.

If nothing else, the return of Warhammer: The Old World will mean classic miniatures and new ones will be added to their webstore. So, if you've still got older editions of Warhammer on your bookshelf, you can just play those and build up your armies once again.

What do you make of the Shooting Phase?