Once the number of hits and wounds has been determined, the player that owns the target unit must remove any casualties. This means that the owning player gets to choose who is removed by the enemy's firing. Assuming that the models in the unit have one Wound each, one model is removed for each wound inflicted. Casualties are not necessarily dead, they may be merely knocked unconscious or incapacitated in some way. In any case, they are no longer fit to participate in the battle.

When a unit suffers wounding hits, each will affect a different model - you cannot claim that all the hits strike a single model.

The owning player can choose to remove any models from the unit, providing they are within the line of fire and range of the attacker's weaponry- He can even remove models at the rear of the unit if he wishes - it can be imagined that these troops were slain as they advanced and that the rest of the unit continued moving forward.

Under normal circumstances, powerful weapons will be picked up by other members of the unit and it will be difficult to identify leaders (to a Tyranid, all humans look the same), so it is perfectly fair for a player to avoid taking casualties on (for example) heavy weapons or squad leaders if he doesn't wish to. Sometimes, however, a unit will be subjected to a torrent of fire so severe that a particularly significant model may die or a heavy weapon may be destroyed. When a unit surfers as many wounding hits from the firing of a single enemy unit as it has models, the shooting player can nominate one model in the target unit that could be a casualty. This model must make a save against one of the wounding hits. The owning player can choose which wounding hit he saves against and, if the model has more than one type of save, may select which he uses. Other saves are then taken as normal.

For example, a squad of five Space Marines, including one armed with a flamer, suffers wounding hits from five bolter shots, a meltagun and a krak missile. Seven wounding hits on a five-model unit means the firer is allowed to select an individual model to make a save. He chooses the flamer model. The owning player decides to have the flamer-armed Marine save against one of the bolter shots before making his other saves. After that he remove two models which don't get Armour Saves (against the meltagun and krak missile) and will roll four Armour Saves against the remaining bolter wounding hits (this means that the flamer-armed Marine may die anyway).

Enemy fire can make even the hardiest troops waiver if their companions start to fall in great numbers. Outright flight is unlikely and unwise in the face of intense opposition, but even the most seasoned veterans may fall back to regroup, tend their injured, reload their weapons and reconsider their tactics if they suffer too many casualties.

In Warhammer 40,000, such events are represented by units taking Morale checks when they suffer casualties in the Shooting phase. Any unit of troops losing 25% or more casualties to shooting during a single Shooting phase must make a Leadership test to hold their ground. Morale checks, falling back and regrouping are covered in more detail in the Morale section of the rules.

Especially tough and heroic individuals like Space Marine commanders or horrendous alien monstrosities, such as Tyranid Lictors, can sustain more damage than ordinary troopers and keep on fighting. To show this, they have more than one Wound on their characteristics profile.

When a creature like this suffers a wounding hit that it does not save against, it loses one wound. Once a creature has lost all of its wounds it is removed as a casually, so a creature with 3 Wounds would only be killed after it had been wounded three times. Keep track of how many wounds a creature has left on a piece of scrap paper, or by placing a dice or marker next to the model.

When a unit contains several multiple-Wound models, and those models take wounds, you must remove whole multiple-Wound models from the unit as casualties where possible - wounds may not be 'spread around' to avoid removing models. Track any excess wounds with a marker as noted above.

Creatures with multiple Wounds lake their Armour Saves just like ordinary troops with only one Wound. If they make their save they suffer no damage and if they fail they suffer one wound. Against weaponry with enough Strength to cause instant death, a save can still be attempted (assuming the weapon doesn't have a good enough Armour Piercing value to just punch through their armour).

To a Space Marine, the boltgun is far more than a weapon, it is an instrument of Mankind's divinity, the bringer of death to his foes, whose howling blast is a prayer to the gods of battle.