Wounds
Rolling to Wound
Not all of the attacks that do hit will harm your enemy. They may be deflected by equipment, parried at the last moment or merely inflict a graze or flesh wound. Once you have scored a hit with an Attack you must roll again to see if you score a Wound and incapacitate your foe.
The procedure is the same as for shooting. Cross-reference the attacker's Strength characteristic (S) with the defender's Toughness (T) on the standard rulebook Strength/Toughness wound chart. The chart indicates the minimum D6 roll required to inflict a Wound.
Example: A Space Marine (Strength 4) hits a Dark Eldar (Toughness 3). Referring to the Damage chart we find that the Space Marine requires a 3 or more on a D6 to wound.
What Strength To Use
In almost all cases, when rolling to wound in close combat use the Strength on the attacker's profile, regardless of what gun they are using. Some (but not all) close combat weapons may give the attacker a Strength bonus — this is explained under Special Close Combat Attacks. In a unit containing different strength models roll their attacks separately (they'll quite often have different Initiative characteristics too). So, for example, in a unit of Gretchin and an Ork Slaver the Grots' attacks are made with their puny Strength of 2, but the Slaver's attacks use his more macho Strength of 3.
Different Toughness'
If the unit being attacked contains models with different Toughness characteristics, then the hits are converted to wounds using the majority Toughness in the unit. If there is an equal number of models with different Toughness characteristics the owning player chooses which Toughness is used. To continue the example above, the unit of Grots (T2) and Ork Slaver (T4) will suffer to-wound rolls using the Grots' meagre Toughness as long as they are in the majority. Once again remember that this is figured at each Initiative step. So, for example, if the Grot unit was whittled down to a single Grot and the Slaver remaining, the attacks at the next Initiative step could be resolved at the Toughness of the Slaver at the option of the owning player — all in all a smart move.
Designers note: The majority Toughness of the unit is used to prevent the combat bogging down into allocating individual attacks against different models and having to make separate to wound rolls. There are few units with differing Toughness values and this rule prevents weaker models 'hiding behind' the higher Toughness of an anomalous individual.
Armour Saves
Models struck and wounded in close combat can attempt an armour save to avoid becoming casualties. Models usually get to save regardless of the attacker's Strength but some especially monstrous creatures and powerful close combat weapons will punch straight through armour.
Note that cover provides no extra protection in close combat as it does against shooting. Remember that Invulnerable models are allowed to make Invulnerable saving throws even where armour saving throws would not normally be allowed. If the rules for a weapon or attack state that no armour save is allowed then only an Invulnerable save may be made.