'Normal' shooting attacks – by which we mean to say shooting attacks that use the firer's Ballistic Skill – cannot hit a character in a combined unit if there are five or more rank and file models from the same troop type (including musician and standard bearer, but not the champion) left in the unit. We assume that the enemy cannot pick the character out. All hits are allocated onto the unit's rank and file models.

If there are fewer than five rank-and-file models left in the unit (or the character is of a different troop type) there is a chance that any characters in the unit could be hit – the controlling player decides who is hit, but must allocate one hit on each model before he can add a second hit on a model; he must allocate two hits on each model before he can allocate a third, and so on.