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Some weapons like an arco flagellants arco flail have the ability "Make 3 hit rolls for each attack made with this weapon instead of 1.". Therefore you could potentially make 3 successful wounds with 1 attack. In 9th edition after the Wound Roll step is the Allocate Attack step, which says, "if an attack successfully wounds the target unit, the player commanding the target unit allocates that attack to one model in the target unit". Does this mean the three successful wounds from that attack have to be allocated at the same time to one model because they're part of the same attack, or is each wound roll allocated separately?

The former interpretation could mean that the attack against a model with 1 wound would destroy the model but the next 2 damage would be lost. The latter interpretation could mean that the attack could destroy up to 3 models.

I think in 8th edition it used to be called the Allocate Wounds step not Allocate Attack step, which to me would make it clearer that you could allocate each wound roll separately.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I'm pretty certain that if your model makes multiple attacks for each attack, then those attacks split at the start and are no longer linked in any way, so they are each treated individually and can kill different models. It's the same as a 3-shot weapon in the shooting phase.

Nothing is lost. Those 3 successful wounds can kill 3 models in the target unit.

 some bloke wrote:
I'm pretty certain that if your model makes multiple attacks for each attack, then those attacks split at the start and are no longer linked in any way, so they are each treated individually and can kill different models. It's the same as a 3-shot weapon in the shooting phase.

That's how I understand it. You allocate the attack, each attack then becomes d3 hit rolls and each of those hit rolls follows the process on page 220 of the rules ("Hit roll", "Wound roll", "Allocate attack", "Saving throw" and "Inflict damage". Once the attack is broken into d3 hit rolls each of those hit rolls is independently dealt with, there's simply no rule to bind them back together or limit them.

GW's language is, to be frank, a bit of a mess with overloaded usages of things like "wound" and "attack". But just follow it through and it hangs together.

Thanks everyone, yeah that's how I interpreted it as well. It's just the wording is not perfect or possibly misleading I suppose. I've emailed GW as well because I'd like to get them to address this officially, ideally in an FAQ but I doubt I'll get a response.

Agreed with everyone above, purely on the basis that allocating the attack/wound still comes after the hit roll. I do see the cause for different interpretations though, so an FAQ would be nice.