Are you obliged to use all attacks?

A question came up in today's game.
My Bloodbride Hekatrix stood alone, face to face with a Nurgle lawnmower drone: a floating CC death machine, with 12 attacks, good AP&Damage.

The rest of her squad had been wiped out in last turn's combat, but she had passed her morale test.
The Drone too was on its final wound. (A lovely cinematic showdown as the injured rivals faced off!)

My opponent attacked first. He needed to kill her, as her 4+1 attacks might kill him back.

On the other hand, my girl's Cursed Blade sexy leotard of death causes Mortal Wounds if I roll a 6 on my save. In other words, if he drowns me in attacks, he probably kills himself.

My opponent recognised that statistically he probably only needed 3 attacks to kill my girl, so proposed doing only those.
I thought that he was OBLIGED to roll all 12.

So, who was right? Are melee attacks optional, or must all of them be assigned?

Possible relevancies:

BRB202 - "Attacks: This tells you how many times a model can strike blows..."

BRB216 - (Shooting attacks, 2nd paragraph) " When you select a unit...with any or all ranged weapons" (ie in the shooting phase it explicitly allows you to not shoot all your guns)

BRB229 - "Fight: When you select a unit to fight...must make close combat attacks"

From then on, on page 229, it refers to making attacks, and rolling and so on, but no specific line about "any or all".

So, has this been resolved in an FAQ? Or has anyone got a solid explanation either way?
I can see this affecting us too, on units or particular models with a lot of attacks (Talos chain flails, for example).

Thanks for answers or opinions!

Actually an interesting question. Just from my gut feeling, I would say, you can choose to not use all attacks.

I can't find anything specific either way in the rules. I think it's assumed you will make all your attacks but I can't find that it's actually stated anywhere.

As long as you declare before making your rolls, I certainly wouldn't have any problem if you choose not to make all your attacks.

**Update from Facebook discussion where I cut&pasted the above**

Consensus is:
Yes, the number of attacks the Drone has to make is as per its Attack stat (in this case 4 attacks, each doing 3 hit rolls. It can either make them all against one target, or split them between multiple units.

Once he has rolled to hit and to wound, let's say I have 8 saves to make: I should then roll them individually, just like we do for the Archon's disappearing 2++. As soon as I roll a fail, my helatrix dies. At that point, there are no more saves to roll, because the target unit has disappeared!

If before that fail I rolled a 6, the Drone would have lost its final (mortal) wound, and disappeared, so the next question is: would I roll the rest of my saves, now the source of the attacks has disappeared?

My feeling is yes, as those blades are still flying. But my Deathguard Friend says I should get away with it!

I think there is an argument to made to do that situation one at a time. Each attack has a chance at a mortal that could stop further attacks. Each save has a chance to kill the character that would stop further attacks.

You definitely need to finish making all of your saves. Those don't go away just because the Drone is killed. Rolling the saves individually could work. I usually roll as many dice as I have wounds left to speed things up a bit. (EX: 4 wounds left, 4 dice. I took 2 wounds, now I would roll 2 dice, etc.)

Myrvn wrote:

I think there is an argument to made to do that situation one at a time. Each attack has a chance at a mortal that could stop further attacks. Each save has a chance to kill the character that would stop further attacks.

That's a good point. The default position is that attacks are resolved individually. We almost always resort to fast dice rolling instead (as we haven't got all day) but in a case like this where a successful attack ends the combat and a successful save of 6 also ends the combat I think you'd have to go back to rolling each attack separately.

As other people have pointed out, the Attacker has the option of rolling their attacks individually.

Only The Strong Will Thrive says that the Mortal Wounds go through "after the attacking model's unit has finished making its attacks" which to me suggests that the attacker in this case still gets the option to roll out the rest of their attacks if they suffered the MW.

In my competitive group, they tell me that you MUST make all possible attacks, and you cannot even choose to use a basic CCW if you have a real weapon.

Means you have to be very careful when you charge, if you dont want to attack with everything.