We’ve always done dead is dead. Encourages prudent actions. Referee usually avoided obvious party kills like an entire six member PC group in a 113 taking a catastrophic kill by adulterating damage. But, small arms, etc was played straight.
We played a Merc campaign where the PCs were key expat members of a reinforced ranger infantry platoon (PL, PSG, FO, MEDIC, SLs) with host nations NPCs rounding the unit out. We played recon/raid/ambush type missions using the last battle rules and leaning heavily on the 2ed air/naval module for methods of infil (Referee started using more and more helo infil after the first couple lengthy static line jump resolutions!). PCs ended up doing more controlling and directing than they did fighting, which kept PC casualties reasonable, although entire fireteams did become casualties on occasion. On at least two occasions, PCs were killed either by repeated poor tactical sense (FO went stationary on the only tall building and caught a tank round) or just bad luck (entire squad with SL lost when infil helicopter shot down and fireballed). In both cases, players were allowed to roll up replacement characters as “new hires”.
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