Hi,
thanks for sharing the game report with us in your other thread.
Glad you had fun.
Lets see if I can get you out of confusion
Close Combat :
You fight it out immediately.
If the unit is reduced to one model use the last man standing rule on page 17 in the rule book.
You apply only -1 to the model ( not - 4 ) If its two soldiers and five suppression you can reduce the suppression markers down to 3
They are only an indicator that the unit has taken suppression and one more suppression marker indicates that they have to check morale for pinning.
In your example he hits on an 8 ( 7 plus 1 sm )
Morale
I dont know which T&T printing you have.
I think the 3rd printing is pretty understandable with explaining the morale checks.
You test morale only when the no. of sm is higher than the number of active soldiers.
If you fail you are pinned.
If you were succesful you can play on.
You must repeat a score check on morale when you are hit again and taking sm ( suppression marker )
or
you want to activate the unit.
Suppression Markers are no modifiers during the morale phase.
Modifiers are added or subtracted by leaders or heroes or the unit quality.
If you play a recover order you can do nothing else except recover. That can be bad when a game is on its edge.
But I understand your thoughts on recover and morale as a whole.
When we wrote the rules we wanted a fast game. Now years later we see things different and make our " house rules "
for our own rules
We tried a - 1 modifier for every 3 suppression marker during morale chacks. ( A unit with 6 sm marker mut test with - 2 )
We also experienced with the combat modifier for suppression. During a game it can be tricky to count the sm.
Only when a unit reaches 50 % ( rounded down ) of sm all figures in the unit get the -1 modifier on ranged or close combat.
Below 50% no one gets a modifier.
Thanks again for playing and for your report. Do not hesitate to ask me. I like to help.
Best regards to you and your gaming group
Björn