The key I found was to make the NPCs detailed. If you just run firefight after firefight, it isn't boring, since combat = drama, however it does get stale (Slightly different, I think.)
Write stores, not just firefights and battles.
Have the goal that they are supposed to achieve, and make it difficult, and not easily solved.
Some modules I remember:
Pirates on the Vistula is a good module, it's got some combat, and the whole wisla river trip, and interesting scenery.
A lot of players I have run it for did not like the Black Madonna, because of the elements within it that make it cross-genre. The big warsaw module, I forget the name was a big headache to run, so plan it out, read it well, first.
Biggest key for me, was advice in a challenge article: When doing hits for tanks and stuff, make it instant visual results, like a movie...
Make a series of cards, with different kinds of vehicles. Then hit them with different weapons from different angles. Do all the penetration and damage and interior rolls way ahead of time, so it does not bog down into uh.. roll uh. engine, uh gun uh....
Make it: The AT-4 Strikes the starboard skirt of the BMP, blowing off three road wheels and the turret is blown into the sky, and begins burning, while a lone scream of a burning survivor is heard from somewhere inside.
Eventually, you will get good enough at it with practice, that you begin to understand the sytem intuitively, and imagine the missile, gun / rocket slamming into the vehicle and doing whatever it normally would, without thinking.
At that point, toss the cards away, and tell your story.
Eventually, you might become like most of the hard core long term refs I know, and you won't even use dice anymore, or you might roll % hi good low bad, AND MAKE IT UP AS YOU GO, SYSTEM BE DAMNED.
Another sticky one to be on the lookout for is recon and spot rolls for ambushes. Since an ambush properly executed multiplies the attacking force by 3-5 times its size, a small squad of PCs can take on perhaps a half dozen troops, if it goes well. However, if they have counter-ambushers, the PCs will get wiped out to a man, with the enemy AK-gunners hardly breaking a sweat.
When I used to run T2K v2.2, it was always a big guessing game, of are they following us, or are we ambushing them? Lost of hidden die rolls, to make them itchy, turning out to be rabbits, or animals, but sometimes a rabbit, ha ha! Then rounds zipping through the trees striking all around, and the laughing guy gets hit in the face from the front.
It's a hard core, gritty game, if you want to play it that way, or it can be played like Arnold Schwarzenagger's Commando. Still fun, not my style.
Most teams of players I ran tended to take on more than they could chew and got wiped out, or eventually died one by one by attrition.
Or sometimes, through careful play, they Made it Home.
Key is not forcing the languages rules on players. If nobody in the team speaks Polish, don't penalize them by having all the locals speak only Polish.
To me, it's like a weekly TV show, and in the show, the story is king, not the language skills of the cast. Have a girl they meet speak pidgin English. Perhaps they save her town from the bad guys. In a reprisal the town is burned and she has no where to go, thus joins up with the PCs.
Long term story arcs are good. Care in PC generation is a must. Not just stats, guns and a list of skills, give 'em all a personality. Back in the day, I used real world military service as an inspiration for PCs and modeled my teams after military type TV shows like vietnam war atory, or any number of movies.
Have characters who have hopes, fears, and dreams, who work as a team, maybe not seeing eye to eye all thet time. This makes thier death more significant. Play out funerals, have the senior guy say a few words, as they drive the soldier's rifle into the dirt, topping it with a helmet, and they all vow for payback.
When they blow up the Bad guy's fuel depot, if you did your job in setup right, the player's characters will be happy and sad, and relieved all at once.
Don't let the system run the game, you run it. Make descriptions colorful.. funnels of smoke from burning vehicles...trying to see into the enemy commander's HQ through a window, at a distance, through the falling snow at 150 yards, as the sun goe down over Silesia.
He's drinking cofee, and signing documents that an adjutant provides. he goes to the window and looks out. roll some dice. ignore it. The players wait to see if they are spotted. The Commander returns to his desk.
Have encounters where the team sniper in a ghillie suit has a company or trioops walk.. or drive by.
So many cool scenarios and events that that game has...but I digress.
Final point: Prefigure recoil and all of that, and put it on the sheets, figuring for various types of bursts, based on STR, all laid out ahead of time. Especially in V 2.2, this saved me lots of headaches, when friendlies opened up on a convoy with an M-60. When hitting vehicles, make it up, after you have done all the .. what an M-60 does to a truck.. homework. Keep the game moving, action, action.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Best of luck.
