Okay, my blind guess was off. Maybe I'll talk about the "running fights" problem in another thread.

I haven't seen a problem with the PCs being hard to threaten (quite the opposite) so I'm at a bit of a loss. You said you're having trouble knowing how to press the attack in the fiction, and what you're allowed to do as GM. Maybe say more about that? To me, it seems the same as in AW.

Do you do the thing where you scale the challenge of an NPC (or monster, in this case) by how their fictional attributes impact which moves the PCs make make (and how they make them) when they fight?

Like, the simplest example: when they fight a dragon with teeth as long as a sword and a great lashing tail, and foul breath that can stagger a horse, and the Fighter with the longsword says, "I hack and slash it!" I say, okay... uh... how? If he says, "With my sword!" then I laugh and laugh until he comes up with something remotely plausible.

Or if he glares and says, "No, seriously, I stab it." Then I'm like, "Okay! You rush closer to get into reach, and the dragon's tail lashes out, smashing the stone wall next to you to pebbles and arcing back toward your legs. What do you do?" That's, like, part one of getting close enough to a fire-breathing giant monster to stab it. Wish him luck with parts 2 and 3.

See how that makes the dragon a major challenge to the guy with the sword? Maybe you already do that -- it's a thing I do in AW, too. I'm just trying to get a gauge on how different our approaches are.

@Ludanto: Yeah, that's what I meant. Well, that, and also when 2 of the goblins attack the fighter, while the other 4 rush around in the shadows and try to stab the wizard in the back.

I do that but likely not enough.  When the group fought a Dracolich it was coiled up above them and out of range of the beastly Fighter, using its breath weapon to inflict lots of damage on the group.  The Wizard player cleverly Dazed the dracolich causing it to fall from the ceiling and land near the fighter where he could smack it.
 

You are on the verge of death but statistically I think your chances of dying are somewhat small.

Here's another thing, say the big baddie goes after the rogue.  The rogue can still take two hits before he dies from even some of the toughest monsters in the game (we're talking a level 4 Thief here).  If the Thief defy's danger he will dodge damage 91% of the time.  The Fighter will easily kill the big bad before he kills the Thief or the bard or whoever. 

Even if the Bard is attacked and only dodges the big baddy 50% of the time that's 4 rolls before the Bard is dead with no healing involved.  The Fighter will deal damage each of those 4 rounds and will have dealt about 50-70 damage to the enemy in that time (The Fighter deals damage 91% of the time when he Hack and Slashes).  So still seems off.

So balance isn't a big deal, I agree.  The only concern, and why I created this thread, is when balance tips into the player's scale so favorably that PC death is so very unlikely to occur that combat gets boring.  Part of the reason why I created this thread is that I feel like if I aggressively tried to kill our group's Fighter, I would have a tough time doing it unless I resulted to dickery.  This feels a bit wrong to me, but check the points made below.

So, yeah, probabilities.  Every Fighter is going to have +3 Strength by level 3, for sure.  Thus, he will score a partial success on a Hack and Slash move 91% of the time at level 3.  He will get a complete success 59% of the time (rounded up).  That means nearly 60% of the time the Fighter will receive no damage if fighting a single foe and he doesn't need to Defy Danger (roll Dex to avoid damage). 

The problem that is coming up in our group is that I have thrown level 6-7 monsters at a group of level 3 and 4 characters (at different points in the game) and at least twice I thought they were suicidal for attacking.  Nope - no one's had to roll on Death's Door yet except for one other encounter which doesn't have to do with this thread.

The issue is that the Fighter Attacks the NPC up close while the other characters stay back and support.  The bard will heal the Fighter 12 points of health (this is like all the Bard does, sing over and over again), The Thief sneaks around or runs away, and the Wizard will throw a fireball or two not caring if he hurts the Fighter.

I'm pretty sure our level 4 group could kill the level 10 Dragon in the monster section as the Fighter has like 40 hit points and does somewhere around 15 damage when buffed up (which he always is). 

I know statistically this is in a vacuum but it just feels wrong that the Fighter will only take damage 40% of the time all the while the Bard is healing him for nearly half to one-third the damage caused. 

I feel like I should be driving harder with my monsters and being more aggressive in combat but I find it difficult being a fan of the characters and appropriately challenging them at times. 

Oh, makes sense.  Thanks Vincent.

He should of ditched Zeppelin IV and stuck with II.  Nothing like running over waste mutants while listening to Moby Dick or Ramble On. 

Yeah, you're right.  Groups are very odd as is and I'm not sure how they're supposed to fit in with combat.

Maybe give the PCs the option to fight as a group?  The leader/best fighter rolls and gets the added group benefits.  Very boring for the rest of the group though.

So, how do you handle a Hardholder sending his Gang to rough up another group.

The book gives an example of a Gang being ordered to seize a bunker in a miserable charge and the player rolls his own stat while acting through the gang.

Well, what if my hardholder has a 0-Hard but my Gang is tough as nails.  If I send them after some hooligans and have them Go Aggro shouldn't their Hard be higher?

Forgive me if I've missed something completely obvious, but every character sheet refers to Simple, Hard, and Complex items, like armour and weapons, but so far as I can tell, the equipment sections don't actually refer to weapons or armour as being Simple or Complex.

I'm trying to organise a group to give this game a go, but I'm stuck on this bit! The word "simple" just doesn't appear in the PDF within the equipment sections.

Simon that is a holdover from a previous version.  Those tags are no longer used as far as I can tell.