just tried. got it to 'near death' but all my god damn guns broke, crippled both arms so i cant use melee items and some reason my ap dropped to 2. i assumed this was dp do his need for jet but that did nothing. whats going on there? god damn dog.

managed to kill it. felt really bad though haha. got lots of ammo of gards in vault city

Spoiler alert:
Make sure to visit the Information Center and Randal's shop.
The 1st gives you a bunch of books and the 2nd regularly restocks books.
Books help you to get certain skills up:
Guns and Bullets - increases Small Guns
Scout Handbook - increases Outdoorsman
Big Book of Science - increases Science
First Aid Book - increases First Aid
Deans Electronics - increases Repair
Once a skill is at a certain level, I think 90%, you can't use books anymore.
I hardly use any skill points on these skills as the books do the trick.
Nevertheless you might consider using some skill points to get your small guns skill up quicker.
Randal restocks every 3 days.
In the early stages of the game he's a great source to trade in items you don't need.

thanks for the advice man this will help a lot.

i am having a hard time keeping my guys alive (vic, skulik(speeling wrong) and cassidy)
when they die i have been reloading though this is annoying because it make gaining XP harder. if they die should i let them die or reload?

I was always one to reload if Sulik or Cassidy bit the dust too early..never really cared much for Vic ;) .. personal preference, i suppose.
If you're consistently having your NPCs die on you during what should be simple battles, I would recommend double checking their combat settings - maybe adjust the amount of damage they have to take before using stimpacks. Which brings me to my next point, give them lots of stimpacks :) .. Also, for especially hard fights i usually pump enough Psycho and Buffout into Sulik to kill several small elephants.
Keep us posted on your progress, it's strangely interesting for Fallout addicts such as myself.
edit: another strategy i've found useful: after gaining a few levels (7+) i usually try to shoot every bad guy once during a fight to get their attention off my NPCs and onto me. I go through more stimpacks this way, but at least the NPCs survive bigger fights longer..

I just thought I mention how important saving is in this game due to its numerous bugs.
My first slot is used for general quick saving whenever I think it's necessary (quite often). My second slot is used less, mainly when I want to try something without ruining my progress, etc. The other 8 slots are used as major saves, I'm cycling through them every time I get into a new area or on major milestone events. This helps keeping saves as long as possible.
And yes, I copy the whole save folder and keep one per character.
I just got a little paranoid after ALL my saves got corrupted at a certain point in the game, and I did not realise it until the game crashed and lost all my progress.