Thinking about running with new group

My FLGS always has people interested in learning new games. There aren’t any ACKS players at the moment, although there are plenty of both TSR and WotC era D&D players. Given that some players won’t be used to the lethality of retro systems, how many players should I expect to need in order to adequately manage the dungeon? I see it’s recommended for 6-10 characters and 8-12 levels of experience, but given that it’d be a pick-up group, what’s the smallest group I should try to run it with?