Gang,
The 6088,6418 and other tubes like this are directly heated. I use these all the time and have like 2K of the 6418 here. The 6088 draws 20ma at 1.25V and the smaller 6418 draws 10ma on the filament. BUT here is where it becomes tricky. Unlike an indirectly heated cathode, a directly heated bias point is in the center and it also needs to float bias and for these tubes best to use a current source for that. I use a LM317L with a 121 ohm resistor into pin 5 with a capacitor to ground and bias off pin 3 with a pot. The big problem with these tubes is that they are microphonic if mounted wrong. Put them on a 1/2" of foam. Digikey sells 1/2" foam double tape that works great.
So in triode mode the max gain I have ever gotten is 8. In pentode mode you can get up to 30. The Rp is really high either way so I use typically a 0.33ma current source then use an LSK189 as a source follower to drive the signal.
Here's is one of my clean boost pedals using the 6418 or the 6088. Both do triode strapping of pins 1 & 2 together. These tubes get a little funky in pentode mode. I am working on a 500 series DI and tried to use pentode mode and it's not being consistent across a lot of tubes.