How do you group the Tie-Pilot minions in your games?

Do you use them as minion groups or as individual?

As individual they have gunnery and piloting pool of 3 ability dice (Green), but in group for 4 those turn into a more powerful 3 proficiency (Yellow)] dice pool.

As a group it is a single initiative slot and a single attack, much easier to handle.

On the other side, four lucky rolls on from 4 individuals against a ship with low defense could result in an impressive 48 points of damage. (4 x (6 + 6 linked) damage)

For those using them as a minion group, how do you handle damage?

(I couldn't find a rule section about minions in ships)

If the groups receives 10 points of damage.

Is it 1 tie destroyed and no left over (10 - 2 armor = 8, 6 goes to destroy the Tie the other 2 are stopped by the next Tie armor).

or 1 Tie destroyed and 2 damage on the next one because you apply armor only once?

What do you do with critical? Do the rules for minions in non-space combat also apply and a critical is an auto-kill?

From a lore point of view, should the Tie fight in groups of 3 or 4?

Side note/question: The order 66 podcast recently gave an example of capital ship combat using minions, are any of their choices of minion groups size based on something written in one of the books?

How do you group the Tie-Pilot minions in your games?

Do you use them as minion groups or as individual?

I group them as the encounter requires. Making a blanket statement about something like grouping minions is a little limiting and dangerous. You take the narrative, flesh out what you want, design the encounter, and then tweak until it's right.

That said I do like to try and group "military" minions when I can. The ability to work as a cohesive group matches the trained military theme and better separates them from the untrained thugs.

For those using them as a minion group, how do you handle damage?

(I couldn't find a rule section about minions in ships)

What do you do with critical? Do the rules for minions in non-space combat also apply and a critical is an auto-kill?

I've always run that the rules apply in the exact same way. TIEs are pretty much built for grouping, but anything with a low HT (so essentially all fighters) can usually roll smoothly.

From a lore point of view, should the Tie fight in groups of 3 or 4?

.... No to both.

Ok, the lore breaks down how the squadron is composed. One Squadron of 12 craft->Three flight groups of 4 craft->two elements of 2 craft.

So you can use that to generate fluffy numbers, but don't use that to determine groups. Build groups based on the encounter. So even if you did want to have the players fight an entire squadron (never do this without extensive testing to make sure the players can survive, if you lob a dozen TIEs at the players out of the blue you're wrong), you can group them as one group of 12, or a group of 10 and two solos, or three groups of 4, or two groups of 4 and two groups of 2, and so on. The tactics will be a little different each time so don't be afraid to play with it.

If you haven't caught on... build the encounter first and tweak it to match the fluff, don't build an encounter completely to the fluff or your players will likely end up sucking vacuum.

Today I had a big space encounter. To make combat easier, let's say I had 16 fighters. Each pilot/gunner had GG as ability. I broke the flights into groups of 4 fighters. Each flight then had YYG as piloting and gunnery. In all other ways, the ships were treated as minions. They got one attack as a whole and performed the same actions in the round so they were treated as one unit. If two groups were reduced in half, rather than have two groups of two (rolling YG), I'd have them join back into a group of 4. Because this also involved a number of other craft, all the fighter groups went on the same initiative. All of this just makes it easier for me to manage since that could be a LOT of rolling.

If a Triumph is rolled, I treat it the same as regular minions... the roller of the Triumph has a choice on how it affects the minion group (whether it is a humanoid, or a ship). They can use the Triumph to eliminate an extra minion, but they don't always do that. It's whatever is best for the story. As to a non-triumph critical, the players can see if the ship is destroyed before the critical has to go off so they can spend the advantage elsewhere. If they would only wound the ship, then they can spend the advantage to wipe the minion.

I try to follow the Rule of Cool so the above is not Etched in Stone. It's whatever is needed for the story, and remember the players are the heroes, so sometimes it's better to have a few stragglers than have a fully functioning unit.

my players have gotten good enough they can easily take out one or two TIE fighters a turn. Then even have upgrade one of the turrets to a Heavy laser cannon, so now they will be able to shoot the at short range also. I now have to throw multiple groups of 3 to at least get a chance of shooting them.

Know your players, know their abilities, know what they can do. And build the encounter to challenge them, but not kill them. Ignore fluff when you can, or at least come up with a plausible explanation

If you don't mind, I have a question regarding TIE minion groups as well. What do you do when suffering system strain associated with a threat? Do they track system strain or do they just suffer more points of hull trauma? Also, when performing an extra pilot only maneuver, does the ship suffer system strain (or hull trauma depending on the previous question's answer) and does the pilot minion suffer strain if he does not downgrade his action to the maneuver? I hope I am making sense.

If you don't mind, I have a question regarding TIE minion groups as well. What do you do when suffering system strain associated with a threat? Do they track system strain or do they just suffer more points of hull trauma?

Per RAW, system strain.

Also, when performing an extra pilot only maneuver, does the ship suffer system strain (or hull trauma depending on the previous question's answer) and does the pilot minion suffer strain if he does not downgrade his action to the maneuver?

Yep, system Strain. The pilot will have to since Minions can't voluntarily suffer strain.

If the groups receives 10 points of damage.

Is it 1 tie destroyed and no left over (10 - 2 armor = 8, 6 goes to destroy the Tie the other 2 are stopped by the next Tie armor).

or 1 Tie destroyed and 2 damage on the next one because you apply armor only once?

What do you do with critical? Do the rules for minions in non-space combat also apply and a critical is an auto-kill?

I tend to accept that a critical kills a minion in a TIE fighter. Unless it's someone important, TIEs should explode like confetti the moment they take laser hits.

It depends how that ten damage was inflicted. If it's from one hit, then 10 damage -2 armour is 8, which wastes a TIE fighter (hull trauma 8) and the surplus 2 points of damage are wasted. One hit can't logically kill two fighters (unless it has blast or whatever). If you trigger linked, that's a new hit, so it can kill a second (and a third, and a fourth). That's what makes an X-wing with quad-linked medium lasers a better dogfighter than some bulky gunboat with a single turbolaser; a good roll with plenty of advantage can shred a minion group of TIEs in a single pass.