The rules say "minions make one attack per group, not per individual." But what does that mean about non-attack actions and maneuvers? Can a group of minions do other things more than once per round?

Specifically, I'm thinking about this because I created some 5-member pirate crew minion groups for my party of 4 PCs to confront. One group of pirates is melee-focused, while the other group is ranged combatants. My original intention was to have the melee group engage the PCs, while the ranged fighters fire at them from a safe distance. But I started wondering... can a group of 5 minions engage more than one target? If they only get one combined maneuver per turn, it's going to be pretty easy for the other PCs to stay out of engaged range.

It makes narrative sense to imagine that the minions could engage one PC per minion. It's kind of ridiculous to imagine that, in a huge brawl, all five of them would gang up on one PC, and leave the others to do whatever they like. But maybe that's the idea: that minion-level adversaries are so dumb that they really would crowd in on one threat, only to be torn to pieces by the much-smarter PCs.

I'm leaning towards letting my minion groups have more maneuvers when it makes narrative sense and doesn't unbalance the encounter too much. I think it just makes more sense that way. Obviously, they'd still only get one action per round. What do you guys think?

I wouldn't let a group of minions engage more than one target per round. Especially with two squads of five, because that's a pretty beefy dice roll already (YYYY/YYYY vs DD.)

What do you mean about non-attack actions and maneuvers? Cause your examples are all combat. The minions can basically do anything you give them skills in.

Minions are designed to work as a group and act together, so they do the same maneuver (ie, running for the same spot of cover) and attack the same target all at once and never individually. I'm fairly certain this applies to non-attack action/maneuvers as well (vigilance/cool rolls, slicing terminals, collectively convincing a target to take a certain action etc.)

I also wouldn't let them attack multiple targets or take multiple maneuvers to improve believability. If anything, that's more of a limitation of the turn-based system rather than the minion mechanics. If you want them to be more of a threat, lose a few minions from the group and use some Rivals instead so you add some additional NPC slots to combat.

Each minion group is considered one "character" for actions/maneuvers in a round. If you want to engage multiple characters than you should have multiple minion groups.

-EF

Grouping minions is intended to allow a "Single" character to represent a group. They are essentially a single character that gets worse as his WT goes up, and can be easily wiped out be grenades.

If you need 5 Minions to engage multiple targets, it's easier if you either reduce the group size or ungroup them entirely.

Minions can be split up into individuals but they can't suffer Strain, so no real way for 2 maneuvers. They are the bottom feeders so PCs are meant to be able to elude and defeat them with ease. Use Rivals or Nemeses if you want individuals that can challenge a PC one on one. Also huge minion fights can bog down and become kind of tedious and not so much of a challenge as a drawn out PITA.

If you really need to have a minion group perform multiple attacks or maneuvers on-the-fly, just split one or two off from the main group and form another group. It'll probably affect both groups' dice pools, of course, but it'll allow for them to do more things. Of course, if this was your plan all along, then you should probably just start off with multiple, weaker groups to begin with In your example, instead of having one group of 5 ranged minion pirates, just have two groups of 3 (or a group of 2 and another of 3). They'll lose a couple of yellow dice, but they'd be able to fire twice instead of once.

I think you all have missed his question. Can they do multiple non attack actions per round. As in perhaps picking up and moving multiple wounds out of the line of fire...

I have always treated them as being able to do one encounter changing action per turn, but as many narrative actions as they are people.

They (the entire minion group) could attack one player, grab the macguffin and flee or search for hidden smugglers compartments. One meaningful action per NPC slot.

Likewise a group of 6 CorpSecurity Guards could ask 6 other NPC questions about what happened. They could drag 6 (non plot important) civilians out of the line of fire. Or move 6 boxes of irrelevant goods surrounding the cache of Rebel explosives.

When the rules hit the table, 1 action per group; when it is story events, as many as there are people in the squad.

No. As others have pointed out. They are essentially one character narrated as a group. They can only perform one action per round, regardless of what kind of action that may be.

Minions are not hiveminded automatons. They can do whatever the GM deems narratively appropriate, either as a group or invidually, as long as you don't exploit or overcomplicate. Just keep in mind that they're better at some things, when working together.

For a long time, I was of the notion that bigger minion groups meant greater challenges, so I was constantly throwing 4-member and 5-member minion groups at my players. Lately, I've come to see that minion groups of 2 or 3 can be more challenging because they can do more in a round. And while they might threaten players less on a combat level, they can do other things (like perform more maneuvers) because I field more of them.