Im still prepping for the start of our campaign and held a practice rules session the other night. We just ran some made up characters through a few situations to try things out. Overall we were impressed but it did bring up lots of questions. Most we worked out afterward but I wanted to sound off on this one.

A PC runs from a building into a blind alley and finds himself confronted with a group of 3 tough guy minions ordered to apprehend him (Short Range). They carry truncheons and one of them has a blaster pistol at the ready.

The PC gets initiative and fires his own blaster. (Is drawing the weapon an action? Manuever?) He misses

The punk with the Blaster fires his on stun and hits for minimal strain loss, the others rush him to engage with their Truncheons.

They just split up as a group didn't they? The two attack him together with their Brawn +1 melee skill for the extra guy but the guy with the blaster back it short range isn't included. Right?

Can groups split and regroup at will when they act differently?

Draw=Maneuver.

Yes they are split up, and they can regroup based on weapon type, range etc.

Remember the purpose of minion grouping: To represent many characters while only rolling for one. So to do that while avoiding weird occurrences and creating player opprotunities, you typically wan to keep your groups homogeneous, engaged to each other, and functioning with their own group goals and operations.

If you're not doing that, don't group them (you don't have to group them, it's totally optional).

So in your situation it sounds like you want to either have three individuals (no group) or one shooter and two beaters (1 solo, 1 group of two).

Now, in cases where you need a group to split (Say you have a group of 6 and you realize 2 groups of three will be more interesting/manageable) you adjust the groups with the new group generating an initiative slot immediately following the one they split off from.

Say you have a group of 6 minions 5 WP each. You shoot the group doing 10 points of damage and as a GM you want to split the group into 2 minion groups instead of one...how do the woundpoints split?

Say you have a group of 6 minions 5 WP each. You shoot the group doing 10 points of damage and as a GM you want to split the group into 2 minion groups instead of one...how do the woundpoints split?

They don't. Assuming the damage is after soak, that attack should remove one minion, and leave another at 5 wounds (still in the game, but not happy) so when you split the group, one of the new lesser groups will have a member at 5 wounds, everyone else will still be fine.

Draw=Maneuver.

Unless, of course, you have the Quick Draw talent that lets you draw as an incidental.