Ive got a group of scavengers lurking around a bombed out facility for the players to run into.

Basically theres a leader, a tough guy and then 8 or so minion nobodies.

When stating the minions I was thinking of 2 groups of 4 but it seems odd that these non military, unorganized scavengers would have to be similarly equipped. All 4 guys carrying hand spanners and a hold out blaster...really?

But if you equip them differently, there goes your group. Any of you tinker with rules allowing a group of not so similarly equipped minions to function together?

Identical minion threads?

Thats wierd... sorry everybody, cant seem to be able to delete it.

Maybe the melee minion group aren't all wielding spanners. Maybe one has a pipe, the other a rusted hatchet, and another a blunt club. In any case, they all deal +1 damage, crit 5, and have the disorient and knockdown qualities.

The same could go for the hold-out blaster group.

You could describe them as being one big mob, but the ones carrying crude melee weapons move in (thus becoming a minion group of their own) and the ranged guys hang back.

It sounds like you're just overthinking the minion thing.

No, they don't all have hand spanners, one has a hand spanner, the other a ball peen space hammer, the next has a length of heavy pipe, and the last one a piece of rebar with some concrete on one end. All different from a narrative description view, but from a raw numbers standpoint all identical. The pistols are the same.

These guys are all minions, they're throw-aways. It doesn't matter what they are carrying because in the end the details are just window-dressing. Think of the movies, when the hyper-geared bank robbers pretending to be terrorists kick in the door and start shooting the ceiling. Yeah, TECHNICALLY they all have different weapons (On and AK, another an M-4, or G-36, and on and on) but just summing it all up as "assault rifle" is all it takes because the end result is the same. They'll spray some bullets, and then get killed when the hero with his bulging muscles and Desert Eagle comes walking out and blows them away.

Now... if it's important from the perspective of the encounter's actual design that they all be equipped differently, then maybe there's your problem. Perhaps you feel the real problem is that a bunch of Scavs don't really seem like the "fight as a team" type. If that is the case, why not redesign the opposition as 4 low WT Rivals? Remember, you can build adversaries however you wish, so if you think that four guys each with a different weapon, different armor, different gear, a WT around 7 or 8, and a skill around 2:1 is what you need... do it.

Good stuff guys, thanks. Yep, overthinking it obviously