Do Stormtroopers in a group each act individually?

Question

In Edge of the Empire, one of the categories of adversaries is Minions. Aside from their (fairly pathetic), base stats, minions have the following characteristics:

Minions do not suffer strain

Minions are killed by Critical Injuries

Minions do not possess skills

Minions can fight as a group

It's this last one that's causing contention among our group. My interpretation of

A minion group gains 1 skill rank for each member of the group beyond the first, as long as that skill is on the minion's list.

is that the minions only get those skills when they are actually acting as a group, at the same time and towards the same goal. In combat, this would mean that all 4 stormtroopers would shoot together, on the same initiative slot, with a single roll.

The other GM I'm working with seems to think that the minion rules allow each of the 4 stormtroopers to go in the same intiative slot, but to make 4 attack rolls with the full skill bonus. The text seems to be vague enough that either interpretation could be supported.

So, simply enough, in combat do all minions in a group make a single attack roll, or separate attack rolls? If it's separate rolls, does each member of the group move on separate initiative slots?

Answer 1

Minions act as a single creature in combat.

Your GM should read the rules about minions starting on page 389.

minions make one attack per group, not per individual.

Basically they have no skill ranks unless they act as a group, and when they act as a group, they act as a single creature in combat.

Each minion has a number of wounds equal to the creature's entry. So if an Imperial Stormtrooper (Minion) (pg. 404) has 5 wound threshold, everytime the minion group takes 5 points of damage, one minion of the group dies and you should reduce their skill ranks by 1 point (yellow -> green dice).

So, let's say this group has 4 minions, that means they can take 20 wounds total (one dies every 5 wounds taken), they have Athletics, Discipline, Melee and Ranged (Heavy) as skill groups, thus for each additional minion, they make one upgrade on those four skills (upgrading is turning a green die into yellow die, see page 21).

The GM has the option to split a group of minions.

But when he does, they no longer act as a minion group, unless they have at least two members on each group.

So if a group of 3 minions split up on 3 different groups of one minion each, they gain no benefit from being grouped. If they split into one group of two and another of one minion, those grouped will gain the benefit.

The GM could split a group of 10 storm troopers into 2 minion groups of 3 members each, and one last with 4 members for instance (3, 3 and 4).