Mooks and Brutes

[Ren]

I've been looking through the Rules a bit more, both here and on the forums and I recently noticed something about "Mooks" not talking consequences and upon thinking I am sort of already doing something similar except the mooks in my game could take Consequences, though that will be changing in the future.
I have played a game I very much love and will likely play or run again called "7th Sea" that is a swashbuckling game with a heavy storytelling and heroic dramatics emphasis, so much of the combat was fast and furious, not to mention fun! But one of my favorite concepts was the idea of "Brute Squads"...yes borrowed from the Princess Bride. There were the Major Villains who were equal or more powerful versions of the PC's and could take as much damage or more than a PC before falling. Their Lieutenants/Minions who could take a few hits before dropping and then there were the brute squads. At the basic level each Brute Squad consisted of 6 people and would have a threat rating from 1-4 assigned to them. Their threat rating was effectively their combat skill for offense and defense as well as for damage. One hit to a squad would take out a single member and characters could take raises to increase how many members of the squad they could hit, thus ensuring fun combats against heroic battles against hordes of foes. And as members dropped so would their threat rating (i.e. if it was a threat 3 squad then every 2 members knocked out would drop their threat by 1). 
So I'm planning to work on a way to incorporate similar rules into DFRPG as a way to a: speed up combat and b: make combat more heroic while explaining how a small group of people could fend off a small Horde of Grigs or whatnot...

In essence this will actually translate rather easily;
Threat Rating equals their Skill Rating for attack, defense and possibly other skills if needed;
i.e. Threat 2 = +2 on attack and +2 on defense and/or athletics
Each successful Hit on an attack drops one member of the group.
A 6-member Threat 2 group would lose one Threat for every 3 members lost.
The Threat rating equals their Weapon/damage Rating.
The trick is you can "Flavor" the brute Squad for flavor with different bonuses based on the type of Brute;
example 1: 6-member Brute Squad of Half-Trolls might be Threat 4 and each member can take an additional hit unless cold iron is used.
example 2: 8-member Pixie Squad might be Threat 1 but they lose two members per hit and get to add half their numbers to their Damage Rating.
example 3: 6-member SWAt Team might be Threat 3 but they have Armor 1 per 2 members so they remove 1 hit each time the squad is hit. In addition they might have a Hit Bonus equal to Half Their numbers, but only for purposes of Spray Fire (to reflect automatic weapons).

Naturally this will require some play-testing to work out the kinks but I've used similar rules in other games and it always adds a fun element to various combat scenes and I have high hopes that it will add to the DFRPG system as well.

[DFJunkie]

Spirit of the Century does something very similar with rules for Minions.  Each Minion has a quality on the Fate ladder, and as an individual uses that quality (Fair (+1), Average (+2), or Good (+3)) for all tests.  A minion has a number of stress boxes equal to it's quality rating and do not take consequences, they just get taken out.

Minions also group up, getting between +1 to +3 depending on the size of the group, so a massive group of good minions acts at Fantastic (+6), making them a substantial threat.  Finally, damage is applied to them sequentially, and unlike PCs all health boxes are filled in.  As each minion gets taken out the group shrinks (duh I suppose).

Finally minions can sacrifice their independence to attach to a named NPC, adding their group bonus of +1 to +3 to that NPCs skills and taking damage in their stead.  This is my favorite minion usage since it turns that Machiavellian planner with average combat skills into a viable threat so long as his minion buffer lasts.

Speaking from SotC experience it's very important to continually refer to the minions as a group, and to encourage the PCs to do so as well.  Also, remind them to describe their actions in an exchange as a series, rather than a single discrete action.  That way you don't have to retcon "I punch the ninja" into an attack that can take out three people, unless you're dealing with a PC that can conceivable punch a guy so hard his flying corpse knocks his two nearest friends unconscious.