Help keeping track of Minions

First time attempting a GM role with a group who is playing this as their first tabletop RPG. We played our first session last night and I struggled a bit, as would be expected.

One of the things that was hard for me was keeping track of the many minions, in the first scene there will be 3 x Heroes minions. With 3 PCs that's 9 minions. I had a hard time keeping tack of which minions were boosted and which minions were hindered at any given time. Also there is no board position to worry about but I split the minions up (3 are attacking Legacy and 3 more are attacking Bunker) so now I have to keep track of which ones are attacking who.

I was trying to keep track of it in notes but it was pretty unorganized with lots of numbers and crossed-out numbers.

So does anyone have some good advice on how to keep track of which minions are hindered and boosted and what they are doing from round to round? Or am I just overcomplicating this? Or maybe I'm making it too simple and I should have a note card for every minion instead of minon groups?

Excel is easier that paper.  And less messy.

I find it helpful to have a notebook to write out notes in whenever I GM a game, it helps keep my thoughts straight. I also keep an extra set of dice about just in case I want something I can use to represent arbitrary numbers.

One thing you could do in that particular situation is have a die to represent each minion. First divide them up into groups of three(one per hero) then raise the die number for each time a minion gets a boost. That way you can know at a glance how many boosts a minion has. :)

What I tend to do is a blend of what you are already doing and some of Phantom5613's suggestions.

I write down minion groups, plus individual Lieutenants and Villains, on note cards. For Lieutenants and Minion Groups, each individual NPC is represented by its die, which I stack on the notecard. That way, if I have a group of 6 d6 Spider Bots, I have 6d6 stacked on a notecard that says "Spider Bots". If any bot is downgraded, I swap out a d6 for a d4. If any bot is Boosted or Hindered, I write out another note card for that Boost/Hinder (e.g. "Broken Legs -2"), and put it underneath that specific bot's die, overlapping the "Spider Bots" minion group card.

Does that all make sense?

Even if you're not using "board position", it can be helpful to put out tokens of some sort to help with visualization.  What I'd do is use actual dice when possible, placing them near each other or one of the heroes as appropriate, and go to my D&D convention for conditions: a colored ring of pipe-cleaner that I put on or around the figure to indicate a change in state.  For instance, drop a blue ring on them to indicate an available boost, and a black ring to indicate a hinder.

Colored paperclips on the notecard. Can get 100s for cheap and have them indicate different statuses. Dice are a must for visuals, but if you don't have a collection of dice yet you could just write "d6 d6 d6" on the card and downgrade them as they go.

I wouldn't worry about keeping track of specific penalties or bonuses to specific minions. Groups of minions facing that hero, yes, but down to the individual minion? Too tedious to track IMO. I would have the penalty apply to the entire group of minions so that math on each roll is minimal. I'd keep the action flowing for minions and leave specific tracking for lieutenants and higher.

Wow, thanks for all the great ideas. Being new to this whole thing I don't have a great collection of irregular dice, I bought 3 d4, d6, d8, d10, and d12s so we'd have the dice needed for any given roll but no extras. I should have extra d6 (quite a few in Sentinel Tactics) I can use the number showing on the die x 2 to show the size of the die, then use the ideas of pipe cleaner or paper clips to show the modifiers. If we play this enough then maybe I'll invest in more dice.

If anyone else has ideas keep them coming.

@cnranger

If you decided to get more dice, and you attend any gaming conventions, you can generally do so very cheaply. Chessex, one of the best known companies that sells polyhedral dice, sells them by the mug or pitcher very inexpensively at their convention booths.

Can vouch for these:

Comes in a swanky cloth bag. Or at least they did when I got them.

You can also use special colors of dice to represent different baddies, if you have the dice to support it. Then when the ultimate villian shows up and you pull out the super fancy die to represent it, players can Ooo and Aah in appreciation and/or fear.

For that matter, Wish often has polyhedral dice on sale for super-cheap or even free; if you're putting in an order through them, it could be an easy add-on.

Also, check out educational sites like EAI.  That's where I got all the d10s I use for Cold Steel Wardens demos...

I only had 6 spider bots to deal with when running Scene 1 of Issue 1, but I simply just wrote them out vertically on a piece of paper. Something like:

Spider Bots:
D6
D6
D6

D6
D6
D6

I always had the first one vertically in each group use webs, the 3rd one attack, and the middle one boost. I dealt with the bots one group at a time, the middle acting first, followed by the bit receiving the boost (so it was easy to remember), and then whichever not was left.

It worked well enough for me, and when the heroes wanted to attack “the one closest to Unity shooting webs”, I knew which one was receiving the attack. (And if the bit survived the attack, I just crossed out D6 and wrote D4 beside it).

To help keep track of which squads have taken turns, and which squads are "nearby" (for purposes of hypersonic assault, etc.) I actually break up by squads into half-index cards or post-its. I labeled the top with the hero they would initially target, and then place my 3d6 in a little triangle that I draw on the cards, where the front d6 is always the attacker, the back left is always boosting, and the bottom right is always hindering. This helps me with the boosting and hindering as well, since the boosts are "always" to the attacking bot, I just slot in a half-index card under the squad card that tells what that bot's boost is.
Thinking of your low die counts, you could actually erase or cross off points of the triangle as bots get punched, freeing up the actual dice for the necessary rolls.

This also helped me re-consolidate squads as they got picked off, as the heroes may be split into two(or more!) groups, which meant that lone bots from one "area" wouldn't attempt to re-squad with bots from the other "area".

Bonus use: roaming spider bots in Iss. 1, sc. 2 can be split into smaller groups that are threatening individual heroes by re-using the half-cards that have the heroes name up top. Really helps to limit an overeager Tachyon player.(maybe letting that player try some overcomes to find that network =])

I have some help with this type of loose physical position with Edge of the Empire cause it just devides into range bands, & with sniper weapons relevent It is hard to keep an actual board so i came up with a way to track the health of low level baddies like storm troopers & little things Now... no one laugh

You have to promise...

Okay?

Okay.

I use a Mancala board.

Stop laughing...

No, but I have 2 sets of white flat bottom glass beads, I painted numbers on them in unique colors, that way i can leave them out for relative board position & keep the Mancala board behind my GM screen & i use the second set of tokens to track health/strain. I haven't run it yet but i would imagine the way that minions correspond directly to their dice would make my homebaked tracking system even more relevent and useful. Even better if i can find very little dice that'll fit in the board a bit better. I had actually planned on painting it with this chalkboard paint so i can make anotations directly on it around the divots.

I use a pile of dice (one for each minion) on index cards for minions. The best part though is I still have my green and silver Doctor Doom-colored dice from my Marvel Heroic days, whereas the dice I have for the heroes to use are in a colorful ROYGBV spread. 

I use a layout like this:

Attack Bots (d6 minion)
1: d6 d4
2: d6 d4
3: d6 d4

Roc (D12 Lt)
1: d12 d10 d8 d6 d4

(Really, I go across, rather than down, but you get the idea.)

As an NPC takes steps cross off the high die. And remember: minions have steps, too... if they survive, they step.