OK I probably didn't explain myself very well.
Maps in Genesys and Star Wars
I use maps to help my players visualize the combat area, while yes this system is abstract and is much easier to run without a map than most games, having a map saves me time explaining where everything is and presents them with possible tactical options I didn't think of. PCs can say I want to move here and I say "That's about short range." and they move. With that conformation of distance they can easily determine range bands at the scale of the current map.
Minions with individual tokens
In Star Wars and Genesys minions do act as 1 entity for purposes of effecting its stats. Now if minions were just one token it would mean the minion group is forced to be in the same location as if they were all bound together by rope or something. To me that isn't very realistic or helps with being able to visualize the combat. However rules kept the same and there were a token for each minion they could set up ambushes and get a better representation of what actually should the PCs be seeing.
- If PC made an attack and killed 2 minions in one attack he would narrative it thus "I Shoot the minion in the head then turn and blast the one to my right and he falls off the cliff." Minions were in separate locations but still no rules were changed. Everything can be explained narratively if the PC manages to kill more than one minion, even if they aren't sandwiched together.
- This has come up before but I have had a PC disarm a minion rather than disarm all 4 minions I simply downgraded the minion attack next round as if there was 1 less minion than there really was. While this case isn't RAW per-say it seems more thematic and realistic.
- As far as having them move, If they move I have the minion group spend a maneuver. Then I move each token separately. If I want to move even just one of the minions the group still collectively uses a maneuver.
Combat Tracker
As far as the combat tracker representing 1 group and having the separate tokens show on the map, that is fine. The tokens would be purely visual reference. You could put all the stats on the combat tracker minion if reference was needed. It just could be me but I don't think it's a stretch to think that new players would understand the concept minion groups and how it works vs visually.
Encounter Creation
Not sure if people know this but built into FG is the Encounters tab. This lets you store encounters ahead of time, and save there position on the map. It does this by allowing you to drag an npc onto a newly created encounter, which then generates a token for that npc. You then drag the token it made onto the map to where this npc should be when the PCs come across it. Then you can link that encounter to your story entry where this encounter happens. All you have to do is click the down arrow and the map is populated. (The NPCs show up invisible by default just incase they were hiding.
The thing is when you do this for Rivals and Nemeses it works just fine. When you add a minion it only generates 1 token. I suppose I could go to assets folder and make copies of the token, which I have been doing, but that really removes the purpose of having encounters setup ahead of time if you are still having to drag tokens on the map your self whenever a combat happens with a minion group.
Closing
I understand if it is too much work or not possible. It is a feature that would be awesome to have if it isn't too much work needed to make it happen.:)