This is a "hard mode" villain team (and a new villain as their nominal leader) that's likely to require a bit more prep work than usual to run smoothly, and having am assistant GM wouldn't hurt. You can scale them down to something less complex by leaving some individual baddies out, but they all punch above their weight thanks to group synergies. If your PCs beat these villains they're certainly going to feel like they just took on an army and won, but don't be surprised if you wind up with a TPKO.
The Force Multipliers
The irregular villain team known as the Force Multipliers has appeared on several occasions, usually organized by Mister Machine or (more rarely) Bodycount for a specific scheme and then splitting up again afterward. Each villain on the team shares the ability to create duplicates of themselves, making the group a small army in terms of numbers. When the full membership is present the group is a nightmare to deal with, leveraging synergistic effects of their similar power sets to overwhelm even powerful heroes with significant backup from the authorities. Thankfully there are enough interpersonal tensions between individual members that they never stick together long, and it's pretty common for one or two villains to "sit out" a given plot entirely (occasionally because they're incarcerated).
The full roster of the Force Multipliers is as follows:
Mister Machine (see below) - Nominal team leader and usually responsible for organizing missions. He frequently butts heads with Bodycount over specific details of a plan, but privately regards her as by far the most useful member of the group. The others respect him for his decades of experience but he sees them as wholly expendable, with Horde being particularly unstable and not to be trusted without oversight.
Bodycount - Deputy leader, frequently organizes missions on her own, often without involving Mister Machine at all. She finds him grating and thinks he's old-fashioned and over-cautious, but has to admit he's good at keeping the rest of the crew focused. She's used to working with her favorite puppet Manpower and has been trying to manipulate The Brute Squad in the same way with modest success to date. Horde leaves her a little baffled since he's not attracted to women and she hasn't found a lever that works on him, but he's also such a loose cannon she frequently just "forgets" to invite him along anyway.
Manpower - Primarily Bodycount's stooge, he's secretly intimidated by Mister Machine's intellect and reputation and would have a hard time choosing between the two's orders if he had to. He resents the Brute Squad for the attention Bodycount pays to him. He's clueless and narrow-minded enough that he hasn't registered on Horde's sexual preferences, although if he ever does you can expect an ugly display of homophobia from the toxic jerk. Manpower wins the "Most Likely To Be Left Behind If Things Go Wrong" contest hands down.
The Brute Squad - He's not at his best when it comes to teamwork, but he's actually kind of flattered that a big name like Mister Machine wants to work with him. The fact that the full team can stomp heroes that are way beyond his league normally doesn't hurt either. He's trying to ignore Bodycount's rather obvious attempts at manipulation, partly because he knows Manpower is jealous but mostly because he's got a serious girlfriend that he's thinking about proposing to. That Horde guy is a lunatic, and also thinks his education makes him better than an ex-football player, which is going to cause trouble sooner or later.
Horde - Horde's happy for the chance to see some real action alongside a veteran like Mister Machine, something he throws in his cousin's face whenever their paths cross. He's also secretly a big fan of college football who thinks The Brute Squad got a raw deal (anti-mutant bias at its worst!) but he always seems to say the wrong thing around the guy. Doesn't help that the Brute Squad is really good-looking but definitely straight. Bodycount and Manpower are clearly a couple, which made her aborted attempt at flirting with Horde extra awkward. Manpower himself is kind of an idiot but he's the only other team member who seems to really enjoy a good adrenaline rush the way Horde does.
As a GM I definitely would not use all of the potential drama going on with this dysfunctional group. Picking an element or two of it all to factor in during a scene could be a good way to give the NPCs some personality while twisting some dials on the difficulty. The full team can be insanely challenging even to PC groups that are good at minion-scrubbing, and toning them down a bit through imperfect cooperation is an answer to it.
You can also consider using less than the full Force Multipliers team, adding friendly NPCs to the hero side (maybe giving each PC a squad of soldiers or security minions or a minor superhero lieutenant ally), or using a more hero-friendly environment than usual - if you use one at all. Full-team fights with these villains are going to be complex already, and adding more things to track won't help that. If you can get an assistant GM for teh night it would be great.
You can also put out a call for dice to let you track all the minions more easily. Ideally you'd want sets of suitably-sized dice with a different color for each baddie (eg red dice are always Mister Machine androids, orange dice are for Bodycount's quantum copies, Manpower gets yellow duplicate, etc.) but that's a big ask even when pulling from everyone's dice collections. Just making index cards for each villain's pool of minions (and for The Brute Squad's lieutenants) will probably have to do.
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Mister Machine
The criminal genius known as Mister Machine has no known true name despite having been active for over 90 years now. He's best known for his signature android minions, which are complex mechanisms covered in a layer of polymorphic gel that allows them to mold themselves into virtually any humanoid form. Their default appearance is identical to Mister Machine himself, making confrontations with the villain a confusing affair. This is further complicated by the fact that his own organic body was abandoned decades ago, with his living brain being transplanted into an identical android frame, making him nearly indistinguishable from his own minions without close examination. He's also been known to use other, more powerful host bodies for specific schemes, but always seems to come back to a duplicate of his old organic form eventually.
Mister Machine's other specialty is what he calls broadcast vril manipulation, a poorly understood energy that he can tune to greatly enhance both organic and mechanical allies. His ability to amp up all manner of allies makes him a popular figure in criminal circles, something he takes full advantage of. Trading favors with other supervillains and shady organizations lets him recruit assistance for his own plans with ease, and he's owed a lot of favors by a lot of people. He's even been know to work with some of the more morally flexible hero groups out there, and has been surprisingly reliable on such occasions - but he still expects reciprocal support if and when he calls in a hero's marker.
Description: A slender, middle-aged white man with piercing blue eyes beneath bushy black eyebrows, sporting a neat goatee. He wears a classic Howie lab coat over a dark suit and sturdy black boots. His long black gloves stop just shy of his elbows, and are laced with metallic cabling and visible circuitry. Speaks in a precise and pedantic fashion with a strangely flat intonation. If badly damaged the true nature of his android body becomes obvious.
Gender: Male Age: Early 40s (Apparent) Height: 5'9" Eyes: Blue
Hair: Bald, Black Goatee Skin: Caucasian, Hairless Build: Lightly-Built
Approach: Tactician Archetype: Overlord
Health: 35 + (5 x H)
Powers: Inventions d8, Robotics d8, Lightning Calculator d6, Presence d6
Qualities: Technology d10, Criminal Genius d8, Persuasion d8, Leadership d6
Status: (# of Minions & Lieutenants) 9+ - d12 / 5-8 - d10 / 3-4 - d8 / 1-2 - d6 / 0 - d4
Abilities:
Android Duplicates (R) Redirect an Attack to one of your minions.
Broadcast Enhancements (A) Boost using Technology. Use your Max die. That bonus applies to every ally's actions until the beginning of your next turn.
Copied Consciousness (A) Attack using Inventions. Use your Max die. Defend yourself against all Attacks made against you until the start of your next turn using the number of your minions.
Exploitation (I) As long as you have at least one nearby ally, you may reroll all ones on your dice.
Robotic Revelation (A) Use Technology to create a number of minions equal to the value of your Max die. The starting die size of for those minions is the same as the size of your Min die.
Upgrades & Masteries (usually in play unless his Flying Arsenal has recently been destroyed):
Villainous Vehicle +15 Health. Add a Flying Arsenal d12 Lieutenant with the following abilities to the scene: Minion Deployment (A) Add minions to an existing group equal to half the vehicle's current die size. These minions are of a size equal to the highest die size already in the group. If the vehicle has a bonus or penalty adjust the number of minions by that amount and then remove that mod. Sturdy (I) When making saving throws against damage, add +2 to the results.
Master of Mad Science (A) As long as you have access to materials, automatically succeed at an Overcome by using scientific principles and inventions.
Tactics
Mister Machine is first and foremost a mastermind and manipulator, relying on his allies and android minions to carry out his schemes whenever possible. His preferred tactic is to use Broadcast Enhancements whenever possible, which massively improves the performance of all his allies in the scene. He'll use Robotic Revelation as needed to maintain a high status die and fuel his Android Duplicates defensive reaction, as well as improving his protection if he opts to use Copied Consciousness to take a more personal hand in a fight. Exploitation gives him rerolls as long as any allies (including minions) are nearby.
His upgrade gives him an armored VTOL fanjet the size of a semi truck, loaded with pre-prepped android minions ready to deploy via combat drops, while his mastery shows off how much of a criminal genius he really is. His Flying Arsenal is yet another ally for him to work with, of course.
Conceptually, Mister Maker's Robotic Revelation can only add new minions to a scene if there's a source for them, which includes his Flying Arsenal vehicle but can also be civilians, police or security officers, or even other villain's minions that were disguised androids just now revealing their true nature. It's even possible that those NPC superheroes you just rescued were actually androids...
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Morphic Androids d8 minion (if purchased as a scene element, otherwise variable per Robotic Revelation above)
Description: The "default setting" look of Mister Machine's androids is identical to their creator, but the polymorphic gel than makes up their outer layers lets them ape the appearance of virtually any humanoid being of similar size, anywhere between 5'4" and 6'5" tall. Imitations aren't particularly difficult to detect, but will generally suffice for short-term deceptions.
Polymorphic Gel: You or Mister Machine may use an Overcome action to adopt the appearance of a different humanoid of generally similar size. If attempting to duplicate a specific individual the effect die suffers a -2 penalty, with any twists generated indicating flaws in the imitation. You can always revert to your default form for free, without using an action.
Designer Note
Mister Machine started out as Mister Maker to avoid duplicating an in-print villain name, but after due consideration I'm shifting back to my original (and much preferred) name for the guy. The original Mister Machine was a creation of Jack "the King" Kirby in the pages of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and later had his name changed to Machine Man and continues to appear in Marvel Comics to this day. While the two characters are very different, consider this an homage to the King, who'd I'd like to think would approve of my own efforts here.
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