Why has no one sang the glory of Bencrawler? Easily the best X-Men member figure ever made.. straight nasty to deal with, catch, and keep down with the TA lending him life clicks.

The gravity feed WXM Wolverine is probably my favorite version out right now, though DOFP uncommon Wolverine looks to surpass him soon. AVX White Queen is a great annoyance your opponent will kick themselves for not dealing with ASAP. GSX Armor is a great steal for the points, though limited in some capacities.. she makes a GREAT bodyguard for a Professor X type character.

indeed: my absolute favorite master mind lackey for AvX Professor X for the points.

oh yeah, check out AvX professor X. not only is he a great control/mind control piece but he'll do it for your avengers teams in addition to your x-men teams.

Some of my favorite X-Men team pieces and ideas...

1) AvX009 Cyclops: Outwit through walls and nice top end stats. Stick WXM209 Jean next to him for theme-y goodness and Enhancement bonus.

2) AvX010E Emma Frost: At 100pts, you get a 17D w/ Impervious and Shape Change, plus Charge, Outwit, and Exploit on that first click.

3) AvX008 Professor X: Forcing all opponents in range to take double power actions instead of power actions is nuts. I like the idea of parking Armor and Hope Summers next to her. Two cheap-ish bodyguards w/ Impervious whom Xavier can Mastermind to.

4) WXM002 Colossus: Great defensive powers and balances between Empower and CCE for the whole thing. I love playing theme, so just like the previously mentioned Cyke/Jean combo...

5) WXM003 Shadowcat: ...pair Colossus with this Kitty, who has a whole dial that gets through damage reducers. Colossus can boost her attacks when he's not CCEing himself.

6) WXM033 Forge: Forge's trait allows him to heal an adjacent character with the Armor keyword of 1 damage as a free action. Park him next to Colossus, and you've got a free heal every turn.

7) DP048 Blink: Her "Blink and You'll Miss Me" power looks like something Nightcrawler clix would be jealous of. Combat Reflexes comes in handy if she misses on that attack. Nice taxi as well. Just a very useful piece.

8) DoFP009 Nightcrawler: This is a great piece, IMO. Traited CR/ESD makes him tough to hit under any circumstances. His mini-M&A is solid, but his ability to Prob once per attack is very nice.

9) M10a021r Dark Phoenix: It's hard to find a more effective use of 100 pts for the X-Men. 10 range triple target with RS, 10AV, and Outwit. Heals 1 damage for every KO she gets, TK, Pulse Wave, stop click and team heal when she is is KO'd.

10) GSX010 Beast: This remains one of my all-time favorite X-Men pieces. Great utility here. Hank gives you another Outwit, plus as a tie-up, he's a 19 to hit in close combat... then you have to get through Super Senses. Seems pesky.

I just pulled a Banshee from a booster pack.

What are some good XMen figures to pair with Banshee in a 300 point game? A 400 point game? 600 points?

anyone: read his trait about turning all the good damage reducers into toughness.

I know his ability, but I want to know what other Xmen figures would make the best use of that ability.

I ran this 400 pt team last night...

150 AVX009 Cyclops
98 DP051 Banshee
86 WS047 Nightcrawler
66 GX050 Armor

...and the results were very good. Obviously, anything with WoS Nightcrawler is going to be tough. But it was very effective pulling opposing pieces back into a killbox that negated their Super Senses and best defensive powers. Plus, Banshee's Police TA helped when Cyclops was making his attacks.

No love for gx036 Professor X?

He can mind control, psychic blast, outwit and perplex....THROUGH ALL YOUR OTHER FIGURES THAT SHARE A KEYWORD as long as he's in your starting zone. This is nuts with high movement pieces like ws047 Nightcrawler that can get all over the map without being hindered.

Plenty of good advice in this thread, I'll just add some general advice:

For Modern Age, the AvX starter is the fastest way to get some solid versions of the characters in a non-blind way. They are not necessarily my favorite versions of the characters, but it may be hard to get decent versions of some characters (Magneto) otherwise.

The common X-figures from WatX (and GSX) are all pretty good and should be easy to get. I would go ahead and get as many of those as you can. You should also be able to easily collect uncommon X-figures from Deadpool, GSX and WatX as well.

Also in the realm of 'common' and inexpensive are figures from the single figure sets: DoFP Angel and WatX figures. Don't forget that the X-Men TabApp packs are floating around in the $2 price range.

Once you have built up a base of easy-to-get figures, start looking at either the 'tricks' you want to play with rarer figures, or the characters you want for theme purposes. There are some great dials from the WatX super-booster team bases, and many excellent Super-Rares.

I really like pairing
AVX -White hope Phoenix
with
WaTX-Hope

when White Hope gets her special support, have hope copy it and heal her...

Also
DoFP -Destiny, love her support powers!
DoFP -Professor x, outwit and shooting through walls, and his 'to me my x-men' really nice if he needs help!

I always find space for WatX Husk. She lasts forever if you aren't unlucky. AvX Cyclops is fantastic at full points, but soft. the WatX gravity feed Shadowcat is great as well.

The Angel from DofP and Archangel from WatX are both very good taxi/support, Gambit is a full on stud if you use him right (especially potent with Archangel if you can heal him back up), WatX Wolverine 001 is a go to for me on a theme team, TabApp Iceman adds tokens when he does damage which is super cool, AvX Prof X is great with enough sold Mastermind fodder (See WatX Wolverine 001), Legion is a super finesse but also super utilitarian.

For me in a 300 points

Gambit
Banshee
Dagger
Phoenix force
=297 pts

From DOFP: Wolvie 013, nightcrawler and The rare storm are The other really helpful pieces, that i play

Were I you I'd get a bunch of cheap ($) X-Men and just be ready to change it up a bunch.

Def get a Moira McTaggart though! She'll be the best medic / Theme Team Prob person they can get!

From Days of Future Past:
003 Colossus
His lower point value is where it's at. 100pts for Super Strength, Sidestep, Invincible, Quake and even Empower to help your Nightcrawlers and Wolverines do more damage too? Definition of secondary attacker right here. Unfortunately I don't think he does enough at the 200pt value to justify dedicating most of your force to him.

005 Angel
Not bad support character/secondary attacker either. His stats aren't amazing. But he can give all your X-Men guys the Defenders team ability, which can get crazy. He's also a carrier, so it helps preserve actions. 6 move Charge is a pretty nice way to be too.

009 Nightcrawler
Simply amazing piece. 80pts for basically 19 defense to whatever is coming at you. Carry into free action attacks and self probability on top of that? He's an absolutely great nuisance to the opposing team. And the carry is great for getting people out of harms way to use the X-Men team ability.


013 Wolverine
Some people call this guy the definitive Wolverine piece. I don't know if I like him at 130pts. But I'd be hard pressed to say he doesn't do his best to earn those points. He encourages you to push him to 2 clicks for that free regeneration. Charge, Flury, Blades, Precision Strike and Empower all meet you top dial. His only real problem is lack of any sort of top dial damage reducers, so if he gets alpha striked, he's dead.


016 Moira MacTaggert
If the X-Men team ability and Wolverine's regeneration wasn't quite enough healing for you, Moira is here to help! With an 11 attack support, she's got a great chance to bring your main attackers back to speed in no time. Alternatively, you can push her to have a 28pt Perplex support piece. Which isn't too shabby either.


022 Professor X
Now don't get me wrong, this is not the Professor X you want to play in a straight up 300pt game. At 150pts he just doesn't earn it. But the higher point games you run, the better he becomes. Being able to teleport any X-Man outside of 8 squares back to him is just amazingly useful. His ignoring of everything for targeting purposes makes it real easy for him to use his Outwit and Perplex effectively. And if needed, 2 damage Penetrating is not to be underestimated in a clinch situation.