I had a successful night with this variant of the Hellfire Club:

107 SR (M&M) Emma Frost
+8 Protected
86 U (Ult) "Baby" Phoenix
59 Exp Selene
39 R Tessa

I was somewhat surprised, as I've never had any luck with the other pieces...I wasn't facing uber-min/max, so that had a lot to do with it.

Selene's TK provides the key mobility they otherwise lack, with Phoenix's Attack Value being the offensive power. Tessa never disappoints, as the perfect combination of free-move, ranged support and tie-up with late dial PC.

Protected is just and afterthought (a BST might have served better), but I really couldn't think of any better use of 9 points. Any suggestions?

Cool team. The only thing that worries me is the lack of close combat power, so perhaps I would have played Black King instead of Emma Frost + Protected.

exp selene is 65 points...so your team is 297 pts without protected

The units section on the realms has her cost wrong. She is only 59 points.

Don't take this as snarky, because I'm really curious: when was Rachel Summers a member of the HC? I remember her infiltrating them in one issue to kill Selene, but that's it.

very underrated keyword team. Mastermind works well with the hellfire guards, and the LE Magneto Trick Shots well behind the Stealthy Mastermind and the Hellfire Guard LE.

Emma is solid, as is Ult. Phoenix (I'm assuming tidge doesn't have her? Or just wanted to try something different?).

R Tessa, E Nocturne, and E Selene are good support/secondary figs.

I like your team a lot. I've had a lot of success with Emma paired with Norman Osborne (even before the Dark X-men). His RS gives you manueverability you don't get with Rachel, which makes Selene's inclusion less necessary. Mastermind is of course an incredibly solid piece, but really doesn't fit with Emma. E White Queen is a nice alternative to Emma Frost that will save you 27 points.

Beats me! I vaguely remember during the "Claremont/Davis Returns" series that Rachel Summers was infiltrating (w/Tessa) but I didn't recall Selene in that arc...

My last legit knowledge of the Hellfire Club is from the original Phoenix saga days...up to the time when Magneto joined, and the New Mutants vanished into the future(s) and I read a few issues of Whedon's Astonishing w/Cassandra Nova's return.

This is one of those teams that probably isn't comic-issue legit, but because of odd keywords (Ultimate Magneto? Xorneto? Seriously?) the Hellfire club is always going to have credibility problems. "Baby" Phoenix is about as close as we have for a regular "Jean Grey gone wild" figure, so I had no qualms about using Rachel to fill that role.

ok, ok XD sorry...i don't have that figure so i use the units section to look XD then i think as well it'd be better with black king instead of emma...emma loses mind control quickly if you don't have mental shields on her making her kind of meh for 2 clicks after the first until she gets it back again

That's what the "Black Queen" figure from Mutant Mayhem represents -- Jean as the Black Queen when she's starting to go Phoenix-wild. She's pretty good as a flying Psi-Blaster for only 70 points, though she does suffer from typical pre-2.0 first-click-itis.

My team already had a "Black Queen" however!...besides, with the upcoming events of the "Wolverine and the X-Men" cartoon, we are going to want a Hellfire Club click more like Rachel Phoenix than Jean Grey Black Queen. Even in the Ultimate universe, the Hellfire Club really doesn't know what they are getting into by messing with the Phoenix Force. I felt the squad I played was themey, especially when Rachel was Mind Controlled to snipe Selene!

The Hellfire Club (as a keyword) is one keyword (among many, see also X-Men, X-Factor, Exiles) that would be IMO best served by a return of the "Mutant" Keyword. IIRC there are only on the order of 25 distinct game pieces that actually have the keyword, and quite a few of them are basically the same character (the Guard, Emma Frost) and worse IMO is that those figures don't offer tremendous variety (e.g. a shockingly large number have TK)

Yes, I agree, the Hellfire Club isn't nearly as diverse or as powerful as it was represented in the comics.

There should be a "Money and Influence" special power... LOL.

The doing-away with the "mutant" keyword was one of the biggest mistakes, keyword-wise, in HC, in my opinion. As generic keywords go, I think "mutants" banding together to fight (effectively) is far more likely and believable than "detectives" or "spies" or "politicians".