Never seen any play with a thug or any of the small guys unless they are medics. Any use or strategy for any of them?

Thugs, lackies, etc are great pieces to play. Why?, because they are cheap, they can round out your team to a full 200 or 300 points, and they can act as moble terrain. You can move a thug in front of a figure to block line of sight, you can move one next to an opposing fig to force a break away roll, and yes, you can even lay the smack down (or at least attempt to) and sometimes get an extra point of damage in or so. Also, if you have a figure with mastermind, what better to toss damage onto than a cheap thug. In short, while they are not the "key bruiser" on a team they can be great supporting pieces if you have the points.
Police and agents etc. add all these bonuses plus their respective team abilities which can add very devastating effects to all ready powerful figures (ex: Adding damage to a ranged attack with an adjacent supporting SHIELD agent).
-Azathoth

Aim agents are good to use becuase you can get cheap +1 attack when shooting. Thugs hmmm off by 6 points take R Thug. Skrulls I use all the time. Of course I love using super skrull so I try to keep a theme.

I love having a lackey or two on my teams when there is space. I have one that I call "Swing Away" because all he can do is swing his crowbar in close combat, but everytime I've used him, he's rolled a 12 and laid the smackdown! I wacked an E Batman against a wall for a total of 3 clicks and that was enough to sway the game into my favor.

Go lackey go!!

I think that the correct use of "generic" characters is the best kept secret in the game.

First azathoth is right. Thugs, Henchmen, Operatives, Lackeys, etc. are wonderful figures.

My favorite team is the "Bald Baddies": Professor X, Moondragon, Kingpin, Vision, Puppet Master, and only the bald generics. Why? Anybody can run around and taxi Firelord or Batman around.

In other words, grunts add color to the game. They also round out your totals.

Then if you are playing a HYDRA game, they are perfect for Viper or the Red Skull to use as damage absorbers.

But their best use is again the point azathoth brought up, they are perfect decoys and terrain blockers. I actually like the lower valued grunts than the red ones. I've seen many players abuse Line of Slight, i.e. they've drawn very liberal lines for their benefit and fairly conservatives ones when it is to their disadvantage. So if you're going to use grunts to take away RCE or block an outwitter, make sure to have a ruler, so when your opponent is seeing through you by use of a liberal line you can say, "Look, this is a straight line, and I only put Bubba right here so that the Panther could see his ugly mug and ONLY his ugly mug." Or you can even say, "Do you agree that if I move my thug here, that I'll block your line of sight" before you finish your turn, as a way to let your opponent know that you are no dummy and are just using these guys to handicap his ranged superpowers.

To be honest, when I first saw the game last year, I hesitated at buying it. But when I saw that they used Thugs and Henchmen, I realized that the game designers were building a game with more character than just a miniature based "Street Fighter".

My R Gothem PD took out Doomsday. All right, so he had help from Arcane & Gorilla Grodd, but he did get the last shot.

I had a thug take out more than one 30-point character in a game by himself, once (lucky dice)... he then got the smack laid on him by the indestructible dumpster in Thing's gentle hands, but hey, even that attack was one that could have gone against a more valuable figure...

I also use Goons'R'Us (tm) to get some cheap tourney wins. Since victory points are determined by total of KO;ed figs + total figs remaining on the board, I throw plenty of cannon fodder out early to tie up the opponent and make him waste actions knocking off 6-12 point characters while I soften him up with V Hawkeye and V Cyclops. By the time he makes thru my Maze-o-Goons (also tm ), he's managed to accumulate less than 50 points while I still have most of my major guns around.

Back when IC was the only game in town... before Plasticity was around... I was fond of using Thugs and Henchmen to pin down enemy figures, force them to chance a breakaway, or get stuck where I could blaze away at them at range. Rookie Thugs in particular were fine, cheap ways to force my opponent to move around them, or risk getting pinned down, or waste an attack smearing one, just to get him out of the way.

That, and Thugs and Criminals make peachy material for conversions. They're generic, they're modern, and they're cheap, cheap, cheap. Anyone will sell or trade you their spare Thugs and Criminals for peanuts.

All I need now is female Thugs and Criminals...

The exp. Metropolis SCU for 18 points (and the vet. for a few more) is one of the best tie up figs in the game, period. Why? Well, the Base Damage Limit (BDL) in the game right now is 5, no figs do more than that without help (SHIELD/Enhancement boosts or Objects). Well, for 18 points, the SCU guys can take a five point hit, and keep on coming. Sure, one more love tap will KO them, but it forces your opponent to spend two actions to take the piece out.

Actually, many of the figures in the 10-20 point range are quite good fighters. Just don't expect too much from them, after all they only cost a few points.

Unfortunately, they're tactically weak because they don't do more than 2 damage, and because it's impractical to taxi hordes of them.

A second big disadvantage is that many of the medics are almost as good at fighting as the other small figures, so it's often a better choice to pick the medic because of the utility factor.

However, many of the small figures have potent team abilities. The SHIELD ability in particular can be quite spectacular, and the Hydra/PD ability should not be underestimated.

Lackeys and their ilk are also some of the best tie-down pieces because they're disposable.

Of course, the cheap figures are also a good idea if you have a handful of points left, but with the 9 point Paramedic and the 11 poin Con Artists You won't see a lot of them used for that.

I was thinking they could make female punks to fill that need.

Actually, I've been a bit disappointed that the medic figures are always female. It is almost as if they think males can't be nurses, and females can't be tough.

I wouldn't mind a few other generic figures. Some ideas are:

Kids
Fat Kid Outcast (a tougher kid unique)
Skateboard Punks (I'll have the pleasure to KO)
Family Dog (archenemy of Mailman)
Mailman (archenemy of Family Dog)
Firemen (they have police and paramedics so why not?)
Scuba Diver (aquatic)
Hooligan (with balaclava and gun to rob stores)
Violent Drunk (with Battle Fury)
Street Mime (maybe perplex with 0 damage)

Not only would they give the game more options, but you could make some pretty cool scenarios with figures such as these.
Ghost

id like to see disgruntled postal workers. here are the stats.

Postal Worker,No Affliliation,Veteran 18 pts. 1 attack 4 range

7 7 6 6 5
8 8 7 7 6
16 15 14 13 13
2 2 1 1 1

That would be fun to play