Back playing after a 12 year hiatus. In the old days we used to worry a lot about having sufficient figures we weren't leaving action tokens unused. With the point values of modern figures that doesn't seem possible. How are players today thinking about how many figures to include on a team and the distribution of points therein?

Oh boy, a lot happened during those 12 years. But in some respects it probably is isn't so different as earlier, as from 2 to 5 figures is normal now. There are both good cheap, medium cost and high cost figures out there. You can make excellent swarm teams, one-man-armies or anything in between that.

A recent trend seems to be gotg062 Super Skrull 170 + fl060r Engineer 90 + 40 points of pit crew.

We have good one-man-armies like dp057 Tiamat 255, slosh039 Bizarro 25-300, jltw054 Martian Manhunter 300, jltw050 Superman 250, gotg047b Thanosi 300, wol025 The Weaponer of Qward 211, wol026 Sodam Yat 250, dp104 Cosmic X-23 275, etc.

I haven't even mentioned the advent of so-called team bases or newer non-figure items like ATAs, relics, resources, constructs, word-balloons etc. which are very important in competitive game environment.

Just ask away if you need anything.

Assuming a 300 point Modern age game:
The way you distribute points is that you want a main attacker, which will be probably 150ish of your 300 points. Then you want 75-100 points into a secondary attacker/supporter, and the other 50-75 points into a supporter. Or more points into a more effective, sturdier main attacker, and a very well rounded supporter/secondary.

Example:
148 Big Barda (main attacker)(bm032)
90 Batman (sog047)
50 Oracle (ffsog001)
= 288 points

Barda is a solid attacker with enough options to make her flexible and dangerous in most situations. She has move and attack abilities (Charge), and good combat values. Plus she can heal herself up, and push because of her Indomitable (willpower).

Same for Batman, who is also a solid attacker. He has move and attack abilities (Charge and Running shot), and good combat values. He can support himself with smoke cloud.

Oracle can use perplex on some clicks, and can give free move actions to any "Justice League" keyworded figures, such as both Batman and Barda. And they're a keyworded theme-team, which gives bonuses.





--------------------------

Another example:
225 Iron Man (Marvel 10th Anniversary set)(m10a009)
65 Rescue (Invincible Iron Man set)(iim002)
= 290 points

Iron Man brings excellent combat values, flight, long reach with move-and-attack powers (running-shot), defense busting abilities like psychic-blast and pulse-wave, solid damage reducers, self-support like perplex and Indomitable (gives willpower).

Rescue brings perplex, double-target incapacitate, telekinesis, force blast, flight, decent longish range, healing ("support"), damage reducers, and a special ability to carry any single-based characters (a huge plus in some situations).

And, they are a keyworded theme-team, which, again, gives them nice bonuses. (they have the "armor" keyword in common)