omega red:

monster
weapon x
mutant
armored
brute.

Dude. Don't you know a Brute Squad is a force to be feared????

Again, I say Omega Red doesn't deserve a keyword because he kills people just by standing nearby with his death factor.

One day soon I'm going to write an article of justifications for generic keywords and reasons why each themed team might rate the mechanic's bonuses.

My point is that if you're going to assign so much importance to the 'theme team' and what their power holds, then you need to give every figure at least one. I've heard this thing about comic accuracy time and time again on here and the bottom line is that a lot of people that play this game don't read comics and don't know every nuance of who should work together, but would still like to play Omega Red, Arcade, or someone else in a game but doesn't because they have to make theme teams to stay on par with most of the people playing competitively.

Omega red should've gotten soldier. That would have made me happy. ohhhwelll. They should've made assassin as a keyword or something for Arcade. Tessa should've had soldier as well. I agree that all characters should have gotten at least one keyword. Almost EVERY comic character has teamed up with somebody.

There should never be such a keyword. Assassins nearly always work solo, not as a force.

quoted for truth. Like what has been stated before, theme is starting to become a competitive part of team building, and depriving figs of keywords assures that they will almost always NOT see competitive play. WK has put so much importance to keyword theme teams!

Unfortunately the original intent of keyworded theme teams is now out the window and now it's which keywords have the most number of figs I can exploit to take advantage of the bonuses (which is a reason why teens/mutants see a lot of play but A.I.M. does not)

It's not about whether people are loners or people don't work together in the comics (a nice rationalization). On a gameplay standpoint (and from the standpoint of the current competitive environment), keyword-less figs are dead figs in the water IMO. Now I can't field Omega Red safely with all the Malice's and Deep Shadows around coz he doesn't have a keyword.

Characters without keywords are perfect for the current play format. You'll never have to worry about them getting hit from Inside Info or Monster Hunter like you had to in most of the M&M games.

Nah, people are winning Planet Hulk dials with Apocalypse, Batman, Rampaging Hulk and Arcade on non keyword teams. Most of Crisis' big guns have keywords, but a lot of them won't be able to get much use of them in the first floor format. Nonethless, I wouldn't let that stop me from using a Trigon or a Spectre or (if I'm lucky) KC Superman.

Keyword teams in my opinion are not always figures that work together ... look at the brute or monster keyword. These are figures that simply go on a rampage and do there thing with no planning or working together. In most cases if they were out and met they would end up fighting each other.

Keywords in my opinion are simply figures that share something in common. For example I should be able to build a keyword team using Arcade , Merlyn, Bullseye, Shield Snipers etc get a keyword bonus for playing an Assassin themed team.

Every figure should have a keyword of some sort even if its simply a common shared enemy like say for Bullseye he would have Daredevil or simply a generic villain keyword.

Also didnt I read that when keywords were first announced that as long as your judge and your local players agree you that you have a theme you can still get the keyword bonuses ? Anyone had any luck doing this ?

I think figures with NO keywords should be able to get the theme team gameplay bonus if they are on a team comprised of ONLY figures with no keywords. That way the 'comic accurate' set get their theme keywords, and the 'I want to play with all of my figures without being at a disadvantage' crowd get what they want.

That's for unrestricted play only. Or it's supposed to be, anyway.

rarely do we play restricted tournaments - even the "restricted" floor tournaments for M&M we could unrestricted for the other half

anyways - omega red - absolutely should have gotten at least a few - soldier , brute

when restricted is enforced it does limit the choices for teams but keywords are not the be all and end all - non keyword themed teams still win , keyword teams lose

now i really think instead of 2d6 we should roll 1d20 for attacks