Do you gain any kind of advantage/help by using a keyword themed team?
How many have to be on your team to be considered a keyword theme team?

You need to have every character with the keyword to qualify for a theme team. Plus you need to have atleast 1 character per 100 points of the build total. If the game is under 300 points, you need minimum 3.

You get a bonus to your dice roll to see who goes first per member on your team. ie 6 members = +6 to your roll.

You also get a once per game use of PC per 3 characters on the theme team.

The biggest bonus though is the ability to ignore a Battlfield condiotion. FOr example, if you dropped Disbanded! With a theme team, your opponents team abilities are cancled, yours are not.

All in all, I theme teams are pretty fun, and the bonuses you get are well worth trying out build one.

The bonuses are overpowering, expecially when in 400-600 pt tourneys.

Minimum map rolls of 22, 6 rerolls, ignoring BFCs all for using teams that might not be accurate comics teams is disgusting to me.

I like a lot of the changes HC has made, but I do not like the implementation of the keyword bonuses. Too strong while promoting non-comics teams.

Not just if it's under 300 points. You always have to have at least three characters that share a single keyword to have a theme team.

Not exactly. If you play Disbanded and choose to ignore it, your opponent ignores team abilities and you don't. If you're making an attack against your opponent's Batman Ally character, you have to deal with the Stealth granted by the team ability.

I second that. Win or lose, I enjoy playing theme teams.

Twenty 20-pt. characters make a 400 point team. Twenty 30-pt. characters make a 600 point team. That's what you need to get a minimum initiative roll of 22. High roll or not, I don't see anyone winning with any amount of such low-cost figures.
18 characters needed for 6 rerolls. It'd be smarter to play characters who already have PC, along with other support, so you can use it as much as you want without action tokens.
If applied correctly, ignoring a BFC can be just as detrimental as it is advantageous. You just have to learn how to play against it.

So, you play with an average of 22 characters on your team? i know some SHIELD or Hydra swarm teams might be like that, but it seems like you'd have a very difficult time possitioning that massive force. And on the rerolls, remember that it acts similar to the CSA ability. To use the reroll it assigns an action token to a character that has LOS to character needing reroll. And you don't ignore all BFC, you chose one. That's it.

Honestly, keywords will improve once FF, MM, Legacy, and some of the other older sets get keyworded. That will boost actual comic team keywords like JSA, Avengers, X-Men, ect. Yes, some of the keywords like future, mutant, scientist, and especially teen are promoting some non-comic theme teams. But overall I like it.

That's what I said. If it's 300 or under you need minimum 3. 400 or over you need 1 per 100 points of the build. So 400 means having minimum 4, 500 minimum 5, ect.

Um, what? That doesn't make sense. If you ignore disbanded, that means your team isn't effected by it. They all retain use of thier team abilities. Your opponent doesn't. Their abilities are all ignored. So if you shoot a Batman Ally, they don't get the perma stealth granted by the team ability, because Disbanded means his team abilities are ignored. He can't use them because he can't activate the team ability.

If you ignore Disbanded!, you don't just ignore it's effects on your team, you are ignoring the BFC entirely. That means that You treat ALL characters as if they had their printed TAs while your Opponent treats ALL characters as if they had no TA. So it really would only help if, for example, both of you were using Sinister Syndicate since it would function on your turn but not on his. If you both fielded Batman, you would ignore the BFC and you both would still have it on your turn, but it would be in effect during his turn, thereby nerfing your own team.

Ok, here's the rule book definition for ignore

ignores: Is not affected by or treats the stated property or effect as if it didn’t exist or happen.

And here's the text for Disbanded: Ignore all team abilities.

So you ignore Disbanded. Your opponent does not. He ignores his team abilities. So when you target a Bat Ally normaly his team ability makes LoF treated as it's crossing bloking terrain. His team ability is what does this. Disbanded makes him treat his team ability like it doesn't exist. So you should be able to target the character. Turns have nothing to do with it. You are able to use all of yours. He cannot because he's treating the ability like it doesn't exist.

Your arguement doesn't jibe with your supporting info. If you ignore Disbanded and your opponent does not, all Team abilities are in play during your turn (when Disbanded is ignored and the TAs are therefore not) and he ignores all team abilities on his turn, because he is subject to Disbanded.

Who controls the figure is not what matters; what matters is who is affected by the BFC since the BFC causes the player to ignore ALL Team Abilities.

When you attempt to target a Bat Ally it causes a LoF that crosses hindering terrain to be treated as if it's crossing blocking terrain because this is an effect of the Team Ability and you are not ignoring team abilities because you are ignoring Disbanded.

On the other hand, when your opponent targets a Batman Ally, the LoF is not considered blocked by hindering terrain because that is an effect of the TA and he is ignoring TAs due to Disbanded.


BoT

Both Players have a Mystic, a JLA and a Batman Ally on their team.
Player A is ignoring Disbanded, Player B is not.
Player A is not able to target his opponents Batman Ally when that character is in Hindering terrain. Player A takes damage when he hits his opponent's Mystic and Player A does not use one of his actions when moving the JLA figure.
Player B can target his opponent's Batman Ally even when in hindering terrain, Player B does not take damage when he hits his opponent's Mystic.
Palyer B must use one of his actions to move his JLA figure.

Ok, I get what your saying. Wierd. Almost seems like ignoring Disbanded gives you more dissadvantages then not. I'm currious, has anyone at Wizkids officially said anything on it? I know it's not in the FAQ. I'm not doubting what you guys are saying, I just curious now.

You guys nailed that as to why "ignore" is a tuf one. It must have been frustrating to write but it was a treat to read. Like a tennis match.

I don't feel keywords are the game breaker some people are saying. I've found what is more important than the BFC ignore power might be winning map role. If you can find the right keyword and build the right team than needs this "certain map" to win than the map bonus could be the thing. Putting some oppenents say on the space map repeatedly could be killer.

A document has been released that clarifies how each BFC works when it is ignored by a player. There's probably a link to it in the Rules of Combat board.

Edit: It's in the General FAQ on the HeroClix website.

ok this is the way i think it works after reading from the web site. if i played disbanded and someone played ordinary day. i could ignore their OD and still shoot at batman if he's on hindering. the reason being is, i'm ignoring the OD so i still treat the field as if disbanded is in play.
i think thats how it works. i could be wrong. it's kinda confusing. ignoring isn't what i thought it would be. i thought you just nerfed someone bfc all together.

I've found that if you play a theme team, it's best to play a BFC that is positive for your team so no matter what the other guy plays you can ignore it if you need to. Precisely for the examples with Disbanded! above. It would then only be hurting YOUR team. But if you play something like Assembled or The Great Arena, etc you have the luxury to ignore a BFC that the other side could play and be harmful to your team.

The ability to ignore BFC's is the single most powerful effect of playing a Theme Team IMHO.