Is the attack granted by Hands Upon the Bow considered a ranged attack? Yes, it requires a character with the ranged keyword but HUtB does not specifically call the attack "ranged" in the same way that Great Yew Bow does. If I choose Bard the Bowman for HUtB, does he apply his -2 to defense?

Relevent card text:

Hands Upon the Bow

Action: Exhaust a character you control with ranged to immediately declare it as an attacker (and resolve its attack) against an enemy in the staging area. It gets +1 {attack } during this attack.

Bard the Bowman

When Bard the Bowman makes a ranged attack, the enemy he attacks gets -2 until the end of the phase.

Great Yew Bow

Combat Action: Choose an enemy in the staging area. Exhaust Great Yew Bow and attached hero to make a ranged attack against that enemy. Declare attached hero as the attacker. No other attackers can be declared for this attack.

HUtB does not count as a ranged attack, alas. The definition of ranged attack includes that the enemy be engaged with another player (see FAQ p. 13), which doesn't apply to HUtB.

(Yes, Great Yew Bow confusingly supersedes this.)

That's what I figured. Just wanted confirmation. Thanks.

I guess theoretically it could still count as a ranged attack against some enemies like Lurker of the Depths ( http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Details/Lurker-of-the-Depths-TRoB ) that could be both in the staging area and engaged with another player at the same time. That might be the only enemy like that though that isn't immune to player card effects.

HUtB does not count as a ranged attack, alas. The definition of ranged attack includes that the enemy be engaged with another player (see FAQ p. 13), which doesn't apply to HUtB.

(Yes, Great Yew Bow confusingly supersedes this.)

This is one of the VERY few times that I feel that Caleb got a ruling wrong, and I house-rule it differently. In my opinion, any time when a card effect allows you to attack an enemy not engaged with you , it should be a ranged attack if (and only if) the character making the attack has Ranged. So Dúnhere attacking into the staging area would not be a ranged attack, but Hands Upon the Bow would grant a ranged attack, and would trigger Bard's ability.

I realize that Caleb ruled the way he did because that's the way the rules are written; given the definition of a ranged attack ("an enemy engaged with another player"), his ruling was correct. But I believe that it would have been a better ruling to change the definition of ranged to be "an enemy not engaged with you, but the Ranged keyword does not give you the ability to attack the staging area unless specifically allowed by another card effect." This makes Hands Upon the Bow do what it intuitively should do, which is grant a Ranged attack -- after all, you can only use it with a Ranged character.

So it's up to you: you can play with the official rules that don't quite make sense, or you can play with a house rule that makes more sense and doesn't create any overpowered situations that I've ever found. (The only card that it really helps is Bard, who isn't really overpowered.)

P.S. And that's the nice thing about a cooperative game. When there's a rule that I think would make the game better, even if it's not official, I can apply that rule to the games I play and everyone will be fine with it. The only time it would matter is if I was comparing score with someone else, in which case I will mention the unofficial rule that I played by if it affected the score. (I might have still won but taken an extra round to do it with, for a +10 to my final score, and so on).

I fully agree! I mean you have your hands on a bow!!! What you gonna do? Slapping the orc to death with your bow in melee combat or shooting an arrow between his eyes in a ranged attack!?

Well... Firing arrow at ennemies engaged with you is not considered ranged as far as I know

I fully agree! I mean you have your hands on a bow!!! What you gonna do? Slapping the orc to death with your bow in melee combat or shooting an arrow between his eyes in a ranged attack!?

Well technically the card is called Hands Upon the Bow and not Hands Upon the Bow and Arrow...