When Ranger Bow came out I was really excited to build a deck around it, since you could take out enemies in the staging area before quest resolution was complete, but I had yet to build a solid deck around the strategy. Mostly because, I was trying to put the bow on ranger allies and the set up would take too long to get it working. Putting the bow on a hero like Beravor, Aragorn, or Faramir never worked out either since these heroes had other important things to do, at least in the case of the first two heroes, I have still yet to find a purpose for Faramir in a solo deck.

The deck below seems to make really good use of Ranger Bow and other traps.

Both Elladan and Elrohir have the Ranger trait, so they are the targets of ranger bow.

It is easy to get a bow on both of them, so setting them up with bows removes the need for an ally. They rarely need to quest, and with bow they can destroy any 2 hp enemies that enter the staging area before quest resolution is complete. By Mid-late game I can get the another Bow on another ranger ally and attack the staging area for 3 damage. Mix in some ranger spikes and Anborn (Using proxy right now) and I will rarely engage an enemy. If I do engage an enemy the two brothers are ready for combat. THe nice thing is that they can be readied by paying a resource after attacking and defending, so they will still get to use the Ranger Bow on any enemies that are still in the staging area.

The biggest weakness of the deck is questing power early on. Bifur is it for the start. If I can drop a Ranger Spikes first turn then I can quest with all my heroes to get started.

More strategy after the deck list.

Hero (3): Threat 27

Bifur (KD)

Elladan (RtR)

Elrohir (TRG)

Ally (19)

Anborn (TBoG) x2

Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x2

Gildor Inglorion (THoEM) x1

Gleowine (Core) x2

Ithilien Tracker (HON) x2

Ithilien Archer x 1

Master of the Forge (SaF) x3

Warden of Healing (TLD) x1

Erestor (TLD) x1

Faramir (Core) x1

Gandalf (Core) x3

Attachment (19)

A Burning Brand (CatC) x1

Forest Snare (Core) x1

Protector of Lorien (Core) x1

Ranger Bow (AoO) x3

Ranger Spikes (HON) x3

Elfstone (TBR) x2

Song of Wisdom (CatC) x2

Celebrian's Stone (Core) x2

Steward of Gondor (Core) x3

Gondorian Shield (TSF) x1

Event (12)

Daeron's Runes (FoS) x3

Strider's Path (THFG) x2

Take No Notice (TBR) x1

Sneak Attack (Core) x3

Fresh Tracks x3

Total: 50

Card specific Strategies:

I already mentioned the overall strategy of the deck in the introduction. So, these are how some specific cards work in the deck.

Elladan has a pretty simple roll in this deck. He is the tactics brother with the attack boost. His resource almost always goes to Bifur. There are only 2 tactics cards in the whole deck, and both of them only cost 1. It is good to make sure that later in the game he always has at least 1 resource in his deck so he can ready after making an attack to use Ranger Bow if needed. He gets a Ranger Bow and Rivendell Blade both are restricted. I dropped down to one blade in the deck, because it was not really necessary once the decks strategy is working. The 1st Ranger Bow goes to him.

Elrohir the leadership defender brother has quite a bit more attachments that play into the deck strategy. He will get the 2nd Ranger Bow. The other important attachments are Steward of Gondor and Gondorian Shield which will bring him to 5 def.

Song of Wisdom is important since there are a lot of lore cards to pay for, and a few expensive leadership cards. We can also put Burning Brand on him with SoW. Protector of Lorien for extra Def if ever needed.

Bifur is the main quester and Celebrian's Stone will help him out along with the 2nd PoL. Warden of Healing can help keep him alive on quests where treachery cards that deal him damage.

The other cards that make the deck work:

Rivendell Minstrel for fishing out a song of wisdom and additional questing power. Master of the Forge is key for getting those bows, traps and other important attachments. Gleowin for more card draw. Erestor for card draw and questing. Gildor for questing and ability occasionally. Faramir for quest ability. Gandalf with Sneak attacks is primarily for threat reduction. Anborn for recycling traps.

Take No Notice has proved to be a useful event for the cost of 1 in this deck, Strider's Path is also working good.

I had King Under the Mountain in the deck for a few games, but never actually got it in play, so I don't really know if it would be a good card for the deck, but it might be, but I would hate to discard have to chose between two cards that are both important to the strategy.

While writing this I thought about removing Ithilien Tracker for On Ithilien Archer. The archers ability might work well in this situation. Let's say I had an engaged enemy that could not be destroyed. Both Elladan and Elrohir ready after defending and attacking the enemy. If the archer was in on the attack and Pushed the enemy back to the staging area with its response, then The two Brothers equipped with Bows could deal it two more damage while in the staging area, possibly destroying it. Very situational but worth a try.

So, this deck is not going to handle everything you throw at it, but for some of the older quests, and enemy heavy quests it is fun. It is not a fast deck, so you can expect each game to be over 10 rounds.

Anyway, what do you think?

Edits:

Replaced

2 Forest Patrol for 2 Elfstone

1 Ithilien Tracker for 1 Ithilien Archer

1 Rivendell Blade, 1 Protector of Lorien, and 1 Take No Notice for 3 Fresh Tracks.

Sounds ok as a coop deck. For solo i think s not bad but cannot manage all quests. This deck is mostly build up on attachments but in current metagame any deck build up on attachment will lose on certain quests (Like Lake-Town, Shadow and flame and so on). I prefer make a deck build up on many allies. They are much more stable.

But still good deck for coop. I wanna try it.

Your absolutely right, this deck will not take on all quests, and might even struggle on ones considered easy. Although I built it as a solo deck I am curious to see how it does in multiplayer.

Building a solo trap deck is challenging, since if you go with Mono-lore questing power and resource generation always pose a problem. One leadership hero seems necessary for a trap deck to work in solo, but at this point it is still going to be limited on what scenarios it can take on.

Nice unorthodox idea, thx.

I made a change based on a suggestion by jpraibis a BGG

Fresh Tracks seems to work pretty nice in the deck so i took out The last Rivendell Blade, 1 Protector of Lorien, and 1 Take No Notice. For 3 Fresh Tracks.