Faramir's Rangers & Gollum - Henneth Anun - Thematic 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Story:

• Henneth Anun, 'Window of the Sunset' is the secret Ithilien Ranger base of Faramir and his key rangers Damrod, Anborn and Mablung that we see in the LoTR movies.
• This deck is inspired by the events in the LoTR story when the rangers bring Frodo and Samwise to Henneth Anun post mumakil warband ambush and they are rudely awoken by Faramir who threatens to kill Smeagol/Gollum whilst he is in the 'Forbidden Pool', leveraging The Riddle-game and Hungry Creature as well as The One Ring which is in their grasp but they have the Inner Strength, which all just feels thematically so satisfying and a fun story line to play
• Faramir: “So that is the answer to all the riddles! The One Ring that was thought to have perished from the world. And Boromir tried to take it by force? And you escaped? And ran all the way - to me! And here in the wild I have you: two halflings, and a host of men at my call, and the Ring of Rings. A pretty stroke of fortune! A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality! Ha!”

The Deck: A evolved take on a Ranger Trap Deck - The Grey Wanderer is always a fun but not always the easiest to get enough momentum to build momentum before getting smothered. Pairing Grey which fetches Strider plus the The Riddle-game fetching Stone of Elostirion now Damrod has a starting 6 and drawing 2 cards each round without his Trap Triggers and ready for combat without triggering the contract, ok now we're talking... also you fetch The One Ring & Inner Strength so that gets you to 50 cards from Deck which if wondering why 53 its to ensure have right distribution for Riddle Game, of the 50 left after set up we have 11x 0 cost and 11x 2 cost which are in my experience the most common needs to win the game (which in this turn it on its head case is to help Frodo and Sam persuade Faramir not to kill Smeagol...) + 12x traps for Damrod engine

• Its a Trap Deck, but one that leans heavily into maximising the low threat from only running one hero and killing things in staging/before they attack you vs holding them in Spikes/Snares like often see. Starting and largely staying in Secrecy means you can max out on Staging Fun, Poisoned Stakes gets a new lease of life here, get a couple of Guardian of Ithilien with Ranger Bow online and you are cooking, staying often below 20/25 threat and sniping all kinds of nasties before they know whats hit them (and Thematic AF! per the mumakil ambush scene)

Low Threat Fun & Board Acceleration - The Low Threat / Secrecy play also gives you Timely Aid / Resourceful / A Lesson in Caution then of course outside of that have Spring the Trap which are all fantastic for acceleration and pumping out expensive allies like Faramir/Grey/Anborn/Firyal/Yazan and you can stay low threat there because of Woodmen's Clearing / The Galadhrim's Greeting (with contract its fantastic as basically end up with 4-5 threat reduction for 1 resource).

• Damrod gets Inner Strength which might sound like an odd choice but actually with the The Grey Wanderer 2nd effect of healing x3 he's pretty reliable, especially thanks to Entangling Nets etc, typically in tandem with the 2x extra resources
• Later game getting Firyal and/or Yazan online alongside Faramir, Anborn etc are pretty potent and can help you control the encounter deck so that when ready to go to next stage of quest to take on a bigger boss who may auto engage you are ready to take him down, perhaps with help of Gondorian Fire powered by contract and resourceful which can mean 5+ resources a turn etc.
• There are lots of other cards would love to add but ran out of deck space, some will require tweaking pending the scenario you are playing, eg more questing allies / combat allies etc. For longer scenarios add Will of the West to recycle old traps, allies and hungry creature fed discards

This is one of those decks which is just so much fun to pilot and feels thematically perfect as you use every trap, trick and arrow to chip away at the power growing in the east. "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." Faramir

Feedback and opportunities to refine please shout, this is V1.0.