My question regards the fact that Ranged is a keyword designed for attack, as described by the core rules:

"A character with the ranged keyword can be declared by its controller as an attacker against enemies that are engaged with other players. A character can declare ranged attacks against these targets while its owner is declaring attacks, or it can participate in attacks that are declared by other players. In either case, the character must exhaust and meet any other requirements necessary to make the attack."

In case of Mirkwood Flock and Black Forest Bats:

1)  if they are engaged with other player:

I cannot use a Sentinel character to defend it? 

Or that character must have the ranged keyword also, either by print text (Haldir of Lorien or Dunedain Wanderer) or by an attachment (both Dunedain Signal and Cache; a ranged character with the response form Arwen; A Rivendell Bow or an Dunedain Cache on a sentinel character)?

2) if they are engaged with me

 I must use a ranged character or an eagle to defend it?

Thanks for your replies

i think the character must either be an eagle or ranged to do either, whether that be through sentinel or directly engaged with you

so if you want to use sentinel then the sentinel character must also have ranged or be an eagle

if the engaged player want to defend then it must also have ranged or be an eagle

thats how i see it

rich

That is also what i thought, but wanted to ear the opinions of others.

That is a little crap… Exhaust a ranged character (which are mostly suited to attack, except perhaps Brand, Dunedain Wanderer and Haldir) to defend a 1/2 attack enemy…