The Dark Knigh Roland Banks

He's the hero Arkham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

This is a solo Roland Banks build designed for long-term campaign play. With solo play, action management is very important. Your only investigator needs to take care of everything with a limited number of actions. Therefore solo decks need to try to achieve as much as possible without actually spending actions. Two most important tasks in Arkham Horror: The Card Game are collecting clues and fighting monsters. Roland Banks' unique ability lets you combine the two.

Fighting monsters To fight monsters, you need weapons. Roland's .38 Special is the best weapon you can get, but in order to draw a weapon reliably, you need more of them. In solo play, Machette is superior to .45 Automatic, but you need both. In addition allies such as Beat Cop and Guard Dog will help you deal more punishment. Vicious Blow is also a very useful card, because it often kills an enemy right away, saving you an action that you would need to finish the monster off. One .45 Automatic can be later replaced by Shotgun. Dynamite Blast is very situational, probably more often than not you will be using that to boost a Willpower test. If it doesn't work with you, replace it with Extra Ammunition, especially if you already have a Shotgun.

Gathering clues Investigation still remains the primary way of collecting clues. In solo play, there are just not enough monsters to collect enough clues. Flashlight is a must for those 3+ shroud locations. In solo play, you don't have a luxury of striding around the map, looking for a location with low shroud. That's why there are a lot of clue-collecting support cards: Evidence!, Working a Hunch and Deduction. If you really need to move, take a Shortcut. The best thing is that all these cards are Fast, meaning you don't spend an action for them!

Roland's biggest weakness is his mediocre Willpower. A lot of Encounter cards can make you a mess if you fail their Willpower test (think Frozen in Terror or Umôrdhoth's Wrath). These cards, as well as a lot of weaknesses, tend to deal horror, which is the main survival concern for Roland. Protect your sanity at all costs. A lot of cards are in the deck to mitigate low Willpower and Sanity. While some allies such as Beat Cop or Guard Dog can soak up some horror when they stop being useful, Laboratory Assistant is there just to make you draw two cards and then go mad as soon as possible. Your number one priority to include should be the Police Badge. In addition to extra Willpower, you can also use it for extra two actions or a +2 Willpower boost for a test. A win-win-win card. Many other cards also provide Willpower bonus: Dodge, Dynamite Blast, Shortcut and Guts. Paired with two copies of Manual Dexterity, some of them also provide Agility bonus, although Agility is not a critical skill for Roland.

When upgrading the deck, here are some options:
.45 Automatic >> Shotgun
Dynamite Blast >> Extra Ammunition
Manual Dexterity >> Police Badge