I like to keep my encounter decks pre-made and sleeved.

I really like the Hobbit set, but I don't want to buy a second copy just to have the complete encounter decks that FFG prescribes.

My solution was to split up the cards from the two encounter sets: Western Lands and Misty Mountain Goblins.

I decided to split them as follows:

Western Lands:

Lone Lands, Dreary Hills, More Like a Grocer, and A Suspicious Crow - All in "We Must Away, Ere Break of Day" - the first three happened in that part of the story. The crows actually didn't appear until much later (after Mirkwood), but I put them in that deck since it needed more cards (the deck size plays a signicant part in that quest).

Cave Entrance - All in "Over the Misty Mountains Grim (part 1)" - Since that is where they found the cave entrance

Wind-whipped Rain and No Campfire - One of each in each of the above Encounter Decks - since that happened in both parts.

Misty Mountain Goblins:

Grip, Grab! Pinch, Nab! - All 3 in "Over the Misty Mountains Grim (part 2)" - I put them here because that phrase happens before the defeat of the Great Goblin.

All the other cards - 2 of each in "Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim," and 1 of each in "Over the Misty Mountains Grim (part 2)" - I split them up this way to keep the deck sizes in proportion to the length of the scenarios.

Does anyone else like to keep their encounter decks pre-made? Do you think these mixes might work? I know they are different from the suggested mixes, but I think they will play OK. Am I missing something?

Well, I really don't mind separating each portion of encounter cards after each game.

If you don't play encounters as FFG designed them, your game experience might be negatively impacted.

i cant remember the name of the card exactly, but in the original core-set there are some enemies called "goblin town scavengers". i never thought they really fitted those quests, because goblintown is in the misty mountains, and those core-set and shadows of mirkwood quests never really ventured through the misty mountains. so why would we run across enemies from goblin town?

but they fit the hobbit quests perfectly, because they actually enter goblin town. so you could drop those cards into it

i do this kind of thing quite a lot, when i dont think a card fits a quest very well. it was a bigger problem in the shadows of mirkwood cycle, i think, because there were less encounter decks. in the khazad-dum cycle they had more (and smaller) encounter decks, so they could tailor them better to fit the quests.

i dont have any qualms about taking some cards out, and dropping in others from different quests. if it makes the theme and flavour better, then i think it improves the quests. i am always careful to swap like for like though -- an enemy for an ememy, and a location for a locations, for example. so the quests are still made up of the same type of cards.

Cunir said:

gobline town scavengers are in HFG…..which i guess sort of fits given that the misty mountains were the home and last known place of gollum for some time, i reckon thematically they could have been sent to hunt for him

rich

Cunir said:

Also you can read Goblin Town Scavengers two ways.

1. Golblin TOWN scavengers : these goblins go out and scavenge through towns

2. GOBLINTOWN Scavengers: These goblins are scavengers from Goblintown.