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I'm looking to start getting in some Maelstrom of War matches in my meta but I've heard that the randomness of it puts some people off.

With that said, here are some house rules I'm thinking of introducing to the group and I wanted your thoughts.

1) If you can't score an objective (eg manifest a power when you have no Psyker), then discard and redraw. Exception to this rule is if you could have claimed an objective with your list but can't went you draw it (so you do have a Psyke in your army, but it is becomes a casualty when you draw manifest a power).

2) All D3 objectives become 2. D3+3 becomes 5.

3) Objectives can not be placed within deployment zones.

Thoughts? Still unsure on how to balance the missions themselves..

I'd try them out of the book and see how you get along.

Our group plays them regularly and we have found them fine - most of us prefer them to the eternal war missions. Some of the group play that objectives you could never have completed you get to discard, although I personally I have never found it a problem.

Not having an army that is capable of playing maelstrom missions is more of a problem than randomness.

I'd allow objectives to be placed in deployment zones. Gunlines are allready in trouble.

But i'd change the sequence of rolling and placing objectives.

1. Place objectives
2. Roll mission and deployment
3. Roll side and first turn
etc.

or

1. Roll mission
2. Place objectives
3. Roll side and first turn
etc.

We discard the missions you can't possibly complete and draw a new one instead. And we try to drop one objective on each of the GW board pieces, those 24 inch by 24 inch ones.
We drop the pieces before choosing who goes first and before we even choose a mission.

1 and 2 are standard round here. No objectives in deployment zones doesn't leave much space on the board.

Picking random cards is the problem. If you get cards that say grab objectives on opponents board side and he gets the same, you're already 3 points down minimum. Turn 2 same happens, not a fair game tbf.

I like playing the mission where you start with 6 cards in your hand and lose one every round, but each objective is worth 3 victory points at the end of the game. Give you the tactical choice of scrambling to start to get a big lead, or play the slow game to cover territory and win at the end with board control.

Been a lot of fun, that one!

How to balance maelstrom missions:

1) Press "select all".

2) Press "delete".

3) Play normal missions and be happy.

Take a look at the BAO format missions, those do a really good job of taking a maelstrom-type game and balancing it.

That being said, discard house rules and placing objectives before gametype is decided goes a long way towards a better game