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In a another thread, it was asked how armies would fare across the three standard tournament types. I wanted to explore this concept and I felt it was a question worth bringing to the tactics forum. I've refined my original post somewhat. These are speculations from my own playing experience but unless similar observations are made it can't be empirically supported to weed out confirmation bias and other logical errors. Do you agree? Disagree? Have something to add or take out? Do you see any similarities with your own lists? I'm curious myself, for my lists and to give better advice.

Maelstrom has more objective markers, so it favours armies that more resemble MSU lists. There is a factor of luck involved, but not to the extent that it's unfair. (Okay, sometimes you'll pull two easy D3 cards turn one, roll max points, and have an insurmountable six point lead before the other guy even goes, but that's a pretty severe statistical outlier. Any results should regress to the mean % chance, but it is a small sample size so irregularities are inevitable and statistically should afflict both sides roughly evenly.) The luck allows both teams to play at a tactical advantage and disadvantage. If you can make something happen at a disadvantage (Distant objective, killing a tough character, succeed in a phase you aren't so good at, etc.), and hold on to your advantage (An objective you already hold, two objectives, succeed in a phase you're good at, etc.) you'll end up ahead. Both players simply hold on to their advantage is essentially a draw, and so on. A flexible army would be capable of moving and firing to capture a new objective whereas an inflexible list would lose efficiency by having to choose one or the other. If you make too many sacrifices for victory points in the beginning, will you have enough models to hold on for the random game length, or vice versa? It's the more risk/reward orientated scenarios. Think about how a player overextending for objectives or targeting lower priority threats to score first blood? (Firing at a dedicated transport rather than a tough baddy.) How many models could die grabbing that objective in the open? Will it give you Supremacy? The inconsistent varying nature and quantity of space/number of tactical objectives favours mobility as well. The 40k version of shooting the moon is the sudden death victory. Each VP requires to some varying degree to take some of the heat off the enemy to and focus on a goal other than removing opponent's models. If you ignore all that, you can catch a opponent off guard who took the heat off you to focus on Objectives, wipe him to the man, and the objectives were for nothing. Sudden death is harder to score in Maelstrom due to the spread out nature of the battle leaving units out of range or behind BLOS/cover. Going first has the most advantage here, you can deploy toward neutral objectives aggressively and you get to counter your opponent's deployment. This is also the game type that rewards improvisation the most and has less emphasis on army lists and game planning. Comebacks happen the most often here.

Eternal War has the fewest objectives. It favours units that work in synergy together and have a high damage output. (Deathstars, superfriends, alpha strike.) Speed is de emphasised slightly in favour of cohesion. (Less need to jump all over the board for objectives.) Cohesion being where two units together being better than two acting independently. This includes force multipliers and defensive saves for example. At it's core it's basically a balancing act. The fewest amount of objective markers that only score at the end of the game favours the players with the highest damage output. This will tip the game in their favour by crippling an opponent or by clearing one of the extremely few objectives. Bonus and secondary objectives have more importance. These tend along First Blood, Kill Points, Kingslayer etc. Which also favour higher damage output. This one favours game planning the most, and the game can be decided by the time you've decided which parts of your force are going after which objective. In Maelstrom you can score enough vps to justify higher causualties in doing so. In EW, vps are scarcer and denial and wiping units/ICs is a better strategy for outpacing the opponent. Going second carries the biggest advantage in this game type, you will have the last moves and chances to clear out enemies before scoring the lonely end game objective vps. Comebacks are the toughest here. Sudden death is on, and the fewer objectives mean less spread out, more concentrated forces, less need to focus anywhere but the opponent. Game planning what to do over the course vs your specific opponent has more value than improvisation or the bare army list. Sudden deaths are most common here, it might be the best strategy for the player with the first turn. What combination of units can most effectively take out the opponents combinations? Oops, you lost the moment you sent unit B after opposing unit D at Object 3 in turn 2, now it's a slow death for the last 2-3 turns.

ITC plays as a combination of the two. More objectives than EW, less than MS. Bonus and secondary missions have more importance than MS and less than EW. It favours more resilient elite units with reliable stopping power due the fact you score objectives at the beginning of your next turn. (You can never score on turn 1 technically.) This means your unit has to survive an enemy turn on the objective to score, no last second stealing. The stopping power is required to deny your opponent points and score secondary objectives. There's less variation in the objectives and allows more extensive game planning. As a result it favours min/max'd style army lists. The more static nature of the tactical objectives and their tight point cap make a comeback more difficult, so going first has more importance. It can give you a greater tactical advantage to deploy counter to your opponent and go first. They offer more balanced objectives, such as first strike which is basically both players can score first blood on their first turns and so on. It also has a matchmaking and ranking component for tournament play which basically ranks you by wins, then objectives scored. The exact point values reward objective capturing lists over objective denying lists. (Tough over killy) ITC does not have sudden death. If you score enough objectives that your opponent can't mathematically come back you win. For the record, those caps are: Max three per turn, Max 11 per game. 2 Maelstrom objectives, 1 bonus per turn. In addition, LOW's, Strength D's, and msu fast attack choices (*coughcoughbikes*) are penalized. A competitive list is the most important part here, you've already got the %'s for certain in game scenarios line up and you're there to watch the dominoes fall. Most games could pretty much be decided just by looking at the lists with the rare sigh from lady luck. Who has the most counters to the other? Both lists are probably min/max'd so these counters are amplified in effect.

Deployment & First turn

MS and EW play deploy first go first. There is benefit to setting up with your opponent already deployed and having a full turn to counter his deployment, which is amplified by ITC's deploy then roll off to go first style. Puts greater emphasis on thoughtful, conservative deployment.

Deployment Area

Furthermore, Deployment types usually favour different lists too. Dawn of War is longer and narrower so it favours speed and mid range fire power. Hammer and Anvil is shorter and wider, favouring a spread MSU list with a resilient center or a fast flank attack for LOS/Range denial. It's more forgiving to assault units. (Even if the core rules aren't.) Vanguard has the longest length from the back of both deployments, but the smallest flanks by surface area. It favours long range units or resilient elite units.

Conclusion

It's easier to design a list for ITC rules than a list that could randomly play MS or EW due to their extreme differences in spacing, objective #s, and scoring frequency. Two widely different parameters would seem to have favour lists that lent themselves better to the specific mission between themselves and at least between them and the ITC for the nerfed apocalypse creep like LOWs and Strength D. Such things surely promote offensive as a best defense type situation in MS/EW where the only way to surviveis to knock it out whereas it's not quite as deadly in ITC, promoting a more conservative approach? One of the key differences is that the act of destroying a Wraithknight in ITC is worth a bonus vp for every 3 wounds, reaching the cap of one bonus points per turn for two turns, whereas in MS/EW destroying it actively detracts from your ability to score vps. The uncapped vs capped nature of MS vs ITC would also seem to promote a high wound output potential. Whichever list is playing out of their scenario specialization would be at a disadvantage to a list that is within theirs. This is especially true wrt MS/EW lists which will feature less specialized, more adaptable designs to handle two drastically different kinds of variety, while ITC would feature heavier specialization and low variance units due to the capped VPs, the conservative approach to vp collection, and more predictable "neutral" objectives overall?

I don't claim any scenario is inherently superior. Each favours a unique aspect of the game from list optimization, flexibility, or synergy. These are valued in every scenario, but I believe some more than others.

I don't taylor my lists for the scenario at all, more for the army I'm up against. Then again, I play Dark Eldar where our high speed and maneuverability along with the MSU nature of the army tends to favoure Maelstrom anyway, but when played well they can survive long enough to score the objectives in Endless War. Never played ITC.

I generally build a list based on a core concept without regard to mission. If I tailor for an event, it will be to shore up my defenses against the biggest threats to my list.

If I know ahead of time what the missions are, I might give some thought to how to use my army within that context.

I build around whatever tournament format I'm preparing for, which right now is the NOVA open. NOVA has very nice missions and I would recommend checking them out.

I too build around NOVA open missions. They allow for a good mix of objectives and kill points without the randomness of maelstrom.