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Title says it

Objectives are key in those games that last long enough without either side being tabled. If you're playing Eternal War that's one thing, in Maelstrom even more so. I haven't really been able to work out a strategy for how to place objective markers though. As you never know where you're going to be deploying, a somewhat symmetrical setup seems to be the best bet. As a natural cover-hugger, I like to place markers in things like ruins, craters or woods. I tend to look for ways to have markers in good fighting positions across the table so regardless of where I must deploy, I'll have a marker or two I can sit on and defend.

The down side being, of course, that my opponent can do the same and then I need to shift him off the markers.

I've noticed more aggressive opponents preferring to plonk markers down centrally, betting that they can win the fight for the mid field and claim those.

What are your ideas?

Depends on so many variables... your army, their army, the terrain etc. Also, massively, the rolloff to see who deploys 1st objective

So when I am playing AdMech (a slow, fairly static gunline type army) I desperately want to lost the first rolloff. I will then get to place the final objective so I will try and weight the objectives to one area of the board, knowing I get to pick deployment zone.

Obviously you need to think through the various maps... no point sticking your objectives along one end and then rolling Dawn of War.

You should be able to start with 3 objectives in your deployment zone though.

If you win the rolloff, you're in trouble as they will get to pick so the best you can do is try to place objectives in no-mans land... to make sure that your opponent doesn't get to start camping them.


Now, if I am playing a short range marines army with vehicles and assault marines and drop pods and stormravens... I will often try to have the objectives stacked at their end - my army only works if I come and get you... the danger is having objectives I need to capture in my backfield and in their backfield, forcing my army to be pulled in two directions.


The other factor is their army. If they are, say, Necrons.. then they are going to be camping their own objectives and very hard to shift off them. If they are playing Dark Eldar, they will be easier to blast off objectives but will have the ability to zip around the board to capture them.


There aren't really any "press X to win" buttons. Maybe you could socially engineer your opponent to get them to CP reroll the inital rolloff if you won it???

I think it is similar to the general rules for expansion placement in Broodwar.

If you are the faster army then you place all the objectives far apart, whilst the slower you place them as close together as you can.

Similarly, if you are advancing toward the enemy then place them towards your enemy and if you are playing gunline place them as far away as you can get them.

Which are all quite general. I do like having an objective far back with some grots camping on it whilst the rest of the boys go forward. That gives the enemy a choice to waste a whole unit of terminators taking it which will then never make it to battle, or leave it uncontested.

Yeah I guess it's too situational to really develop a strategy for. I like the idea of placing some far-off objectives if you know you have the fast movers or disposable units to commit to them!

Recently played a maelstrom tournament where the organizers told us the type of deployment map before the rolloff for objective placement, so in that situation I had good luck with:

(1) clustering objectives as close as possible together in what I was going to choose as my deployment zone when I got to choose or

(2) spreading objectives out as far as possible from all likely deployment zones when I knew my opponent would choose.

But that was situational to knowing the type of map before the rolloff.

The first objective I place is always towards the center. I prefer games where both players have to move. Then I place them where the setting seems appropriate. A bridge. A ruin. Some fancy looking doodad.

I usually try not to place too many objectives in cover though. My playstyle has never been about camping.

I wish I was better at it but I wish I was better at pretty much everything.
I tend to plant objectives to bait my opponent's models into areas where I can hurt them more and suffer less casualties, sitting at the corner of LoS blocking buildings if I want to get them into melee with my Wulfen, in the centre of the board to force Guard to leave or move their gunlines in order to score points, in areas where they had to enter my Dread's twin Lascanon and Missile Launcher's line of sight in order to grab them - there are of course matches where my placement seems to bear absolutely no bearing on anything.
Played Chaos Daemons last weekend and I couldn't for the life of me think of placement that would matter a spit because the damned things could move nearly half the board in a single turn and no matter where I placed he just had to put his own objective marker between them and he had easy access to at least three of them.

Well before you place an objective you know the mission. So you know how many objectives, victory conditions, terrain setup, and in some missions (I didn't check them all) the player who places the last objective decides deployment map and zone which is very useful.

So after you consider the mission, consider your army and your opponents army. I try to maximize my advantage and minimize my opponents, not always easy LOL. There are a lot of ways that can play out on the table.

I recently played an ork horde with my Night Lords in a Maelstrom game. So I intentionally put objectives in his back field to force him to keep some units back, so in the end the placement of the objectives were weighted towards his board edge. It held him back a bit, trying to score points and gave me a bit of extra time to whittle his numbers down just enough so that when I made my move towards the center I wouldn't be completely swamped. Got 15v14 in that game, ending on turn 5.

One thing I usually do is keep objectives out in the open. I guess I just think that if I need to shift my opponent off an objective I'd rather not have to deal with them getting a cover save or being protected by LOS blocking features.

What army(s) do you play General Helstrom? We might be more focused in our suggestions if we knew your force and what you face in battle.

SpookyRuben wrote:
What army(s) do you play General Helstrom? We might be more focused in our suggestions if we knew your force and what you face in battle.

I play Imperial Fists so I don't mind the enemy getting some cover My army is split roughly in half between a firebase with troops and a deep-striking attack element of various flavors of veterans and/or terminators. I like to camp my firebase on an objective or two and then use the deep strikers to demolish the enemy attack.

Personally I always have trouble deciding whether I want to place them s strategically as possible or place them in such a way that we have a fun game with lots of fighting. I personally have a playstyle of getting in my opponents face so placing my objectives closer to them might be a good idea. One of the funniest games I've played involved an objective worth 4 VP (don't know which mission type it was) deep in my enemies deployment zone that was heavily guarded. Until Typhus and my DP arrived and blew everything up and drove the rest of my opponents' AdMech army away allowing Typhus to claim the objective in the end and secruing a win