Please note: This article was written for the first edition of Warhammer Underworlds and as such some information may not be applicable to Embergard/Second Edition. The new Contender Series for Second Edition can be found here!

This article is a part of the Contender Series, the goal of which is to encourage players to begin participating in Organized Play events, attending tournaments and Grand Clashes, and overall up their competitive game to improve as players and ultimately win more often. While I am not personally some competitive ace taking home glass every weekend, I do have advice to help get newer players off the ground and set you on the path to success, and also can point you to better players than myself where you can get more focused advice when you’re at that stage. I will attempt to keep this article series ‘timeless’, so while I’ll reference specific warbands, cards, and mechanics occasionally, I want it to be relevant for years and so will try to refrain from focusing too much on today’s current competition climate. With those things said, let’s dive into this article’s main topic: Placing your Objective tokens.

Check out the rest of the Contender Series for more competitive pointers:
Warband Choice
Deckbuilding Overview
Deckbuilding: Objective Cards
Deckbuilding: Gambits
Deckbuilding: Upgrades
Board Choice and Placement
Objective Placement
Mulligan
Fighter Placement
So you won the roll-off, do you choose to go first or go second?
Practice

Check out other tournament related articles:
Participating in your First Tournament
How to Run a Local Tournament
Counterplay series: how to prevent your opponent from scoring

As with the last entry in this series around Board Placement, I will be extensively referencing The Monkey’s Hex, a wonderful Italian blog that is the place to go for understanding these concepts. The Positioning Series will teach you a lot of things that will improve your starting chances, with great board images and some geometry lessons that you can only get from a player as smart as Flavio. Give them a look, or wait for me to link to specific articles below!

Overview

Believe it or not, Objective Token placement is where a lot of games are won and lost. I learned years (unfortunately) into my Underworlds journey that getting this part wrong makes it very difficult to win the game depending on your opponent and their gameplan. Don’t just think about where you want your objectives to go to meet your goals, but you also need to focus on how to ‘zone out’ your opponent and interfere with what they want to do. They may want an objective in no-one’s territory, or just over the line in your territory, or held back near the far edge of their territory where it’s ‘safe’ from your attacks. This will take some familiarity with the opposing warband and what objective cards you expect them to have taken, but you have the incredibly powerful ability to disrupt their preferred placement with your own. They can’t place an objective within 2 hexes of one that you’ve put down, so try to place yours somewhere that meets your needs but also prevents them from getting an optimal spot.

It is VERY important to note that you do not need to place objectives in your own territory, and often the better play is to put one in your opponent’s territory instead to block them out from getting to do what they want, maybe even limiting them to only 2 on their own side depending on where they placed a prior objective. Many new players make the forgivable mistake of thinking ‘these are my objectives, so they’ll go on my side’, especially if they’re playing a hold objective gameplan.

The most important thing you’ll need to know for the objective placement part of the game is how many objectives you want in each territory. You’ve worked on your deck and know whether you’re interested in standing on objectives, and where you need them to be. Does your deck want you to hold three objectives? You probably want them on your side. Do you need to hold one in no-one’s territory, enemy territory, or not in your territory? Make sure you have one in reach for you. You’ll also want to make a guess at your opponent’s plan, and try to figure out what they’re trying to do and work to prevent it. Even if your deck has no mention of feature tokens whatsoever, don’t make the mistake of saying ‘well I don’t care since I don’t need to hold them’. Your opponent still might! Placing the tokens in a way that makes their scoring more difficult is still the play to make even if you’re just going to perform wild charges regardless of positioning.

There are three general board configurations as discussed previously: Square, Offset, and Longboard. Depending on who oriented the boards, you will either be placing first (and have three tokens to place) or second (and have two to place). This means there will be six total situations you can find yourself in – and this is ignoring variations in boards such as blocked hexes, lethal hexes, stagger and cover, starting hex positions, etc. Those will all come into play in various ways so we will look at the general concept of those feature hexes here, then dive into considerations for each of the six scenarios.

Relative to Starting Hexes

Depending on the distribution of the seven starting hexes on each board, (and hazard hexes), you may have a limited number of available spaces to place a token. When considering board choices for yourself you’ll want to keep this in mind so as not to restrict your options. When I am placing objectives on my side, I want them to be near (hopefully adjacent to) a starting hex so that I can possibly use a push to get onto them without spending an activation. What you want to avoid if possible is an objective placed ‘in front’ of a near-midboard starting hex when possible – I try to make it hard for my opponent to charge at one of my fighters and be able to stand on an objective at the same time. The opposite is true when placing on my opponent’s side – I want them harder to push onto, and I like one ‘in front’ of their near starting spots so I can charge onto it while hitting their fighter in activation 1.

Relative to Lethal or Stagger Hexes

These hazards use something of the opposite approach to Starting Hexes – you want them ‘behind’ your enemy so you can push them into them, and ‘in front’ of yourself so that you won’t get pushed in as easily. Alternatively, don’t put objectives you plan to stand on near lethal hexes or stagger hexes if you can avoid it, so that you’re at the lowest risk. They do serve as somewhat of a deterrent for range 1 charges though, so depending on your matchup hiding your objectives behind them can be a nice shield or at least a way to punish somebody who comes at you too hot.

Relative to Blocked Hexes

Blocked hexes present a special problem for range 2+ attacks, as you can’t ‘shoot’ along the edge or through them either. Blocked hexes can make a range one fighter go around, and a range2+ fighter come in closer than they’d like, both great things if you think your opponent will invade your territory. Position your objectives in a way that you can ‘hide’ behind a pillar or a wall while occupying them in those scenarios – but know you’ll have a harder time shooting your own attacks while in this position, so it’s a warband specific consideration. You may want to place your opponents’ side objectives near blocked hexes as well, making a longer trek for their fighters to step onto them, and creating more opportunities for their fighters to be ‘trapped’, increasing your attack success odds.

Relative to Cover Hexes

If I’m placing a token on my side, I usually like to avoid being adjacent to Cover hexes, as it gives a relatively safe place for my opponent to charge into and attack my fighter on the token. The last thing you want is for your fighter on the objective to get hit, and then have your opponent’s model with a boost to defense if you try and hit them back. If you have to do this, try to get the cover hex ‘behind’ the objective so it’s harder for your opponent to reach, and gives you the potential to charge into it while displacing their fighter instead. If placing on the opponent’s side the opposite is true – you want a safe place to charge into, and fewer safe places for them to countercharge you from.

The Six Scenarios

As a reminder, there are three general board configurations as discussed previously: Square, Offset, and Longboard, and you can either place first or second.

Placing First in the Square Configuration

If you want three on your side, and are worried about getting hit by aggro, you can use one of these two setups detailed by The Monkey’s Hex depending on the features on your board: the Delta Tactic and the V Tactic.

If you’re playing as ‘the beatdown’ warband, who is interested in invading the other side, a very good opening move is to place an objective on their side of the board, but in a way that ‘zones out’ as much of their good locations as possible. The opponent can’t place within 2 hexes of the token you place, so look for obvious ‘great spots’ and try to put your tokens in a way that forces them to avoid them. If you have a great board chosen by your opponent, you might even be able to make it so that they have only 2 tokens on their side. This is much easier on Offset and longboard orientations where there are more edge hexes blocking things out, but shoot for the stars, man. The other option for the invading player is to place tokens on your side to prevent them from having very many if possible, or placing ones on their side near no-one’s territory so they’re easier for your invading models to reach in round 1.

Placing First in the Offset Configuration

If your opponent oriented you in the offset configuration, it could mean they’re trying to create a chokepoint that’s hard for you to enter their territory through. They will likely be interested in holding their own objectives on their side and hoping that you don’t invade too hard – try to place one near the midboard on their side so that you have something you can reach – you’ll have the added advantage of many edge hexes restraining their placement. Offset is ideal for forcing only 2 on your opponent’s side. You could also consider placing one in no-one’s territory – if they’re looking for 3 objectives they’ll need to come to the front to hold one, limiting the chokepoint efficacy.

There’s the chance they’re trying to limit the amount of no-one’s territory that exists based on your warband or rivals deck pairing, in which case you definitely want your first placed token to be in no-one’s so you can prevent getting zoned out of that space. You might only get one token in no man’s land, but that’s better than zero. Don’t let their orientation of boards cut your scoring opportunities down too heavily!

Placing First in the Longboard Configuration

If you want to hold, or your opponent wants to hold, here’s how to get 3 on your side with the Edge Trap Tactic. Thanks again to The Monkey’s Hex for being a brain genius.

There’s the chance they’re trying to limit the amount of no-one’s territory that exists based on your warband or rivals deck pairing, in which case you definitely want your first placed token to be in no-one’s so you can prevent getting zoned out of that space. You will only be able to get one token in no man’s land since the longboard makes that a two hex territory, but that’s better than zero. Don’t let their orientation of boards cut your scoring opportunities down too heavily!

Some people who longboard are simply doing it to stay away from you. If there’s a chance they want to interact with objective tokens, try to place ones near the back of their board first, as close to you as you can to prevent any of them from being totally ‘safe’. Dead center on row 3 is probably the place to land. If you think they’re aiming for a ‘hold everything in one territory’ you can try to stack their longboard with three objectives to make that harder, but you might not know that at the outset of the game.

Placing Second in the Square Configuration

Presumably, you squared up because you want to rumble. I like your style. If your plan is to invade, do the same stuff you would normally do to disrupt their hold plan as detailed in the blocked-hexes-and-what-have-you sections. If you plan is to do a midboard scrum and you want to hold some tokens while you do so, get one in no-man’s or just over the line so you can score whatever objectives you took.

Placing Second in the Offset Configuration

Flavio has a good view on how to best place objectives when facing an aggro opponent you want to keep away from with the Destroy the Outpost Tactic. You’ll likely have to settle for only 2 on your side, but that’s the price of cowardice.

If you’ve done this to limit the availability of no-one’s territory, make sure to try and zone it out if your opponent doesn’t place their first token there. If you’ve done this because you want more edge hexes for some card or warband ability, try to place objectives near edges so that you can have your opponent likelier to stand/be pushed there.

Placing Second in the Longboard Configuration

If you chose to longboard because you’re trying to keep away from Aggro, you’ll need to accept that you’re unlikely to get three objectives on your side. Try placing one in the back not on the center line, so that you have a better chance of putting one medium-back on the other side.

If you have placed longboard because you’re facing a Hold Objective opponent you want to disrupt, you can try The Monkey’s Hex’s Plant the Flag Tactic.

If you’ve done this to limit the availability of no-one’s territory, make sure to try and zone it out if your opponent doesn’t place their first token there. If you’ve done this because you want more edge hexes for some card or warband ability, try to place objectives near edges so that you can have your opponent likelier to stand/be pushed there.

Wrap

As I have stated before, I’m far from the authority on Objective placement, but I have picked up a few tricks. In general, try to mess with your opponent’s plan, and know that you can put them on either player’s board. Be mindful of feature hexes and hazards on your board, and make sure they’re ones you can accept or take advantage of. Look at starting hexes and make sure you have them in mind when placing Objectives. And go look at The Monkey’s Hex who really knows what they’re talking about. After the Objectives are placed, you’ll move onto drawing cards and deciding on whether or not to Mulligan, which we will look at in the next article. Until then, get out there and spend some glory!