Asteroid placements, like squad builds, should never be left to chance. You get to shape the battlefield in your favour so you might as well take advantage of it. There's no hard and fast rule when it comes to asteroid placements, well, at least I don't know any. But here's some tips to get you thinking:
Always take the largest rock. The player with the initiative will have advantage. Even if you don't know what to do with it, just take it. Who knows. You might have just ruin your opponent's asteroid placement strategy.
Open up a corner of the map by placing the rock at range 2 from one of the edges. This has several advantage. First, you can place your ships at said corner and do a 4 or 5-forward and no longer have to worry about it. Second, your opponent can no longer mess up that corner and gives you a spot to place your squad.
In fact, place all the rocks on all four corners if you want an open field. This can be a good strategy for Swarms or even squad list that favours jousting.
Create attack lanes. I used to fly a 4X list and split them into duos. Asteroids are placed to create a crossroad. One pair will fly head on while the other pair flanks, catching the enemy squad in the middle of the crossroad. This was my favourite strategy in Wave 1. Poor Justin was at the receiving end most of the time and almost stopped playing because of it *
Pack the asteroid closer if the opponent is playing big ships. Lure the fight close to asteroids. Big ships are clumsy and have a hard time moving through asteroid fields. Bounty Hunters, especially, since they need to maintain firing arc too.
Same strategy applies when playing against a Swarm. Its not easy keeping 6-7 ships in perfect formation. Use that to your advantage.
Mess up one side of the board with impossible asteroid placements. And place your squad on the other side. This works well if you have initiative and a list that excels in jousting. **
Split the board down right the middle with asteroid. Fly your ships slowly and make the opponent come to you. Chances are he'll need to break formation or some of his ships are out of range or not in arc.
Force your opponents to hit asteroids. Easier to pull off on big ships. If you see a big ship flying close to an asteroid and you suspect its going fly around it, park an Academy Pilot there first to force a bump and watch your opponent's face twist in extreme annoyance as his poor Falcon lands on the asteroid.
Emerge behind an asteroid guns blazing in a joust. The next turn when both of you K-turn, he needs to worry about hitting the asteroid, not you.
* Thankfully he didn't. He's now arguably the best player in the local X-Wing scene.
** I discovered this recently by accident. I tried it a couple of times but ended up losing most of my matches, so use this at your own risk.
Definitely arguable
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