Here's a silly question about cutworm prevention

[Woodenzoo]

I've got most of my tomatoes potted up and some already getting acclimated to outdoors.
My concern is cutworms. Last year, I had 1 Anna Russian that they kept going after repeatedly. This was while all the plants were still in their little cups and first placed in a shady area of the yard and moved once to more sun to their final place in the garden. (The AR was attacked 3 times in the various spots. It kept coming back and grew to be a nice sized plant, but production was very low. I figured that was in part to what a late start it got after getting cut down 3 times!)
Anyway for my question...
I'm wondering if I keep the containers on my concrete patio or on the walkway, would that help to cut down on the attacks while they are in the cups?
I'm very tempted to use perethrin from the get-go as a preventive...
I've got one seedling each of several varieties and would hate to lose those. (And yes, I know about sticking a nail or something next to the stem, but there's the chance that something else did the damage as I had some of the plants that just had the leaves cut off instead of at the stem.)
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Cathy