[TrumpCard]

Pentagon finally gave a timeline for the first to NASAMS, they say they will be delivered within 2 months.  I'm guessing it'll be a little bit till the next 6 arrive though.

Is Ukraine likely to use these primarily to defend population centers or should we expect to see them deployed nearer to the line of contact, maybe in places like Kupyansk or Sloviansk to help defend strategic positions and/or to give cover for troop advances?

Very good question! I have recently spent quite a lot of CPU time looking at the NASAMS as a missile defense for a city. The bottom line is that in a stand-alone mode an NASAMS can defend a circle of radius 24 (+/-) km from low flying cruise missiles. It can also defend a similar area against aircraft flying nap-of-the-earth. As aircraft fly higher the radius expands to about 70 km.
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So, if you want to defend a city, it better be a small one. The good news is that the Ukrainian cities are mostly physically small. You aren't going to cover all the outlying villages however. 
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I appreciate the explanation.  I didn't understand some of the details or why they are material, but I think I'm excerpting what I think is the essence. 

A range of 24 km means that you can have a NASAMS battery in the middle of a geographic area covering a total of ~800 sq miles, which is nothing like LA County (4k+ sq mi).  As you correctly noted, however, it's sufficient to cover the major Ukrainian cities (even if the outlying suburbs still might be exposed).  If Ukraine gets 8 NASAM batteries in the near future, that means it could cover Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, and Mykolaiv.  The smallest of those is ~500k people.  Those all seem like target rich environments that , in addition to people, have major infrastructure, military bases, and other sites that Russia is attacking.  I'm no military planner, but it seems like a no brainer to protect those cities with the first 8 batteries.  Some of them -- like Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Mykolaiv can do double duty because they're also somewhat close to the front lines.  Maybe advance the one in Mykolaiv to Kherson if Ukraine is able to retake the latter because Mykolaiv would still benefit somewhat from the circle of protection provided by a couple of nearby batteries.  But I would not put major population centers for ~500k+ people at higher risk in order to get better air defenses for troop locations that are near towns of 25k people.  Take with a grain of salt or two.

Edit: I want to note that I asked the question originally because I didn't know whether having NASAMS aligned with troop locations would be decisive in the war. If your response had been stronger on the value of NASAMS to the ability of troops to retake large swaths of territory, then my conclusion might well have been different. It seemed to me, however, that you were at least as unsure about the value of NASAMS on the front lines as you are in defensive positions, which explains my sudden decisiveness on the relative merits.

[TrumpCard]

Pentagon finally gave a timeline for the first to NASAMS, they say they will be delivered within 2 months.  I'm guessing it'll be a little bit till the next 6 arrive though.

Is Ukraine likely to use these primarily to defend population centers or should we expect to see them deployed nearer to the line of contact, maybe in places like Kupyansk or Sloviansk to help defend strategic positions and/or to give cover for troop advances?

Very good question! I have recently spent quite a lot of CPU time looking at the NASAMS as a missile defense for a city. The bottom line is that in a stand-alone mode an NASAMS can defend a circle of radius 24 (+/-) km from low flying cruise missiles. It can also defend a similar area against aircraft flying nap-of-the-earth. As aircraft fly higher the radius expands to about 70 km.
. . . 

So, if you want to defend a city, it better be a small one. The good news is that the Ukrainian cities are mostly physically small. You aren't going to cover all the outlying villages however. 
. . . 

I appreciate the explanation.  I didn't understand some of the details or why they are material, but I think I'm excerpting what I think is the essence. 

A range of 24 km means that you can have a NASAMS battery in the middle of a geographic area covering a total of ~800 sq miles, which is nothing like LA County (4k+ sq mi).  As you correctly noted, however, it's sufficient to cover the major Ukrainian cities (even if the outlying suburbs still might be exposed).  If Ukraine gets 8 NASAM batteries in the near future, that means it could cover Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Kryvyi Rih, and Mykolaiv.  The smallest of those is ~500k people.  Those all seem like target rich environments that , in addition to people, have major infrastructure, military bases, and other sites that Russia is attacking.  I'm no military planner, but it seems like a no brainer to protect those cities with the first 8 batteries.  Some of them -- like Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Mykolaiv can do double duty because they're also somewhat close to the front lines.  Maybe advance the one in Mykolaiv to Kherson if Ukraine is able to retake the latter because Mykolaiv would still benefit somewhat from the circle of protection provided by a couple of nearby batteries.  But I would not put major population centers for ~500k+ people at higher risk in order to get better air defenses for troop locations that are near towns of 25k people.  Take with a grain of salt or two.

Edit: I want to note that I asked the question originally because I didn't know whether having NASAMS aligned with troop locations would be decisive in the war. If your response had been stronger on the value of NASAMS to the ability of troops to retake large swaths of territory, then my conclusion might well have been different. It seemed to me, however, that you were at least as unsure about the value of NASAMS on the front lines as you are in defensive positions, which explains my sudden decisiveness on the relative merits.