An other solution (if possible) would be to use TomEE instead of Tomcat, which has a working maven plugin:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.tomee.maven</groupId>
<artifactId>tomee-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>7.1.1</version>
</plugin>
Version 7.1.1 wraps a Tomcat 8.5.41