Dawn of War deployment thoughts

Having played and witnessed a number of dawn of war missions lately I have learned a number of things.

1.  Going first is bad if you try to claim objectives in the middle of the table.  While it does allow you to camp on the half way line with your two units and HQ ready for assault, it means when the enemy army comes on in their turn one, their entire army will likely destroy your forward part reasonably easily which puts you at a disadvantage for the rest of the game.

2.  Therefore I suggest if you go first you either deploy in the backfield, or reserve everything.  Don't feel obliged to deploy anything.  Certainly don't deploy for the sake of deploying things.  Giving up possession of objectives can cause your opponent to make the mistake covered in point 1, which is likely to help you win the game.

3.  If Dawn of War is annihilation it could be an advantage to deploy troops if they are both long ranged and survivable.  Otherwise, you are probably better off keeping in reserve and bringing everyone on together.  Remember the key is to destroy enemy units, so you want to deploy as many threats as you can to both split enemy fire and concentrate your own.

Some exceptions apply to these general rules  Deploying a single Imperial Guard platoon can allow you to field virtually an entire army and is unwieldy to bring on.  In this case you can gain all kinds of advantages by camping the middle of the table with a huge amount of models and heavy weapons.