Star Tale: Ground Wars

First is about Gunline army lists. A Gunline army is predictably an army designed to do a lot of long and medium range shooting, rather than get into close range firefights or melee combat. Here we are talking about the overall game plan, the concept behind the army. A player using this strategy is trying to position their units in a way that lets them maximise the firing arcs and take advantage of the long range of the weapons to do enough damage to the enemy before the opponent can get into close combat. And they will be trying to setup in ways that exploit the terrain to funnel and slow the enemy advance. While this strategy doesnt require lots of the fastest transports and most of the army wont travel across the whole map as much as some other styles, it still requires skillful movement and usage of squads.

You have to get them into good positions initially.
You might choose to place some squads out in front to bait the enemy forward or to screen your more valuable units.
You have to move squads to react to what the opponent does.
You may prepare some units at a location to deal with flanks or to plug gaps.
You might use a few cheap fast units to tie up enemy squads or to try and grab uncontested objectives.
And you might want to retreat the frontline back as the enemy closes and catch them in a crossfire etc.
Theres a lot of movement and skill involved but some people may at first label this camping so Im including it in the discussion.

There is nothing stopping a player from choosing a Gunline style army and trying to use it. However, depending on what the opponent does, the Gunline user will probably need to move up the map at some point with atleast some units, if not most of the army if they want to actually win the match. The other player will have had the opportunity to get into better positions around the halfway line of the map etc, and as the Gunline moves forward this opens opportunities for the other player to launch attacks at the now exposed rear aswell.

If the Gunline player doesnt move up the map much at all, they risk not having enough space to manoeuvre and might get surrounded but more realistically they might just lose the game by not securing enough objectives out on the map.

Proper skillful usage of a Gunline army list will still be a viable choice though and thats a good thing. The idea is that while yes this style of "camping" is possible, it is not the only viable playstyle. Other styles have methods to close the gap and engage the enemy. It comes down to execution, knowledge and skill of the players to decide the outcome of the game.

The overall game time clock and the victory conditions requiring players to capture objectives out on the map and things like this will eventually force a player to move forward if they want a chance at winning the match. But one of the most important factors affecting whether you will want to move forward or retreat is the direct interaction between the two armies. A Gunline user (even if they are playing very conservatively) can be broken by a skillful attacking player. Its not like you have to wait for them to come to you! See part 2 below...

The second topic is about camping with just a portion of the army to hold a small area of the map.
If a player invests a decent number of points into buying strong defensive units and kits them out in a skillful way, and then manages to deliver them to a strong defensive position somewhere on the map then they are playing this aspect of the game well. The units are able to perform more cost efficiently now that they are set up in their optimal way. But the opposing player does have tools available to try and dislodge the defending units if they want to.

Here are some options:
-Bombard them with artillery.
-Shoot them with sniper weapons from range.
-Cast area of effect spells to damage or debuff them.
-Weapons such as flame throwers might be very effective in these conditions.
-Use equipment to support your advance to take the position.
-Attack on multiple fronts with fast moving light cavalry type units.
-Airstrike.
-Air assault.
-Other more exotic methods of assault.
-Overwhelm with a horde of cheap units.
-Potentially exploit a weakness of the defenders if they arent prepared against a certain tech unit.
-Go head to head and use your own elite units to smash the position in a direct firefight or close combat,
and attempt to just outplay the opponent with superior micromanagement.

Or you can approach the problem sideways using tactics such as:
-Intercept the transports before they arrive at the destination.
-Beat them to the destination using faster transports.
-Choose to sacrifice a greater points worth amount of your own units because you decide that dislodging the enemy from that position (even with an inefficient trade) outweighs the loss of units. Or conversely..
-Let them over invest in taking that area, and instead secure more objectives elsewhere on the map.
-Contain their units into that small area with cheaper units of your own that are good at engaging if the defenders try to leave the area.