I used to be able to create a single dmg file of a Mac disk drive (contains all partitions including recovery partition) and then deploy it to another Mac as per these instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202841. However this no longer works with High Sierra or I'm not sure how to get it to work with High Sierra.
Does anyone know how to get this to work or is there another method for Apple File System (APFS)?