Quote Originally Posted by Zincorium View Post
Alright, I've made the dive and purchased a small army.

This has led to the odd coindidence of several of my co-workers on the ship noticing my figurines and deciding to get into the game once we pull back into port. Two of them are going to get basic sets, for the Tau and Tyranid armies, and probably not much more. I'm considering getting the Assault on Black Reach set for variety and to allow others to play.

The thing I'm wrestling with right now is this: as the only person purchasing a set piecemeal, how much stuff should I get in order to match the starting kits for the other guys? And is two-on-one play remotely feasible, with the lone player having a larger army?
Depends on the set. If we're talking about the 90 US$ battalion sets, then the Tau are the only ones I'm aware of that have the mandatory 1 HQ and 2 Troop selections (this info is in the codex, which you're going to need for each army). That's generally where you should start when building an army. For much else you're going to need to know about how many points each army is. Usually 750 makes for a good short game.

In my experience a 3 player game really only works as a 2 on 1. In a 1v1v1 what almost always happens is two players gang up on the other and then duke it out among themselves. Doesn't make for a very good game.